Status Update and New Dojo

Well it has been a while since I have made a blog entry. I have retired from law enforcement and decided to open up another dojo in Marion, Indiana in conjunction with my father.

We started the construction on the Marion dojo on October 3rd. The building that we are located in was a terrible mess and needed a ton of work, it had sat empty for at least 10 years. when we walked in the door my dad said "This will take us years to get ready", I said three months and we had our first class on January 19th.

walking in the door

Once we got in the building, my father, my son (Curtis) and I put in 10-18 hour days. We usually took a break on Sunday's but not always. We also had help from the students from both Dads Komakai Academy of Karate and my Yushikan dojo, along with my wife Amber, my son's Alec and Nick and my nephew Codie. There was a lot of hard work put into the development of the new dojo.

Since 1994 Dad and I have maintained separate dojo, even though students cross trained and we sat on each others promotion boards over the years and taught in each others dojo from time to time, we were separate and not teaching exactly the same things and Sensei of our own dojos.

We sat down together and hashed out a curriculum and picked the name Okinawan Martial Arts Center for the new dojo (www.okinawanmartialartscenter.org). He had his dojo name since 1977 and I had mine since 1994, so with a new beginning came a new name. We also chose a new logo for the new dojo, separate from the two logo we had previously used. 

After construction

Since we finished the new dojo, we hosted the Central Indiana National Karate Championships and the Keeney Cup and have hosted a seminar with Col. (ret.) Roy J. Hobbs Sensei, with participants as far away as Baltimore. We have combined the two dojo and added several new students to the new dojo. Things are going well and I have been teaching so much, that I have not had time to write much for the blog. I have squeezed in the time to write a dojo training manual and I am working on a second edition of "Entering Through the Gateway of Gojuryu". I am also working on books for Kobudo, Jujutsu/Iaido and another Gojuryu book.

I will try to keep up with the blog and write some new articles for my faithful readers and keep you up to date better on events and happenings. The Yushikan is still here and not going anywhere but I am equally invested in making the new dojo a sucess.

Until next time, train hard and take care.