Billy or Nancy

For those of you who don't know, the Greer gang in Maryland has been
studying martial arts at Jing Ying Institute for about 2 years. Glen, Lane
and I regularly attend Kung Fu classes, while Nancy, Lane and I attend Tai
Chi classes (about 1 year now). We fell in love with the place and went from
struggling to squeeze in classes twice a week to going there almost every
day. I was pleasantly surprised that they took to it so well since they had
never been involved in organized sports or strenuous physical activity
before.

Last August, the owner of the studio told us that she had some family health
problems and couldn't keep running the school. She said that it would close
on Sept 1st if she didn't find someone to take it over. We couldn't imagine
trying to find another place to train, so we gave up replacing our van
(after all, it's only 15 years old and has less than 230,000 miles on it)
and instead bought the school. We sometimes jokingly tell people that we
liked the classes so much we bought the school for our kids! It's kind of
strange owning a martial arts school and actually still being a student who
isn't even a black belt yet, but fortunately we had good instructors already
in place.

Anyway, last weekend, Lane and I competed in the USA National Open Martial
Arts Tournament. Glen had been planning on competing too, but was sick all
week and didn't attend any classes. Although he was feeling better on
Saturday, he wasn't feeling ready to compete and decided to be a spectator
and part of our cheering section instead. He apparently did a very good job.

In the women's division, Lane (13) competed in tai chi forms and won gold
with her 18 step Essence form, competed in tai chi weapons and won gold with
her straight sword form, and competed in sparring and won gold.

In the men's division, I (46) competed in tai chi forms and won gold with my
18 step Essence form, competed in empty hand forms and won gold with my
Shaolin Fist form, and competed in sparring and won gold.

In addition, Lane and I performed together in the two-man fighting set
competition (like regular forms, but with 2 people in kind of a
choreographed fight sequence) and won gold.

We left after our events were over (it was a long day and we were stopping
by the grandparents before heading home) and didn't wait to see the finals
or find out who the grand champions were for the tournament (usually a black
belt grand champion is the highest award, then an under belt (non-black
belt) grand champion is also selected). Anyway, I later got a call from the
tournament organizer informing me that I was the under belt grand champion
of the tournament! He's even going to come out to deliver the trophy.

We have another big tournament coming up in DC on July 3, then will be
marching in the Severna Park (Maryland) Independence day parade on the 4th
and performing demonstration at the Park Plaza shopping center after the
parade. Wish us luck!

You can find more details on the tournament and some photos of us at:
http://www.jingying.org/tournament/2005_usa_nomat.htm

Thanks,

Billy Greer
www.FUN-Books.com
Special sale on Rosetta Stone products
now in progress!

[email protected]

In a message dated 7/2/05 6:46:09 PM, FUNLists@... writes:


> I later got a call from the
> tournament organizer informing me that I was the under belt grand champion
> of the tournament! He's even going to come out to deliver the trophy.
>

How cool!!
Congratulations, and thanks for sharing that big news with us.

A martial arts school instead of a van, huh? Wow.

Sandra


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 7/2/2005 7:46:31 PM Central Standard Time,
FUNLists@... writes:

Anyway, I later got a call from the
tournament organizer informing me that I was the under belt grand champion
of the tournament! He's even going to come out to deliver the trophy.



~~~

Way to go, Billy!

Are you going to be in St. Louis for the conference?

Karen


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

christy_imnotred

Where in MD are you? I'm in DE and have been looking for a good school
for my son. If you aren't too far we may be interested.

Christy

unschooling_dad

Karen,

One thing about adding the Kung Fu school to our workload is that
we've had to cut back on traveling for FUN Books. We aren't going to
any conferences outside our immediate area.

It's interesting how the Live and Learn conference has been
connected with the martial arts studio. At the first conference in
SC, my daughter and I got up early to do a Tai Chi workshop with Luz
Shosie at the side of the pool. That was our first experience trying
it and now we are both taking regular classes and performing in
tournaments.

Last year the LAL conference in MA was just before we took over the
studio. As I mentioned previously, it was in early August when we
were told the studio would be closing Sept 1st if someone didn't
take it over. We basically had 2 weeks to decide to take over the
studio, form an LLC, and complete all the other arrangements because
the last week in August was the conference. If we had known about
the situation with the studio before we promised to be at the
conference, we probably wouldn't have come.

We actually spent our first days of at the conference. That year, we
were the one performing Tai Chi early in the morning at the side of
the pool. Nancy, I, Glen and Lane had just started studying
together. Lane and I also did a kung fu demo at the talent show.

Billy
www.JingYing.org
www.FUN-Books.com


--- In [email protected], tuckervill2@a... wrote:
>
> Are you going to be in St. Louis for the conference?
>
> Karen

unschooling_dad

We'd probably be a bit of a commute. We're close to Annapolis.

Three of our black belt students were homeschooled all their lives
and I can think of at least 5 other advanced belt students who are
homeschooled. They all started before we did, so the atmoshpere of
our school just seems to appeal to homeschoolers. When our head
instructor realized that many of his best students were
homeschooled, and he saw how much he liked the kids in the PE
program, he started asking me for more info about homeschooling.
When his kids turned school age, he ended up starting them with
homeschooling.

Billy

--- In [email protected], "christy_imnotred"
<christy_imnotred@y...> wrote:
> Where in MD are you? I'm in DE and have been looking for a good
school
> for my son. If you aren't too far we may be interested.
>
> Christy

[email protected]

Billy,

Sounds as if the conference has been involved in huge life changes for
you and your family!

~Kelly, shameless, shameless <g>

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
October 6-9, 2005
http://liveandlearnconference.org

-----Original Message-----
From: unschooling_dad <FUNLists@...>

It's interesting how the Live and Learn conference has been
connected with the martial arts studio. At the first conference in
SC, my daughter and I got up early to do a Tai Chi workshop with Luz
Shosie at the side of the pool. That was our first experience trying
it and now we are both taking regular classes and performing in
tournaments.

Last year the LAL conference in MA was just before we took over the
studio. As I mentioned previously, it was in early August when we
were told the studio would be closing Sept 1st if someone didn't
take it over. We basically had 2 weeks to decide to take over the
studio, form an LLC, and complete all the other arrangements because
the last week in August was the conference. If we had known about
the situation with the studio before we promised to be at the
conference, we probably wouldn't have come.

We actually spent our first days of at the conference. That year, we
were the one performing Tai Chi early in the morning at the side of
the pool. Nancy, I, Glen and Lane had just started studying
together. Lane and I also did a kung fu demo at the talent show.

Pam Sorooshian

The karate studio my daughter goes to here in Southern California is
owned and operated by a homeschooling mom. Most of the black belts were
homeschooled - all but one of the instructors were homeschooled. She
runs "homeschooler" classes during the day for moms, dads, and kids of
all ages.

The studio has an extra room and the homeschooled kids hang out there
during the day a lot - playing games, chatting. We also use the karate
studio for other get-togethers - my Destination Imagination team meets
there every week and there are a couple of Comedy Sportz teams meeting
there. The teens in our homeschool group used the karate studio for a
holiday party last Christmas. I've often thought that right next door
would be the ideal place to start up a learning resource center of some
sort. I just don't have a sense of how such a thing would make money -
maybe by being a homeschool supplies store, too?

-pam

On Jul 5, 2005, at 6:14 AM, unschooling_dad wrote:

> Three of our black belt students were homeschooled all their lives
> and I can think of at least 5 other advanced belt students who are
> homeschooled.