My idea of a good weekend!

[Dak Wade]

I just want to share a little of my experience that I had this weekend. First, please permit me to share a bit of background.
I found ARMA about a year and a half ago, read allot and lucked out by being able to go to a 1.0 that John taught, up in Appleton WI. I was hooked, not only by the sheer knowledge and no-nonsense, direct approach to swordsmanship that John taught but also due to the great people I met there.
To make a long story short I came away from that with allot of enthusiasm and excitement about this craft. Unfortunately, after I got back I was dumped on by life and due to an injury I was unable to practice more… So about three month ago I was cleared to resume, I found that all was not as fresh and clear as it seemed at the 1.0 so I hit the manuals… I found it difficult, and here I give big kudos to those that can, to understand the plates and descriptions but I continued to try… It was not working, so I became frustrated and more confused about what I was doing and I just knew I was learning BAD habits.
So that is where this weekend comes in. I strongly suggest that any other “selfers” out there think about doing this if you can. ARMA has some really great people in it that I know just like to “help” I am lucky that one of them, Aaron Pynenberg, only lives 2 ½ hours away. I contacted him and asked for some help, not only to work with me but also to kind of “inspire” me into action, because we all know you can not get good at this unless you DO it, Aaron was really great and gave up his weekend to work with me. If any of you have met him you will know what I mean when I say he is VERY serious about ARMA and he runs a great study group with many great people, like Kevin, Eric and others. Needless to say Aaron ran me through his personal work out that he does and really took the time to show and explain to me what I was doing wrong. I came away with five major flaws in my habits and ways to fix them. Along, with that a better understanding about how to DO things not to just THINK about doing them. It also gave me a “burning” desire to work hard to get better so I can be like Aaron and the other senior members, because lets face it is not so fun knowing that they, meaning the senior members, can take you apart at will.
In closing, I just want to publicly throw out a BIG thank you to Aaron for helping me, and to “inspire” others like me to go seek “help” from a senior member.

[Gene Tausk]

I just want to share a little of my experience that I had this weekend. First, please permit me to share a bit of background.
I found ARMA about a year and a half ago, read allot and lucked out by being able to go to a 1.0 that John taught, up in Appleton WI. I was hooked, not only by the sheer knowledge and no-nonsense, direct approach to swordsmanship that John taught but also due to the great people I met there.
To make a long story short I came away from that with allot of enthusiasm and excitement about this craft. Unfortunately, after I got back I was dumped on by life and due to an injury I was unable to practice more… So about three month ago I was cleared to resume, I found that all was not as fresh and clear as it seemed at the 1.0 so I hit the manuals… I found it difficult, and here I give big kudos to those that can, to understand the plates and descriptions but I continued to try… It was not working, so I became frustrated and more confused about what I was doing and I just knew I was learning BAD habits.
So that is where this weekend comes in. I strongly suggest that any other “selfers” out there think about doing this if you can. ARMA has some really great people in it that I know just like to “help” I am lucky that one of them, Aaron Pynenberg, only lives 2 ½ hours away. I contacted him and asked for some help, not only to work with me but also to kind of “inspire” me into action, because we all know you can not get good at this unless you DO it, Aaron was really great and gave up his weekend to work with me. If any of you have met him you will know what I mean when I say he is VERY serious about ARMA and he runs a great study group with many great people, like Kevin, Eric and others. Needless to say Aaron ran me through his personal work out that he does and really took the time to show and explain to me what I was doing wrong. I came away with five major flaws in my habits and ways to fix them. Along, with that a better understanding about how to DO things not to just THINK about doing them. It also gave me a “burning” desire to work hard to get better so I can be like Aaron and the other senior members, because lets face it is not so fun knowing that they, meaning the senior members, can take you apart at will.
In closing, I just want to publicly throw out a BIG thank you to Aaron for helping me, and to “inspire” others like me to go seek “help” from a senior member.

Aaron is a great person and a great asset to ARMA. His enthusiasm is always prevalent and his sincerity to the craft is heartfelt. Glad you had the opportunity to train with him and glad to know it was time well spent (although this is no surprise).

[Aaron Pynenberg]

wow, no wonder my ears were rining tonight. Thanks for all the compliments Dak and Gene. You know nothing is accomplished without effort, and i must turn this around and give credit to Dak. It's not just the fact that he put every once of effort into our all day training session on saturday, but came back for more on Sunday as well. The most impressive thing that dak did though was recognize a weakness, identify a method to change it, then took the steps to make it happen. It's not easy to tell someone that your not as good as you could be at something and ask for help, for that Dak you deserve all the credit, as it shows character and spirit. Congrats on your return to "the craft". - AP