Central Germany

There has been a tradition among friends for years now that we order a bungalow park in our country, and this time, it would be the fifth time. Each time, the group is different, and for the first time this year, we are going to Germany instead. Central Germany to be more precise, in the mountain region of Harz.

At the core of these small vacations, 3 members have always been present, including me. At these bungalow parks, we tend to explore around, hike a bit, do some citytrips, screw around and most of all have fun.

With screwing around and having fun I'm talking about alcoholic games, video games, meeting people, annoying each other, watching wacky series or horror movies and surprisingly, even having at least 1 night of debating the big topics of life.

This time, we expected to travel a bit more around, and thus we were able to see some interesting locations aside from relaxing back at the bungalow park. It was also the smallest group we have been in yet, only 4 guys.

We were able to see a large dam of which I forgot the name, and we went to an old border point between West and East Germany. Furthermore, we visited and explored Blankenburg, Quedlinburg, Goslar and Wernigerode, as well as the Harz National Park.

I have no idea how much longer this tradition will hold, but as long as we have fun doing so, we will continue. Unless we "outgrow" it or to be more precise go each our own paths further away from each other. Whatever happens, I've had some crazy bungalow times over the past years.

And who knows what region we might terrorize next time!

United States of America

My karate tournament happening in Long Beach, California this year was only the beginning of my United States of America trip, where I truly began exploring the huge continental country, unlike five years ago, when I only briefly visited Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam.

During the same karate tournament, me and my dad visited the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood. This was a fun day because we explored actual movie set studios through a tour bus, walked through an amazing house of horrors maze, got launched into a Jurassic Park water ride and enjoyed the crowded area's.

Next, returning to Las Vegas, we walked down the whole strip atleast once, I won money on my mom's favorite fruit machine called Heaven's Bells in the Wynn hotel, we saw a great comedic, erotic and zombified show called Zombie Burlesque, we went to the world famous Pawn Stars pawnshop and once again enjoyed the hysteria, the madness and the fake objects of Sin City.

At the same time, I went on the Area 51 tour hosted by Adventure Photo Tours in order to experience the mystery, conspiracies, propaganda and UFO culture surrounding the off limits military base where it is rumoured with all kinds of information happening there, such as alien research, secret military weapons and new bizarre aircrafts being developed.

I was interviewed and featured for an article based in Las Vegas because a reporter and his photographer went along the tour alongside an English couple and our veteran guide himself. I think it's cool that many Americans have read this article by now either online or in a newspaper in that city, depicting me in the main photo and quoting several lines: Area 51 Tour

As my dad was about to leave towards home, I continued my journey at the state of Florida, where I would hire a Chevrolet Spark and do a roadtrip, going to the majority of the highlights to be found there.

Starting with the JFK Space Center, me and my nephew and cousin visited that historic site for NASA activity, bewondering ourselves with the many accomplishments of spacecraft which have happened here.

Next, after saying goodbye to my family, I spend a full day at Walt Disney World, visiting 1 of the 4 theme parks established there; Epcot, a scientific and sci-fi oriented park, offering enough attractions and international restaurants for me to walk through.

After returning to the city of Miami and setting foot inside a motel close to the international airport and the famous Miami Beach, I started planning the rest of my days here and around southern Florida.

First, upon visiting the Everglades National Park, I discovered that this turned out to be much bigger than anticipated, so I scheduled a second day visit for this location. Amongst other flora and fauna, I saw wild alligators, grasshoppers, turtles, rare birds and I visited the famous Everglades Alligator Farm, where I held a snake and a young alligator!

Inbetween, I rested at the southern part of Miami Beach in order to relax and recharge myself, because once again I couldn't help but to plan and manage my time as much as possible, which I love to do. I read several great books here in leisure, such as Animal Farm, The Prince and Benny Urquidez's autobiography.

I drove all the way from Miami to Key West and back in order to stay for a few hours to walk around this beautiful city, visiting iconic places such as Sloppy Joe's Bar and the southern most point of continental US.

As for my final stop during this trip, I visited a very special place which turned out to be my personal highlight out of them all. But because I am about to write about this day in the nearby forseeable future instead, I won't mention it here just yet.

The United States of America, so many strange cultures have shaped and developed here. Who doesn't love them? Military bases around the world, a very dedicated gunlaw and culture intact, fat people everywhere, racism is quite common and they act as the global police.

It is also the land of the free, the American Dream, discounts and specials are everywhere, bigger and more products are cheaper than smaller and less, it's heavily religious, expensive health care, it has multiculture at it's finest and it has the most prisons in the world.

But the USA has also brought a ton of interesting developments to the rest of us as well, such as the craziest entertainment being available in the world, a booming film industry, a heavy sports culture and it popularized fast food joints or hamburgers in general.

So I am glad for my most recent trip, I am glad for how infuential the USA in general is, and I am glad for having been able to do all of the things I wanted to do in this massive country. I am sure that I will definitely return to see more interesting cities such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago and more!

IKC 2014

 

The International Karate Championships reached it's 50th anniversary edition this year, and it was based regarding location once again as a tribute in Long Beach, California, the United States. Me and my dad traveled there to participate for our fifth IKC tournament.

Our national Dutch team was pretty large combining the Kenpo Karate schools, and this time, some of us had been given professional clothes to wear during the events happening. As always, the program started with seminars being given by remarkable black belts.

Mohamad Tabatabai, one of my favorites, guided us through the importance of how ground techniques are more relevant than ever with the uprising of Mixed Martial Arts. He advised us not to neglect it, offering an alternative towards thundering hammers while subsequently teaching us mountain side control and other ground movements.

Eddie Downey, an Irish, hold a seminar which was basically about remixing and fluctuating techniques in one flow or another. Bob White did what he does best as always, which is giving us sparring tips using correct kicks and punches while he was accompanied by one of his best pupils; a female who is 6 times champion of our freestyle competition.

After lunch I was introduced to Mike Stone, who was the very first IKC champion from way back in 1964. He had a 91-0 winning strike at one point, and now 50 years later, he teached us his philosophical standpoint about believing in yourself with everything in life in order to accomplish success.

At first, I was impressed by his life story, but the more I thought about it, the less I could uphold his philosophy much longer. Nevertheless, I was impressed by his willpower and some other points he made about living life right now in this moment, energy and love. Unusual seminar, but I was listening.

Norman Sandler is another regular and a well liked master who gave us extended looks at circling wing and twirling wings this time, while concluding the seminar with the statement that you should never get choked in any situation. I believe it was this session where he grabbed my hand and turned and twisted it in a very painful effective way.

Zach Whitson, who I previously attended in Utrecht 2012, had a difficult seminar surrounding effective grapple movements, as well as showing of Filipino martial arts with knives. Grapple techniques can look confusing at first, but it's simply a matter of remembering how to use your hands in various ways.

The next day, I attended seminars of Jeff Speakman, Steve LaBounty, Barney Coleman and Mike Pick, while getting two more lessons from Sandler and Tabatabai as well, although different in content. All of them had different teachings to share.

My favorite seminar out of them all turned out to be LaBounty's, for his content was about body contact, and many close up movements were present using wrestling techniques as well as parting wings.

Mike Pick, a 10th degree grandmaster of American Kenpo, had a very scientific way of approaching the art using physics, consciousness and calculations, while simultaneously keeping it philosophical as well, and he has been training for over 40 years. He was by far speaking the most intellectual out of all masters in my opinion.

Jeff Speakman has been addressing and promoting his Kenpo 5.0 system for years, but this time, he introduced to us version 5.05, which is an evolution of Kenpo and Jiujitsu groundwork. Similar to Tabatabai, he strongly suggests that our martial arts must go with the times and change for the better in order to be able to combat ground experts in the future.

Barney Coleman was another Irish with a very hard to understand way of speaking, but at the same time it felt authentic somehow too. His content turned out to be the most dissapointing and bland, but I did like how he continued to repeat his "Huaaaa" warcry to us all the time.

After these two seminar days, the tournament was about to happen as always, but before that, I attended the special Friday Night Line event, where many regular black belts would perform techniques on each other.

There was 1 black belt that stood out from the others, and his name was Glenn I believe, a tall black man who had a contagious laugh that everyone in the ball room seemed to notice. What a passionate and happy go lucky man he seemed to be!

The tournament was split up into two days. My team participated at both days, getting a lot of medaillons, while I only performed with freestyle sparring individually on sunday, getting no rewards. Still, I enjoyed that moment, and I liked the ambience of not only seeing Kenpo Karate in action, but several other martial arts as well such as Muay Thai.

While I enjoyed the program of IKC 2014, this time, the organisation behind it was more terrible than ever to be frank. Many schedules were uncertain in location, time or other ways, there was no tournament opening, my workshop tickets were only controlled once, and a spontaneous meet & greet and a few other events suddenly happened.

As far as I know, no prominent speech was given towards the history of the range or memorable moments of the IKC's itself, and it just was all so uncertain in general. No mention of Ed Parker either, atleast during the Luau dinner or any other event I was present.

This seriously hurt our experience on a background scale, and now we aren't so sure if we would return for another edition if this is organized the same way. Still, it was a historic tournament anyway, and I am glad to have participated and experienced it while seeing old and new friends come together under American Kenpo Karate. I was greeted by masters White, Tabatabai and Sandler, which felt great, while I greeted another legend Bob Liles, whom I have all met of course at earlier tournaments.

And I got the chance to meet Benny "the Jet" Urquidez, who is an astonishing and well respected master of martial arts. I also loved his scenes in both movies starring Jackie Chan as well, and his latest book was very interesting to read. You can expect a review of that soon enough.