This Week at ATA!

This week we are open! There are future champions in Arkansas competing at Worlds and we have to cheer them on from home. Facebook is a great way to show your support, post something on their wall or send them a good luck message! You can find all of the competitors as my friends on my facebook page: Facebook.com/MrHayhurst. Top Ten competition is the most elite competitors and that is on Thursday and Friday. Then, the Juniors Competiion and Adult weapons competetition is on Saturday. On Sunday, the Adults finish up the tournament with their divisions. It is a very exciting time and, from what I've heard, the most exciting thing to happen to Little Rock, Arkansas since Bill Clinton. Put it in your calendar to go next year, I sure will!

If you haven't done so already, make sure you become my friend on facebook and also, "Like" ATA Martial Arts in Elkton, MD. The more friends we have, the better!

The Last Airbender

I am so excited for this movie! To quote a wise man, "if the kids love it, it's gotta be good." So I gave the cartoon a shot. The Nicktoon channel has been playing marathons of Avatar: The Last Airbender almost non-stop every weekend. The show is pretty entertaining. It's got a great story but most of the themes are based upon old martial arts traditions and character development like perseverance, trust, and courage. Every episode has an epic fight sequence with the main martial art being kung fu, so powerful that their kung fu moves can move the ground, create tornados or typhoons, and create huge fireballs.

So from a series of books came the cartoon and from the cartoon came the new movie The Last Airbender directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It is live action and the coolest part, the main character is an ATA kid from Texas! So make sure you check it out and come to our Last Airbender buddy class! We'll learn self defense, learn the martial arts that each of the elements were based on -Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind- and of course, have an awesome and fun class!

Here's the latest trailer from Youtube of the movie:

Belt Promotions

We had a great showing at our 3rd Belt Promotions of 2010. We had 4 students test to 3rd Degree Black Belt, 1 student test to 2nd Degree Black Belt, and 3 students test to 1st Degree Black Belt. It was really exciting to see all of those kids work really hard over the past 2 months to prepare and really achieve what they focused their mind to. Congrats to all the new black belts!

Also, Saturday June 19th marked the 1 year anniversary of Elkton Karate as ATA Martial Arts! I want to thank everyone for your support, dedication, and enthusiasm for martial arts over the past year and more. It truly is my dream to be an instructor at a martial arts school where all the students are overachieving and above average. My students, parents, and instructors truly make my dream a reality every day.

Combat Fitness at Max Muscle

Today was the hardest workout of my life, brought to me by Mike Lee Kanarek. He is the founder of the reality self defense system called Haganah and the other subdivisions. One of them is called F.I.G.H.T. (fierce Israeli guerrilla hand-to-hand tactics) which is hand-to-hand combat, gun threats and disarms, how to deal with a knife attack or threat, and also how to survive a fight when it hits the ground. Others include how to fight with knifes and tactical firearm shooting. While I've only dipped in the shallow end of the FIGHT system, one thing that MLK offers is a workout called Combat Fitness.

Combat Fitness he says is the "ammo" to your arsenal of fighting. Whatever your style of martial arts is, you need to have the stamina and endurance to last in a fight and Combat Fitness is the answer. The goal of the workout is to reach that threshold of endurance right before you actually pass out or faint. Well, I made it there. It was during the last 5 minutes of the workout that I really had to push and make it through. It was extremely challenging and I loved it.

You might be seeing Combat Fitness at ATA Elkton soon but for now, come and try our ATAfit class. I'd like to thank Ms. Holubyckyj for coming with me and lasting the whole workout too! She got to "Roar with the Lions!!"

Karate Kid Bully Defense Class

In the theme of the new Karate Kid movie, students and their buddies learned how to deal with bullies and defend themselves if anyone tries to hurt, hit, or grab them. Students and their buddies also learned the negative effects that being a bully has on a kid. We did some of the techniques and exercises that the main characters from the Karate Kid movies used when training (catching a fly with chopsticks and other fun games). What a great class!