New Year Update
| By Master Steve Tappin
January
What a time we have had, we made many new friends and made a positive start to our future.
Our traditional Summercamps in Denmark arranged by Dai-Sifu Allan Jensen and Sifu Lars Lind was successful.
We did much travelling, made new contacts and provided the Alliance members with quality martial arts for now and the future. We can truly state that we are an Alliance as we provide Wing Tsun, Escrima, NHB, BJJ, Tai Chi and Chi Kung.
Sifu Henning brought to our family Mike Pyle of G*A*P a very skilled and active teacher and we hope to see more of him. We also arranged training with Bobby Sundell who teaches some of our guys in Scandinavia and we are proud to say that many of our Alliance members have won several tournaments this year.
The Guild had a great turnout in Leeds last August and a good time was had by all and we expect the Guild to progress very well this year.
We worked closely with several police forces in Europe and continue to do so and we have given many security agencies valuable input too. Our expertise has been requested throughout this year too.
New special teacher training courses were run by Head Instructor Peter Olsson - and Sifu Lars and myself arranged a few special weekend instructor courses in Denmark due to the new syllabus. Weekend courses were arranged in Germany too by Dai-Sifu Hans-Jorg and I taught three in the UK - these courses were successful and we plan to do more this year.
The Danes invaded my English shores again under the disguise of Sifu Morten who did a fantastic weekend teaching in Birmingham, much was learned and the Alliance will now grow in the UK. We hope to invite Sifu Benno in the near future as well.
A very special occasion was held last November when over 75 fighters from Europe met in Copenhagen for the European Escrima Concepts Tournament. It was the biggest Escrima tournament that has ever been held in our history. The atmosphere was electric and the social side fantastic - we were a family. Much of this success goes to Tournament Director Stephen Kinvig and his International Committee and to Sifu Lars who provides us with not only the venue but with accommodation and advertising too that made the event run smoothly - but we must congratulate our fighters who all fought well, with skill and courage and with the attitude we desire - thank you all.
At this brilliant event some well deserved promotions were given. In Wing Tsun were promoted and given Sifu titles. In Escrima Johan Flink (1st TG), Peter Enbom (2nd TG backdated), Lukas Pasic (2nd TG backdated) were promoted and tested by all our highest ranking Escrima Instructors.
Sifu Lars, Stephen Kinvig and Peter Olsson were promoted to Head Instructors, a new title that means since we are a family and we treat every member equal that our Head Instructors knowledge and special skills are to help Escrima Concept members everywhere and therefore they are the Head Instructors for everyone.
A very emotional promotion was when all the Masters, Dai-Sifu's, Sifu's and senior instructors unanimously voted to promote Master Brian Jones to Grandmaster for what he has done for several martial arts over 50 years. It is perhaps the first time in many years that someone reached this status in the correct way, by student demand. Many people write their own certificates but Grandmaster Brian received his the only true way and so the tournament event was memorable for many reasons.
To close the year we had the famous Christmas Party in Denmark where we had a sword transition seminar where many people worked very hard and showed their metal (so to speak), I think they were shocked that it was not a lazy session being at the end of the year but they should know my humour by now and I enjoyed seeing how easy many of them adapted to the demands of the course. I'm sure their interest with the Guild will be sustained for this year judging by how good they all were.
So the old year closes and the new begins and what delights do we have.
We have several tournaments throughout Europe with a World Championship being considered in November in Copenhagen again.
New tours and seminars will be given in the UK, Argentina and Slovakia. Mik Lane has done outstanding work to progress our arts in the UK and works very hard travelling Europe to enhance his skills and he travelled the UK to share his skills and was at every major event in Europe - all this whilst moving and renovating a new home and still he finds the time to bring Alliance instructors to Birmingham for our students. This is the dedication that makes things happen.
Of course our existing seminars tours and instructor weekends continue and the numbers increase at each event. The standards increase each time I see these classes in Copenhagen - they are designed for all members to improve at a sensible rate so try and find the time to attend.
We expect the Tai Chi with Grandmaster Brian to steadily grow and of course Sifu Klaus will continue to teach Chi-Kung - so that's our health, injuries, stress, long and healthy life's taken care of for our future.
We expect to promote the Alliance more in magazines this year in Germany and the UK and we have an Alliance video/DVD being prepared soon for sale. Last year Sifu Lars did much design and theory work for us all and I will need his skills again to complete our new posters and books.
A few years ago I was asked to write a 120 page introduction on weapons I did this but held back its publication on three points, the first I left the people who wanted the book, second I knew the information would be re-written to help another author write a potential book (stealing the credit again) and thirdly as I wrote I realised that I had enough information to write three books. The first is an introduction to weapons, the second a book on Escrima Concepts and the last a book on factual history of our Escrima past and present. And so I started writing four years ago to publish these books.
I am lucky enough to have vast amounts of information collected over 30 years with letters, magazines, memo's notes, videos and photos. Also, nearly everyone is still available to piece everything together. I know others wish to write their version of history using propaganda and a selective memory and this is understandable as history can be translated to HIS-STORY and in most cases it is a story but I intend to publish OUR history and already have the book two-thirds written.
I just need to get some new quality pictures and give some people a chance to contribute to finish the book on our history. The introduction to weapons book is almost finished - I just want to rearrange some visual aids, and the Escrima Concepts book is half written and I will rely on Sifu Lars to help finish this book concerning its layout and designs.
I hope that soon we can have something written on Alliance Wing Tsun too.
Well that's it for now - we will keep you updated on new developments just keep checking WTMAG and the Alliance web-sites. Look out for the new Alliance Video/DVD too.
Take care, teach well, train hard and train safe.
Its good to be us.
M. Steve.
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