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.”