…I salute you!!!
Well, here we are friends!  This is the Final Countdown (another shameless tribute to big music and big hair from the past :)  Tomorrow begins the world’s most prestigious Martial Arts tournament…the 2009 U.S. Open World Martial Arts Championships.  Martial Artists from all over the globe are converging on Orlando as I type (they have [...]

We did quite a bit of training today, but light in intensity.  I’ve had to wrap my ankle as it twisted yesterday twice…nothing major, and it wasn’t even during training when it twisted, but still need to take care of it as I do a lot of heavy pivoting on it.  Pinkie toe still jammed [...]

Hello everyone!  It is just about stinkin’ HOT in Orlando right now.  Record temps for sure.  We are turning the heat up on training right now too (just couldn’t resist the pun)! 
It has been a day filled with training from various angles…in the pool resistance training, out of the pool-stay-alive-in-the-heat-training, solo kata training, [...]

I just returned from a day of training with my coach, World Martial Arts Champion Lauren Kearney, in Palm Beach/Lake Worth area.
  Good, hard day of training, and yet very encouraging.  The U.S. Open is right around the corner (July 3 & 4), so now it’s time for refining, a step up in mental prep, [...]

So, as promised in my last post, I have some pics to share…
Myself, Mike Tatum, and Michael McGannon (my son and primary training partner) out in the open field training some self-defense over the weekend.  Can you say HOT and MUGGY (the weather, not the pic)!!!
Here’s Mike T. (right) striking a pose…um, I mean, traditional [...]

The road before me is no longer a long road in terms of time to prepare for the U.S. Open, but it is certainly not over and it is MOST certainly not getting any easier.  Daily I am looking for ways to push my mind and my body to certain limits, crush those limits, then [...]

So, today we focused on self-defense training specifically. Michael and I worked on several sequences this morning together and then later we met up with Michael Tatum, a student with Bunjikan Tenguzake Dojo, here in the Central Florida area. This Dojo is in the line of instruction under Masaaki Hatsumi, the reknown Master from Japan.  [...]

I spoke to my coach Lauren Kearney (http://www.laurenkearney.com/) briefly yesterday and we are on track for the next phase of my training. I am switching up my physical workouts this week in order to push past the plateaus I am reaching physically, and then she is leading me into some specific training on my katas [...]

Well, I just got some exciting news. For now, you will have to trust me because I need to work out details before I make an official announcement. This Quest is about so much more than just me working out and competing at the U.S. Open. That is the core of the whole thing (and [...]

Went a couple of rounds tonight with Michael doing some 3/4 speed/power sparring and self-defense along with some jump-roping and a walk-through of a kata I haven’t done in a long time. Just had to get some extra energy burned off before bed. I wanted to go to bed earlier tonight, but knew I would [...]