FMATalk Meet & Greet and MartialTalk.com 5 Year Anniv. Bash - 8/19/06 - Buffalo NY

[Bob Hubbard]

MartialTalk Meet & Greet and 5 Year Anniversary Bash!
KenpoTalk Member Meet & Greet
FMATalk Member Meet & Greet
WNYMartialArts.com Martial Artists Meet
August 19, 2006: Buffalo NY

MartialTalks annual training seminar and meet & greet is a great opportunity to train and see a wide variety of different arts and styles.

This years event marks the 5-Year anniversary of MartialTalk.com. Joining MT in this celebration, are our sister sites KenpoTalk.com and FMATalk.com, as well as our original parent site WNYMartialArts.com!

This years event features:
Jamie SeaBrook - Jeff Velten - Sheldon Bedell - John Lehmann - Primo Luciano
More to Come....

We will be having a stick fighting tournament as part of the event. Entry is open to all event attendees and instructors at no additional cost.

More information to come!



Instructor participation subject to professional commitments
http://www.martialtalk.com/camp/buffalo2006/index.shtml

[Bob Hubbard]

Group photo. Short review - It was Great!
More pics and a fuller review shortly.

[Bob Hubbard]

This years Meet and Greet was a resounding success.
Friday night a group of us met up at the hotel, then caravaned out to the Anchor Bar, inventors of the famous Buffalo Wing, where we spent some time eating what else, buffalo wings, before heading back to the hotel and hanging out in the lobby until the wee hours. I didn't get home until 3am.
Saturday we met up at 11am, headed to the school to hang out while waiting for classes to wrap up. A few people hopped into the regular grappling class taught by Primo Luciano, before we kicked the event off. First up was an excellent sword art demonstration from MT's own SwordLady. Up next with the first instructional session was Datu Tim Hartman who covered disarm techniques from Modern Arnis, followed by Charlie Bedell who did a demonstration on Sikaran training techniques. A brief break, and we had Georgia Ketchmark who demonstrated some of the locks and transitions of the Korean arts, Jeff Velten who taught some fun locks and take downs, and we wrapped up the event with Primo Luciano who taught some rather painful (my arms still sore, lol) ground techniques and submission holds. After a short breather, we held a 2 division stick fighting tournament. Judging the tournament were Tim Hartman, Steve Scott and Sal Todaro. We had 3 women fighters, with the winning bracket being 1: Susan, 2: Carol 3: Jennifer. In the mens competition, we had 6 competitors, with 1st going to Jeff Velten, 2nd to Michael Hubbard, 3rd to Bob Hubbard and 4th place went to John Boyer.
After a brief rest and cleanup, the whole crew headed out to the Chinese Buffet and feasted on crab legs, and magically regenerating lemon wedges, while encountering forks that we weren't allowed to send back with the dirty plates, and drinks that never ran dry. (Inside joke, next year, you come and you'll get it LOL).
After dinner, back to the hotel where we seized the hotel pool and hot tub until it shut down, and then we moved to the lobby where we continued until the wee hours again.
Sunday I spent shuttling a few folks to bus stations and airports and saying goodbye to old and new friends.
5 years, and each year gets better and better. I'm already impatient for next years event!
I'll have pics up in the photo gallery mid week, videos shortly thereafter. :)

[Bob Hubbard]

Pics are up.
I did a quick color correction and resize on them, so some may look a little off. I'll go back through and clean them up better when I have extra time, plus I'll be adding a few to my port after proper post-production time.
http://www.fmatalk.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3

Enjoy

[grimfang]

Thanks for the photos Bob! Still trying to work out the math on the lemon slices... think it has something to do with the whole coke/pepsi war and some sort of lemon-industry conspiracy. I still think the 'fork' issue was just a problem with the accent....

[Sheldon Bedell]

yes thanks for the photos. Without being there some of them may not make sence to others because people will not know what was being shown or have heard the whole discussion of why the techniques where demonstrated the way they where, But I can see that all seemed to be having a lot of fun.
I hope no pool photos made it up that could be scary i think