I really should post more often on this if I'm gonna keep this up and running. I apologize to anyone that regularly checks up on my blog, and promise that I'll contribute more to this. I'll be posting soon about a few things that have been going on, like:
-Ninpo Chuan Fa, and what's happening/not happening with that.
-Aikido, and my recent 3rd Kyu test
-my Maple Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup recipe, because this former professional chef is happy to share a good recipe.
-Horrorfest: a walk through Halloween show in my hometown my friends and I have kept up with to bring some appropriate October festivity to the community
- an anniversary with a pretty lady
- guided sound meditation
- Huna?
- Paramedic adventures.
- and, of course, riding my motorcycle.
Hope everyone out there is enjoying their autumn.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
The next test...
I'll be testing for 3rd Kyu in Aikido next month. With all the time I'd spent going to classes for Ninpo Chuan Fa, I still made time to train at least once a week with Jack for Aikido.
The material keeps coming pretty easy for me, and I'm still enjoying what I'm learning. While it's been a lot to kind of re-learn Ninpo Chuan Fa while learning Aikido, it's been a lot of fun for this martial arts geek.
Hoping to meet with John this week to see what we can do to get our classes going again. This fall we'll look to find a way to sync up our schedules and see what we can go forward with, whether doing a kids class is an option, and possibly a seperate Tai Chi class. I'd especially love to see the Tai Chi class go forward again, as John was especially good at teaching it.
We have lots of leeway with the space at WREN, which has been an excellent place for us to practice and hold class, even while sharing the space with many other groups that take advantage of the space. Also been told that the "rent" for the space has gone down considerably, from 40% to 25% of what John would make teaching there.
Also, we were able to move a metal locker that we can keep our own equipment in with a lock now. I lent it to a friend who wrote/produced/directed a play that's now being shown in the old Church section. After he's done, John and I can use it for whatever we want kept in there.
More good stuff coming...
The material keeps coming pretty easy for me, and I'm still enjoying what I'm learning. While it's been a lot to kind of re-learn Ninpo Chuan Fa while learning Aikido, it's been a lot of fun for this martial arts geek.
Hoping to meet with John this week to see what we can do to get our classes going again. This fall we'll look to find a way to sync up our schedules and see what we can go forward with, whether doing a kids class is an option, and possibly a seperate Tai Chi class. I'd especially love to see the Tai Chi class go forward again, as John was especially good at teaching it.
We have lots of leeway with the space at WREN, which has been an excellent place for us to practice and hold class, even while sharing the space with many other groups that take advantage of the space. Also been told that the "rent" for the space has gone down considerably, from 40% to 25% of what John would make teaching there.
Also, we were able to move a metal locker that we can keep our own equipment in with a lock now. I lent it to a friend who wrote/produced/directed a play that's now being shown in the old Church section. After he's done, John and I can use it for whatever we want kept in there.
More good stuff coming...
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Hybrid
I got my 2003 Pontiac Vibe eight years ago. It had all-wheel-drive and had back seats that folded down to create a flat, plastic surface for some excellent storage if I wanted to carry a bunch of stuff. I was even able to to carry two 5x10 rolled up martial arts mats.
This vehicle transported me back and forth two and half hours away ever week for over a year and a half while I was in Paramedic school, with very few issues
Lately, though, it started to have a few issues, and having paid it off four years ago, I was starting to do the math of how much money I was willing to put into a vehicle I wasn't going to keep another couple years.
So it was time for something new. I wanted to keep that same storage capacity, or something similar to that, with either really good fuel economy or another AWD. Test drove a couple vehicles (always fun), and settled on a 2010 Honda Insight.
The seats fold down flat, has decent cargo space, and it'll get me an average 40-45 mpg overall, strangely enough the same mpg I get on my Honda VTX 1300! So far I'm enjoying the new ride. The true test will be this winter, whether I really miss the AWD or not. If I don't like it this winter, I'll trade it in for something else next year.
My hippy friends are applauding this move, while my anti-hippy friends are spouting off South Park quotes like "Good for yooooouuuuuuuu"!!!... to which I reply "Thaaaaannnnnnks"!
This vehicle transported me back and forth two and half hours away ever week for over a year and a half while I was in Paramedic school, with very few issues
Lately, though, it started to have a few issues, and having paid it off four years ago, I was starting to do the math of how much money I was willing to put into a vehicle I wasn't going to keep another couple years.
So it was time for something new. I wanted to keep that same storage capacity, or something similar to that, with either really good fuel economy or another AWD. Test drove a couple vehicles (always fun), and settled on a 2010 Honda Insight.
The seats fold down flat, has decent cargo space, and it'll get me an average 40-45 mpg overall, strangely enough the same mpg I get on my Honda VTX 1300! So far I'm enjoying the new ride. The true test will be this winter, whether I really miss the AWD or not. If I don't like it this winter, I'll trade it in for something else next year.
My hippy friends are applauding this move, while my anti-hippy friends are spouting off South Park quotes like "Good for yooooouuuuuuuu"!!!... to which I reply "Thaaaaannnnnnks"!
Friday, August 2, 2013
the Future?
A few weeks back we cancelled our classes due to John's schedule. Our classes were on Monday and Wednesdays evenings. John's new job has him working Sundays through Wednesdays, so that schedule is out.
The last week we worked out, it was just myself, Tim and his son Erik. Tim had brought in an old hand written notebook of material from way back, with descriptions of how to do many of our combinations and forms. Since then Tim has scanned the book and emailed it to me. Going to type it up our core group can all have a copy.
I met with the manager of the WREN building where we train, and we can use the space Thurs-Sat for the classes. She had reservations about us using Thursday evenings, but she's over that now, and she's hoping we can start the program again soon.
Now I just have to meet with John and plan out what times we can meet again. He's been busy with the new job, settling in and all, but hopefully we can continue our program again, possibly with a separate Tai Chi class taught by John, and a kids program, headed up by myself, with John's occasional assistance.
Who knows? I'm just hoping we can continue. Training again with John and Tim over the past few months has been an excellent time.
The last week we worked out, it was just myself, Tim and his son Erik. Tim had brought in an old hand written notebook of material from way back, with descriptions of how to do many of our combinations and forms. Since then Tim has scanned the book and emailed it to me. Going to type it up our core group can all have a copy.
I met with the manager of the WREN building where we train, and we can use the space Thurs-Sat for the classes. She had reservations about us using Thursday evenings, but she's over that now, and she's hoping we can start the program again soon.
Now I just have to meet with John and plan out what times we can meet again. He's been busy with the new job, settling in and all, but hopefully we can continue our program again, possibly with a separate Tai Chi class taught by John, and a kids program, headed up by myself, with John's occasional assistance.
Who knows? I'm just hoping we can continue. Training again with John and Tim over the past few months has been an excellent time.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Well, at least that sucked
So our little film crew traveled downstate to the premiere of all the films for the 48 Hour Film Project. We saw a little over 20 films, including ours. Ours was the worst... hands down. My friend, the director didn't think so, however. He thought there were a couple other worse than ours. The ones he picked on weren't the best films, but were ones that I at least enjoyed. Think my buddy is in some deep denial.
He promised he'd have the "director's cut" finished soon. Just watched it today. A lot better, particularly with the audio and use of both cameras. However, being the first person to see it, my friend was disappointed by my laughter at the fight scene between myself and our friend Rina, complete with very cheesy lightning effects. He was hoping I'd be impressed and not find it comical. I honestly felt bad. He'd put a lot into this, and he's taking this stuff pretty hard. He really wants to make it big one day and be an actual Hollywood director. He's going to have to face some facts if that's to happen, and get his ego in check.
Next year, if I'm to join him in another project, I have to approve of the story, or I'm out. My friend, for his part, at least admits that he fucked up royally, and has apologized profusely for this whole process. Lesson learned.
In other news, looks like John has a good chance at a new job, and we'll find out if he gets it this week. The schedule for our classes might have to change, since his job would be an afternoon-evening schedule. Hope he gets the job. It fits his background and has good benefits, which can be hard to come by.
My material is really starting to sink in again. One thing about our system is we're pretty "form heavy". At my level as a 3rd Dan, I have nearly 30 forms, and putting the peaces of the puzzle together has been challenging, but fun.
So the program's time might be up in the air, but we continue on, with one regular student so far. Fingers crossed.
He promised he'd have the "director's cut" finished soon. Just watched it today. A lot better, particularly with the audio and use of both cameras. However, being the first person to see it, my friend was disappointed by my laughter at the fight scene between myself and our friend Rina, complete with very cheesy lightning effects. He was hoping I'd be impressed and not find it comical. I honestly felt bad. He'd put a lot into this, and he's taking this stuff pretty hard. He really wants to make it big one day and be an actual Hollywood director. He's going to have to face some facts if that's to happen, and get his ego in check.
Next year, if I'm to join him in another project, I have to approve of the story, or I'm out. My friend, for his part, at least admits that he fucked up royally, and has apologized profusely for this whole process. Lesson learned.
In other news, looks like John has a good chance at a new job, and we'll find out if he gets it this week. The schedule for our classes might have to change, since his job would be an afternoon-evening schedule. Hope he gets the job. It fits his background and has good benefits, which can be hard to come by.
My material is really starting to sink in again. One thing about our system is we're pretty "form heavy". At my level as a 3rd Dan, I have nearly 30 forms, and putting the peaces of the puzzle together has been challenging, but fun.
So the program's time might be up in the air, but we continue on, with one regular student so far. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
48 hour film project
We were going to close the program down if we didn't get any students by May 27th, then we had two students that night, that have not come back since.
Our Silent Warrior Martial Arts program is slated to continue on into September, but it's kind of pointless to do without students. We're waiting on setting up a time for John to do the Tai Chi program, but since he's not sure what his future employment status is, at least for the summer, we can't do that yet.
I'm thinking we give this another month at the schedule we have. I'm going to do a little more to promote the program, and see where that takes us. Kids program still a possibility.
In other news, yesterday I took part in this year's 48 Hour Film project with our team in Berlin. We'd been tossing around ideas we could use based on what genre we pick out of the hat for the 7 minutes of less film. We ended up getting "Comic Book" movie. Our director had his mind set on a "Sin City" type concept with a plot that was more like the "The Crow", where our friend Rina plays an IT specialist that's just randomly killed, brought back from the dead from some entity, and goes on to kill all the thugs. This led to some frustrating arguments Friday evening while coming up a with a script. First off, this will make the third movie he's made with our friend Rina pretty much just killing everybody. Also, he wanted it to be serious and not "goofy".
I was hoping to have fun with the comic book concept. When some of us protested our director's idea, including Rina, he pouted; then continued to ignore any other ideas thrown at him for another concept/script to the "comic book" genre we had to do. What pissed me off the most was that this wannabe "Crow" film was never brought up before in all the conversations we'd had over the past year, and this was also the first I've heard not wanting to do anything funny.
The next day we filmed, me as one of the big bad guys. I made up the choreography for the short fight scenes. To Rina's credit, she took direction on this stuff well for someone not trained in martial arts beyond some kickboxing classes. Also, she's a tiny 4'9 athletic blond, and compared to my stocky 5'10, 260 lbs frame, we had to try and make it look vaguely realistic for her to defend herself against me.
We were supposed to have a big fight at the end, and Rina and I came up with a pretty cool brawling fight scene. Unfortunately, due to time and our director's stubbornness, we had to cut our fight scene short and with a pretty pathetic ending to it.
So I got to look all big and bad in a short film, while claiming credit as Fight Coordinator. This wasn't nearly as much fun as last year though, which is a shame. While I'm a big fan of the "The Crow", I really think we made a lackluster and unoriginal movie. Unless the special effects they add in look really really good, I think we'll end up just being seen as another unoriginal movie in the competition.
Worst part is, I'm really not sure if I want to be involved in any of my friends film projects again. This was supposed to be a collaborative effort, not something to placate his ego.
Don't mind me folks, just a little frustrated at the moment. To not leave this blog on a sour note: I'm still thoroughly happy right now training again with John, work is going well and I've got a super awesome woman in my life.
Our Silent Warrior Martial Arts program is slated to continue on into September, but it's kind of pointless to do without students. We're waiting on setting up a time for John to do the Tai Chi program, but since he's not sure what his future employment status is, at least for the summer, we can't do that yet.
I'm thinking we give this another month at the schedule we have. I'm going to do a little more to promote the program, and see where that takes us. Kids program still a possibility.
In other news, yesterday I took part in this year's 48 Hour Film project with our team in Berlin. We'd been tossing around ideas we could use based on what genre we pick out of the hat for the 7 minutes of less film. We ended up getting "Comic Book" movie. Our director had his mind set on a "Sin City" type concept with a plot that was more like the "The Crow", where our friend Rina plays an IT specialist that's just randomly killed, brought back from the dead from some entity, and goes on to kill all the thugs. This led to some frustrating arguments Friday evening while coming up a with a script. First off, this will make the third movie he's made with our friend Rina pretty much just killing everybody. Also, he wanted it to be serious and not "goofy".
I was hoping to have fun with the comic book concept. When some of us protested our director's idea, including Rina, he pouted; then continued to ignore any other ideas thrown at him for another concept/script to the "comic book" genre we had to do. What pissed me off the most was that this wannabe "Crow" film was never brought up before in all the conversations we'd had over the past year, and this was also the first I've heard not wanting to do anything funny.
The next day we filmed, me as one of the big bad guys. I made up the choreography for the short fight scenes. To Rina's credit, she took direction on this stuff well for someone not trained in martial arts beyond some kickboxing classes. Also, she's a tiny 4'9 athletic blond, and compared to my stocky 5'10, 260 lbs frame, we had to try and make it look vaguely realistic for her to defend herself against me.
We were supposed to have a big fight at the end, and Rina and I came up with a pretty cool brawling fight scene. Unfortunately, due to time and our director's stubbornness, we had to cut our fight scene short and with a pretty pathetic ending to it.
So I got to look all big and bad in a short film, while claiming credit as Fight Coordinator. This wasn't nearly as much fun as last year though, which is a shame. While I'm a big fan of the "The Crow", I really think we made a lackluster and unoriginal movie. Unless the special effects they add in look really really good, I think we'll end up just being seen as another unoriginal movie in the competition.
Worst part is, I'm really not sure if I want to be involved in any of my friends film projects again. This was supposed to be a collaborative effort, not something to placate his ego.
Don't mind me folks, just a little frustrated at the moment. To not leave this blog on a sour note: I'm still thoroughly happy right now training again with John, work is going well and I've got a super awesome woman in my life.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Onward
By the way, had a great time in Cabo San Lucas at my cousin's wedding. Enjoyed spending time with my family and my cousin's friends. Good times had by all. And there were no sober nights... none... and I've finally recovered :)
So we have a couple new students, on what would have been the last day of class. One of them a former student, another a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu that works at our new federal prison. Both open minded and looking forward to training with us.
So we're going to keep going with the class, and hopefully more will join us. John is also going to teach a separate Tai Chi class, like he's done in the past. Took some convincing, but I think there's a better market for it at WREN, that could bring in more adults to the Ninpo Chuan Fa program.
Last night, an old buddy of mine and his wife inquired about me teaching their 5 year old son. I told them I'd get back to them. An old close friend asking is the straw that's breaking this camel's back. I'm going to talk to John about us starting a kids program, possibly starting next month or in September. I've gotten nearly a dozen requests from parents looking to enroll their kids in our program, and all of them not very excited about enrolling their kids in the other martial arts school in town. I don't know exactly how, but they're really not generating a good reputation for themselves.
I'm going to talk to John about heading up the class on my own, about an hour and a half prior to our adult program on Mondays and Wednesdays, with him assisting with testing and dropping in to show his presence occasionally.
With all that said, wishing good vibes to all of you out there in the world.
Peace and Balance
Sensei Adam Cloutier
So we have a couple new students, on what would have been the last day of class. One of them a former student, another a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu that works at our new federal prison. Both open minded and looking forward to training with us.
So we're going to keep going with the class, and hopefully more will join us. John is also going to teach a separate Tai Chi class, like he's done in the past. Took some convincing, but I think there's a better market for it at WREN, that could bring in more adults to the Ninpo Chuan Fa program.
Last night, an old buddy of mine and his wife inquired about me teaching their 5 year old son. I told them I'd get back to them. An old close friend asking is the straw that's breaking this camel's back. I'm going to talk to John about us starting a kids program, possibly starting next month or in September. I've gotten nearly a dozen requests from parents looking to enroll their kids in our program, and all of them not very excited about enrolling their kids in the other martial arts school in town. I don't know exactly how, but they're really not generating a good reputation for themselves.
I'm going to talk to John about heading up the class on my own, about an hour and a half prior to our adult program on Mondays and Wednesdays, with him assisting with testing and dropping in to show his presence occasionally.
With all that said, wishing good vibes to all of you out there in the world.
Peace and Balance
Sensei Adam Cloutier
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