We are hosting Guro Dan Inosanto for a two day seminar here in Wichita Falls, TX on Feb. 11-12th of 2012.
To help some of my students and many others out there I thought I would write about how to get the most from an event like this. So, I hope to see you at the seminar in Feb. and that you get alot from this article and the seminar!
I remember my first Dan Inosanto seminar. It was 1988 at Gibson's Martial Arts in Tulsa, OK.
I had already been in martial arts for several years and was a Black Belt in a couple of different martial arts already, so obviously I already knew everything! I was a huge fan of Dan Inosanto's, having read his books and articles over the years along with his fame as Bruce Lee's top student and heir to Jeet Kune Do. This was my chance to meet him and ask questions and see and feel for myself what real JKD was about.
He did not disappoint! My partner was overwhelmed in five minutes. It took me at least another ten minutes before I was lost and confused. Back then Guro Dan taught at a much faster pace than he does now. But we kept trying. I was determined to get at least a few things to take back and work on, which I did. I also learned many other things just by watching him move, bringing to life concepts and ideas that I had only seen pictures of or read about. His grasp of so many areas of the martial arts, kicking, punching, trapping, locking, throwing, sweeping, single stick, double stick, knife work, all amazing! It was world class martial arts right there, right in front of you. I will never forget it. I thought to myself, this is it, this is what I want to do!
Over the years I have attended tons of seminar by Guro Dan and many many others. Below are some tips on how to make Your seminar much more rewarding and beneficial. They are comprised of time assisting him in seminars, attending seminars, teaching seminars and as a friend of Guro Dan's.
1. Bring an open mind: Not everything Guro teaches will be your cup of tea, just practice it, try to understand it and move on.
2. Enjoy yourself: don't be too serious about your performance at a seminar, it's for learning, not showing off or perfecting your skills.
3. Bring a note book: His lectures on various martial arts and martial arts masters are amazing parts of the martial oral history. Trust me, it's valuable and you'll realize it someday.
4. Ask questions: both of Guro Dan and anyone who seems to know more than you. there are generally lots of good people at these seminars who will be happy to help.
5. Don't expect to learn everything he teaches!: This is important! Many people think they are supposed to learn all he teaches in a weekend, the truth is that Guro teaches by concepts. That means that if you get one or two options of what he taught, you will go home and explore and find another three or four! That's the plan, he opens the door, shows you how some things work, then you go do the research and discover and develop others on your own. Some people feel cheated if they didn't learn it all, blaming the teacher, when it truth, they failed to understand the lesson altogether.
6. To avoid problems know the rules of a Dan Inosanto seminar: They are very simple. NO PHOTOGRAPHS AND NO VIDEO TAPING. Don't try to cheat and use your phone or something like that, you will be caught and embarrassed and or kicked out of the seminar. The truth is Guro would be happy to take pics with people, but some idiots go back and put them on their website and claim to have been promoted to the head of JKD by Guro Dan or some other such nonsense. He's been burned so many times that we have to have rules like this in place to prevent more of that stupidity.
7. Bring your own training partner: this really helps aid your memory when you get back home and prevents the awkwardness of trying to fit into a previously established training group. It's a risk attending by yourself, who knows, you might get a good partner or someone with no knowledge or control.
8. After the seminar go back to your hotel and video tape you and your training partner doing everything you can remember and talk about everything he talked about. this will be invaluable later.
9. Make friends: it's normal to see the same people at the same seminars, so make friends and contacts. they have useful information and are good sources of training themselves.
10. This is my last tip and is also a pet peeve of mine, Don't bug Guro when he's eating, on the phone or going to the restroom or otherwise doing personal activities: I have seen all of these and I can understand them, people get star struck and loose their minds. Just be mindful that he travels all over the world, he's traveling every single weekend! He gets tons of this and really appreciates a personal moment when it's available.
Ok, there ya go, my top ten tips on attending a Dan Inosanto seminar. There are lots of other things to talk about but I think that if you follow these, you'll not only have an amazing time at the seminar but you'll learn a ton and be able to keep more of it when you go home. So, best of luck and when you see Guro Dan, tell him Guro Harley says "Hello".
Having also attended many, many seminars with Guro Dan and others I'd second everything Guro Harley put forth here.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had read an article like this before my first seminar with Guro Dan.
For me, and I'm guessing for Guro Harley, it took me years to figure out all this stuff and they were, at times, very frustrating years.
By far, the biggest one for me was the video taping of myself doing whatever I could remember as soon after the seminar as possible. Because the video was of myself with visual and audio it was an invaluable reference. Even years later when I watch the video I can still remember how the motion *felt* just by watching/hearing that video. It's an incredibly powerful "hook" for the memory and once you hook into the memory from the video you can often hook into the memory of the seminar and sometimes remember things from the seminar that you didn't get onto the video.
Regarding the point about not trying to learn it all. Remember that if you get 3 or 4 things at one seminar, when you see them at another seminar you already have them and you can then get 3 or 4 more. Eventually, you'll be surprised at the wealth of information you can accumulate in bite-sized pieces. Like Guro Dan himself says, "It should be like drinking from a fire hose. You can quench your thirst but if you try to swallow it all, you'll drown."
I'm trying to figure out the finances to attend this seminar myself. I haven't seen Guro Dan in a few years and I'm definitely feeling the call, so to speak.
Just finished working things out. Won't be able to make this seminar. Turns out the finances are workable but the logistics aren't. I'm teaching in Santa Fe, NM the following weekend and don't want to be away from home that long in a row (after the insane amount of traveling I did last year I've decided to cut back some this year).
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