New Zealand to Bangkok

Just finished the seminar in Napier at Shane Cox’s school. We had a blast going through a load of new open guard concepts, some high-crotch takedown principles and some new angles to take the back. At session’s end, the night was topped off with two new purple belts being awarded – one to Gareth Burke and the other to Daffydd Sweatman – as well as a few new blue belts; among them, Shane’s eldest son, Josh! After pics were taken and goodbyes all done, we headed home to Shane’s place for lovely dinner cooked up by Sue Cox (my lovely hostess) before hitting the sack.
After a great breakfast down at the waterfront with Shan, Phil and I began our four hour drive back up to Hamilton (thanks again Phil) in time to conduct an MMA seminar for Steve Wallace’s Incorporated Martial Arts group. This was my first time at Steve’s school, and what a nice bunch they are there. Sadly, Steve himself was away on a trip to Nepal – I am sorry to have missed him – in any case, we still managed to have a blast with the chief instructor, Reid, coming up from Taupo for the session. I look forward to sharing more mat-time with IMA in the new year.
The next morning, I headed to Wellington, where long time friend and Black Belt Geoff Grant picked me up from the airport. We had lunch at one of our cheap and nasty (but favourite) haunts. After heading back to Geoff’s place to jam my somewhat dirty Gi in the washing machine, we made our way down to Mt Victoria Dojo where I took a kids class for Kyokushin Instructors Chris and Jill Gower. Forty kids and an hour and a half later, I kicked off with an MMA class for the Kyokushin adults. We worked on Thai head control, counters, escapes and set-ups for the high-crotch takedown. A great session. That ended at 7:45pm and so I had 15 minutes to eat some protein and hydrate before the 8pm BJJ class were good to go. The mat, as usual, was totally packed – and our advanced BJJ session finished up around 10:30pm. After goodbyes were said, it was back to my hotel and four hours sleep before heading back to the airport at 4:30am. By 8am I was back in Australia where I was picked up at the airport by Melissa and Felix (wife and son).
I was supposed to be on the 2:30pm flight to Bangkok today, but as it turned out, my flight is cancelled. A mass of rebels have taken over the Bangkok International Airport and so all flights into Bangkok have been cancelled. I am trying for Friday or Saturday at this point – so it’s all a bit up in the air (no pun intended) at this point.
I best get out there and buy a couple of red and yellow T-shirts (what the rebels and Government group are wearing) just in case I need to blend in – in a hurry.
Home tonight with my family – what a bonus! More from Bangkok – if all goes to plan.
JBW