A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

The old season has gone, the time has come to start over again. After stepping into the ring four times over the course of just two months at the end of spring (2 fights at the [WKF Austrian Open '12] , 2 more at the [WKF national championships '12] ) , I took things rather easy during the summer months. The original plan was to compete in the WKF world championships in Varazdin, Croatia that took place in July - however, despite sucessfully qualifying for the national team I decided to stay in Vienna. There's been plenty of reasons which I won't bother elaborating here. Not that they matter, really - I made a decision and don't regret it for a moment. The summer was great. First, I spent [over a week in Poland] with my family. After that, I went to Styria with some of my advanced students for a [training camp] . In fact, it was the first such camp I've ever organized. About time after five years of managing a Dojo, if you ask me. Apart from those great weeks...

Saturday evening, I returned from the first ever Shinergy[stadlau] training camp. Thanks to the awesome people that took part, this was a great experience. I really couldn't have wished for more. You see, I've had my share of camps, both as an athlete as well as an instructor. This time, however, I took up the roles as both instructor and manager. Put quite some time into planning the whole thing. Still, I was more or less convinced we'd need to improvise a lot - after all, I've never managed a camp before, so I really had no experience in that matter whatsoever. Anyhow, I was struck by surprise as to how little improvisation was necessary in the end. There were virtually no significant deviations from the initial plan. In fact, everything went so smooth that besides acting as the manager and instructor, I had the opportunity to partake in every session myself. The next couple of paragraphs will give you an overview over that fantastic week. The Group First thin...