December Rank Testing

Sensei Ty Aponte and the USKL Yodansha (senior instructors) evaluated many of the Shotokan Karate students in December 2022.

We are pleased to announce that the following promotions were made:

Kyu Ranks:

White Belt with 1 stripe: Maggie Salce
While Belt with 3 stripes: Violet Lugan, Jad Diab, Kaiden Altares, and Keoni Altares
Yellow/White Belt with 2 stripes: Lilia Fujita
Yellow/Black Belt: Aydin Wheeler
Yellow/Black with 3 stripes: Zahra Cleveland
Yellow Belt with 3 stripes: Lucas Thompson
Orange/White Belt: Esaias Zazueta
Orange/White Belt with 3 stripes: Stetson Banks
Orange/Black Belt with 3 stripes: Aaron Fujita, Andrew Flynn, Joshua Flynn, Aubrey Flynn, and Andrew Rivera
Green/Black Belt with 3 stripes: Lily Board, Ellison Quisenberry
Brown/White Belt with 2 stripes: Jelina Denno, Jessica Denno, and Andreas Griswold
Brown/White Belt with 3 stripes: Natasha Scott
Brown/Black Belt with 3 stripes: Emma Board

8th Kyu Orange Belt: Jama Klycheva
6th Kyu Green Belt: Phillip Board

Black Belts Ranks:

Sandan (3rd Degree Black Belt) - Dr. David Michelson
Nidan (2nd Degree Black Belt) - David Voiles and Juan Miguel Nunez
Shodan (1st Degree Black Belt) - Ethan Flechas
Youth Shodan - Ian Li

End of Summer Annual Karate Beach Workout

Huntington State Beach: Sat. Oct. 1st, '22

The day started out overcast but later the clouds burned off and gave way to a bright sunny day. A big thank you to all who participated in our annual beach workout. On this day after the workout, we were treated to a spectacular air show.

In the workout we packed a lot in and finished on time by 11:00 am.

>Meditation: breathing, in-sink with the ebb and flow of the waves.

>stretching/warm ups, then start training, with each Sensei leading the class in basics (blocks, strikes, kicks) progressives (moving basics).

>partner self-defense: on the take downs some of us got a little taste of sand.

>then it was time to get our feet wet, basics and kata with the water level at about knee high or better (that's why I were high waters). It was challenging to maintain balance against the thrashing of the powerful waves.

>"Be like water my friend" Bruce Lee

> Towards the end, someone had the brilliant idea to have some fun wrestling matches in knee high water to see who could take the other down.

> we closed class with meditation and a bow.

> the remainder of the day was spent eating munchies, wading/swimming in the water, chilling, being amazed by speed & sound of the planes, jets, etc. that the air show offered, and enjoying each others company. Some left for home between 12 and 2 pm-ish, some stayed longer.

> thank you all: Senseis, sempais, students and parents of our younglings.

>it was a smaller than usual turnout, next time we will have an even bigger response.

>Thank you to the Clevelands & Kiana for the pictures.

2020 New Year Gasshuku

On January 30, 2020 the Defense Arts Center celebrated the New Year with its first ever Special Training since moving to its new location in Upland.

The class began with Sensei Heyman explaining the meaning of Special Trainings:

“Special trainings are an opportunity for us to push ourselves more than we do in our normal practice; to dig down deep into our subconscious parts and find out that we are much stronger than we thought.  In our daily lives, we manipulate our environment to match our spoiled, lazy mentality. In special trainings, we put ourselves into hardship, a difficult environment, and our mentality must rise to the occasion. The practice is to ideally push ourselves from top to bottom, first moment to last moment, without any weak thoughts, moments of feeling sorry for ourselves, or 'cruising'. We hone and polish ourselves, our mentality, and our spirit like the multitudinous folding and pounding out of impurities used in the making of a samurai sword. In this way, we face ourselves honestly and strictly, rid ourselves of our weak parts, and try to find our ideal technique, ideal breathing, and ideal mentality.”