Festival 2008

Well, we finally got put on the schedule, so here it is:

We will be performing on Saturday, June 7, from 1:00pm to 2:00pm at the Adult Involvement Stage behind the County Building. The Adult Involvement Stage is the large terrace which overlooks Monroe Avenue and DeVos Place. Click here for a map.

If you have not seen our shows before, they area lot of fun. Photos from last year can be seen here.

Hope to see you there!

Practicing

One of our students, Anna, recently took several photos of one of our kung fu classes. She has posted them, along with others she has taken along the way, in a gallery at her DeviantArt page. She has also graciously allowed us to post some of her photos on Master Lee’s website. I will be putting those up as I have time and energy.

Class has been going well this year. We have more students than I have ever seen, with a steady influx of new people. The youngest is about seven, and the oldest in his early seventies. We are already signed up for the annual Festival of the Arts show, about which I have high hopes. The shows just seem to keep getting better and better, which is a tribute both to Master Lee and his students.

I love what I do.

Festival 2007

070604_festival

Our performance was a great success. We had a large, eager crowd, the weather cooperated, and between our various photographers we have easily over a thousand photos documenting the event and the practice sessions leading up to the big day. The above photo (and around 800 others) was taken by the amazing Anisa, who once again has outdone herself as our unofficial official photographer.

Look for a LOT of photos to be uploaded over the coming weeks. I opened a Flickr account just for this occasion.

All of this new material will be a great starting point for a re-design and re-deployment of Master Lee’s website. Look for something new as time progresses.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and especially everyone, family and friends, who took the time to travel here to Grand Rapids to watch our show.

The Long, Slow Days of Summer

hail
The day of our Festival performance, June 3, started out on a less-than-promising note. Waves of hail and rain alternated with beautiful sunshine and 75-degree weather.

pre-festival
While we warmed up for the show we hoped we would get lucky. There was a decent-sized crowd, all told, considering what the weather had been doing all day.

underground-tai-chi
But, our luck did not hold out. we ended up underground in the entrance to the county building, along with a captive audience. So we decided to perform anyway. Unfortunately, after the first tai chi form security closed us down, saying another storm, this one including golfball-sized hail, was on its way in. So we called it a day.

lil-reaper
The next morning I wandered down to festival again, and listened to some music, and took some photos. Tom Otterness has sculptures up all over town, all of which are quite nifty.

kenny-neal
Blues on the Mall kicked off its 2006 season on Wednesday, with Kenny Neal providing the tunes.

cottonwoods
Thursday morning, while I was working from home, the local cottonwoods did their thing.

Summer is no time to spend in front of a computer.

I Am Prime!

Today is my birthday. I am 37 years old. To celebrate, I am working from home today.

The martial arts demo on Saturday was rained out. Very disappointing. I guess I can’t complain too loudly, though; I think this is the first time this has happened. We managed to sneak in a single tai chi form down in the underground entrance to the city center, then security shut us down before the golfball-sized hail hit the city.

Well…Whattayagonnado?