News 21-May ...Dragon Jam 2005
I TRIED TO COMPARE ... by Master Willie G. Wilson
From my very first attendance at a Dragon Jam and down through the years
my participation in the Dragon Jam, which I might note is “by invitation only,”
has always proven to be a unique experience. But this time on the way home
I was mulling over in my mind and trying to decide of all the events which one
has been the best. Then I realized that no matter how much I tried to choose
one over the other, each event possessed a uniqueness that would drive the
score up on one and slide the score down on another and vice versa with
another event. What I discovered is that each event is made different by the
people attending, the priority of our training needs; introducing new masters
and the different ways we choose to do the team competition. Since I cannot
pick one annual Dragon Jam over the other, I am going to focus my attention
on this outstanding Jam we just had this past Saturday, May 21st.
This year was started out doing presentations and in his well-known sense of
humor, Grand Master Shaffer’s presented Grand Master Phil Little a “little
man figurine” that looked almost like him. And in the spirit of good will and
fellowship it was given, and everyone took this as a good sign of humor and
all went very well. The next presentation was a little more serious since we
were honoring Master Shaffer for his endless support and for being a true
warrior of the art.
On behalf of the Karate 5, Master William Mason who I introduced to the
other participants and who also recently came out of retirement to join the
Karate 5, Master Mason presented a hand crafted cane that is only awarded
and reserved to a small number of individuals. This presentation of the cane
is symbolic and has been presented to only a few. In other words, the time
it takes to hand craft such a cane also is an analogy of the worth and reflection
of its seriousness in awarding it to the deserving recipient.
Master Mason, with my assistance, started the Jam with physical conditioning
that has built-in moves, coordinating punches, and kicks, which develops the
practitioner in using this for self-defense or even some application of kumite.
It proved to be an outstanding performance by Master Mason demonstrating
how to go to different levels of the drills.
Where Master Mason left off, I picked up since this was a team presentation
by the Karate 5. It was my desire to leave the students with something to remember
me by and to make this a working event. When we perform demonstrations,
most of the time a person has no idea how you arrived at finishing off an assailant,
so we wanted the students to experience a way of developing techniques as well as
using some of their own which could be weaved in for the desired results. Each
performance by the masters was an interesting learning experience and all had
working capacity for self-defense or kumite. Each master starting from Master’s
Mason, Gabbard, Laney, Wayland, Lee, Smith, Strong, Vaughn, Grand Master’s
Little and Shaffer were unique and all the material was great for taking home.
The Dragon Jam proved to be a superb mix of competition with all of the talents
participating from each dojo. This year the students were divided into teams,
which numbered four (4) and the judges had to whisper which team won on a
one-minute continued dojo style competition. In all, Karate 5 had a great time
and as true to our famished nature following these physical events, we finished
the event off at Ryan’s Restaurant fellowshipping with some of the masters,
students and Leon’s lovely daughter also joined us. An event and fellowship
worth a “Jam.”
For further information on this event go to Shaffer’s Dragons at
www.shaffersdragons@aol.com or go to our Important Links Option and
click on "Shaffer’s Dragons".
Some Photos From Dragon Jam 2005
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