Another Festival done with many lessons to be absorbed and many experiences to sort through. This year I experienced a rather distressing personal challenge as I managed to sustain an injury during the black belt training on Friday which basically disabled me on Saturday. I was able to train very hesitantly and wasn’t able to really do anything to its completion. This unfortunately also made it so that I was unable to perform my demo which I had spent a lot of time working on.

Most of Saturday I was pretty dissapointed and frustrated. Thankfully Mrs. Hayes did some great healing methods on Saturday during the last session and Mr. Hayes did a great guided meditation which really helped me to clear through these negative feelings. After the demos and fire ceremony I skipped out on the regular Rockys party to go back to my room and continue to take care of my injuries.

This combined with the exercises from Anshu Hayes’ made Sunday a great day for me. My ankle and knee, although still sore, loosened up enough to allow me to participate at about 85-90%. The prior days meditation and care vastly improved my attitude about the whole situation. All in all another great learning opportunity on dealing with adversity. Mr. Hayes talked a bit during the weekend about how this was the year of the Tiger and one very full of adversity for him. I can certainly relate (as can most of America) with that sentiment.

Festival is about so much more than learning martial arts. Its about touching in with the community of light bringers we have developed around the world. It is about sharing pain and frustration. It is about the joy of discovery and the richness of sharing. It seems that no matter what occurs something very personal and direct gets touched on. I know this is the case for not only myself, but for others I have spoken with both this year, and in the past.

2011 and 2012 are going to be very special years from what I have heard. There are going to be several mini festivals occuring around the country during 2011. For those of you interested in connecting with this be sure to keep track of the schedule of events located at www.skhquest.com. We will of course keep all of you training directly with us at PQC of upcoming events as always. 

I hope everyone has had a great weekend regardless of what you did with it. I look forward to returning to see everyone and share some of my experiences in great depth.

Michael Akitoshi Stinson

..

And so ends day 1 of Festival 30.  It was a great day of fantastic martial arts training!  At the start of the event Anshu Stephen K Hayes asked us all what we were hoping to get out of the weekend.  What were some of our burning desires. 

Although I didn’t speak up at that point interesting enough the first few things we worked on fit exactly with some of the things I was currently working on/questioning.  Truly a Shiken Haramitsu Daikomyo moment for me  

After the first two hours several of us were broken off and put through some of the testing process that is preparation for our next promotion.  It was a real honor to get to demonstrate for several of the seniors and to work with the other folks also working towards their next promotions.  I had a great time…made some mistakes…did some stuff I felt was pretty cool…and definitely discovered a few areas to work on when I get back.  All in all an enjoyable process that I feel lucky to have been able to go through regardless of the current outcome.

Anyway….thats it for todays update.  Its time for my head to hit the pillow HARD and sleep for 10 hours   Another exciting day of training begins at 10am tomorrow!

Michael Akitsohi Stinson
Phoenix Quest Center for Martial Arts

30th Annual SKH Martial Arts Ninja Festival

This weekend marks the 30th annual Stephen K. Hayes Ninja Festival, and my personal 11th.  So many things have changed in the past decade…when I went to my first Festival in 1999 I was still living in Tampa.  I had not met my wife, I didn’t have kids…in fact in many ways I was still very much a kid myself.

Leaving Tampa to come to Phoenix was somewhat of a re-birth for me.  Although I left a lot of great things behind…in particular my first martial arts teacher Mark Sentoshi Russo, the Tampa Quest Center and all the great people there…I also left a lot of old baggage and silliness behind.

Now more than ten years later I have two beautiful daughters, a wife that I adore and that somehow manages to put up with me, a martial arts school full of wonderful students and powerful friends, and ten years of ‘challenges’ that have helped hone and sharpen my abilities and methods of dealing with the world.

I am very much looking forward to seeing all of the great people I have come to know throughout the years at the Stephen K Hayes 30th Anniversary Festival this year.  It has been a remarkable decade with so many changes, obstacles, tragedies, joys, miracles…I could go on for days!  I remember the struggle to get to Festival 2001 after the events of 9/11.  How important it was to me to get there and how few of us there were due to all the challenges in travel.  I remember how powerful it was to be with that group of enlightened martial artists on that particular time in history.

I cannot wait to see what the next decade will bring to my life and the lives of the warrior family that I and mine are a part of.   I hope this message finds you well no matter where you are or what you are doing in your life right now!

To-Shin!

Michael Akitoshi Stinson
Phoenix Quest Center for Martial Arts