 |
Let's Connect! 
Blog ArchiveA Grand AwardLast weekend I was fortunate enough to attend an amazing conference of Grand Masters, martial artists, and self-defense teachers in Atlantic City. Every year in January, Master Alan Goldberg of Action Martial Arts Magazine puts together what is commonly considered one of the biggest, baddest, get-togethers of martial artists in the country. I’m talking about two full days of seminars by everybody who’s anybody in the business, 60 tables of vendors, six rings of tournaments, and for further entertainment, the screening of the greatest martial arts movies of all time. The icing on the cake, however, is the huge formal banquet and awards ceremony on Saturday evening. I got there Friday morning to check the place out. There were three rooms designated for the seminars; the seminar times staggered, but happening simultaneously. Not all of the vendors were present yet, but I did find Sean Loughry (www.bullet-necklace.com) who makes jewelry from the ammo that our troops use and gives part of the proceeds back to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. Bullet earrings, what's not to like? There were seminars by Masters of just about every martial art you can imagine: taekwondo, aikido, eighteen different variations of karate and kung fu (including Canemaster’s Cane Fu), as well as different self-defense systems that I’ve never heard of. Seminars covered knife fighting and defense, empty hand techniques for the street, Filipino fighting sticks, and katas and forms, just to name a few. Just about everyone attending wore their uniforms and belts, the better to learn and practice with. It’s too bad that each seminar was only 45 minutes - a very short time to learn the gist of the art. One of the last seminars of the day was with a gentleman who trains the military and state department in knife and empty hand combat. His topic of the day, though, was the combat cord. Who knew parachute cord could be so useful? I’ll be practicing the couple of moves I learned - it’s always good to have a weapon that is lightweight, lethal, and still pass through TSA at the airport. The next day I met up with Grand Master and Trina Pellegrini and fellow ICHF (Combat Hapkido) practitioners from Richmond, New Jersey, and North Carolina. I cruised the vendors, attended a couple of more seminars (learning how to direct my chi from an Aikido Master), had lunch, then went back to change for the evening, returning to the hotel to get my hair styled for the banquet (a girl’s gotta look nice, ya know!) And what a banquet it was! Eleven hundred people in what must have been the hotel’s grandest ballroom, with two long rows of Grand Masters and celebrities on the dais. Men in tuxedos and suits, women in long gowns and fancy dresses. A band was playing as I met up with the ICHF gang on the dance floor. Hanging out with Grand Master Pellegrini has it’s perks - I got to meet celebrities such as Cynthia Rothrock (World Karate Champion and martial arts actor), Hank Garrett (of Car 54 and Three Days of the Condor), and Martin Kove (the bad sensei in Karate Kid)! I gotta tell you, I was feeling mighty proud to be in the company of so many accomplished people as I walked up to receive my award. It’s a trophy about the size of an Oscar and it says: Action Martial Arts Magazine Although I didn’t get a chance to say my thank you’s publicly, my heartfelt gratitude goes to all of my teachers in the martial arts and self-defense. Couldn’t have done it without you! |
 |