Taido summer camp is held at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is a two-day event that brings together a good portion of the U.S. Taido population. The university clubs that came were MSU Taido, University of Memphis Taido, and Georgia Tech Taido. The Honbu, Japanese for Headquarters, was of course there and anyone who was a black belt took part in teaching different groups and making sure summer camp was run properly no matter if they were from the Honbu, university, or other branch.
Summer camp started off with everyone being assigned a group, I was in group 9 along with the other adult white belts, followed by stretching and a light workout in a conference hall led by Mits Uchida. Afterwards, we filed out of the conference building and onto the beach in front of Brighton Tower.
Above is the start of our beach practice where Mitsuaki Uchida, the director of U.S. Taido, and his father Mits Uchida, the founder of U.S. Taido, gave a brief summary of what we were doing that day. From there, we divided into our groups and found different spots on the beach to practice for the rest of the day.
In Group 9, there was a purple belt and only three white belts, including me, and we were all the same belt level at white belt with green stripes. My group had three black belt instructors that worked with us as a group and individually as needed.
We needed to learn specific techniques in order to pass our belt test the next day. The techniques were Ebi Geri, Untai Keri Tsuki, Unsoku, and Sentai no Hokei. We practiced these techniques all afternoon and even did a yoga routine to switch things up and learn something new.
When the clock hit 5:45, we wrapped up and went to find something to eat, shower, and hit the hay.
Saturday @ 4:30am
You read that right, we got up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the beach by 5:00am. What were we doing on the beach at 5:00am you ask? We were doing punches. A lot of them. Like… 1,000 punches. And honestly? Totally worth it! It was completely optional (nobody told me that by the way XD) and only a small portion of the entire Taido group was there, maybe about 40 people. Accomplishing one thousand punches until the sun came up was truly an experience I will not forget.
The Saturday Yoake No Keiko, Sunrise Workout, officially began at 6:00am. Mits Uchida led everyone in a slow morning workout that allowed us to watch the beautiful red sunrise.
Below is Mits Uchida Leading Yoake No Keiko
After Yoake No Keiko, we resumed practicing with our black belt leaders to prepare for our belt test until 9:45am.
The belt test covered the same techniques mentioned above: Ebi Geri, Untai Keri Tsuki, Unsoku, and Sentai no Hokei. Everyone in my group completed our belt test together and would find out if we would be promoted at the end of summer camp.
The best belt degree testing began after the white through brown belts tested.
Four black belts were tested to promote to another black belt degree. Their hokeis were amazing and involved all sorts of tengi, or gymnastics.
After the black belt degree testing completed, everyone was dismissed to grab a light lunch before meeting back on the beach for the final workout at 2:30pm.
The final workout turned out to be really fun! We started out by smashing watermelons with wooden katanas while blindfolded, tug of war, and a final practice of our techniques in the ocean while splashing our black belt sensei’s and vice versa!
…
…
I know…
I know this is 2024…
This is very, very, very late…
but I finally finished it and published it.
This is more of a documentary type post that probably won’t happen again for Summer Camp. As of today, 6/16/24, Summer Camp 2024 is only less than a week away. I will post about my experiences after Summer Camp this year within the week after it happens. Kinda wild to read through this but I am posting as is pretty much cause I have other posts I want to get to tonight.
I haven’t posted in a while, so I will be writing some posts to kinda update what all has been going on. This website is kinda my way or recording what I have done because I am terrible about remembering what I have done and it will be cool to look back and remember what I did and cringe at my writing XD.
Have a good one,
Sam
Hey, I enjoyed reading your posts! You have great ideas. Are you looking to get resources about Diet and Weight Loss or some new insights? If so, check out my website Webemail24
Great post! I learned something new and interesting, which I also happen to cover on my blog. It would be great to get some feedback from those who share the same interest about Blogging, here is my website Seoranko Thank you!