Summer is always a good time of year. It's a time to break out of the patterns of winter and stretch the mind and body. Summer is when I normally get most of my new students starting and it's the time I run my training camp. Training camp is something I enjoy. For old students it is a chance to get really serious about practice and for new students it's a great way to start training and get into the habits of good training. This year is a bit different because we have company for the summer. Mary's cousin Katherine from Nottingham England is coming out to spend the whole summer with us. Personally I'm excited about that because this is the first time in her life that she has been more than five miles from the spot she was born. Hard to imagine such a life style in this world of travel but I'm told it isn't uncommon in small communities in England. So now with her 19th birthday she is going to see the world, and we are going to show her it. I'm looking forward to that. But for now I must get things ready for camp.

My camp is a lovely spot back in the forest on a lake. I own the lake and the land around it and have gradually turned it into a special sort of camp. The nearest outpost of civilization is about 15 miles away and that town is only big enough for one large store, a few small shops, two competing restaurants, a post office, a handful of houses and an icecream store. The icecream store is the major point of note about the place since they make their own icecream in 120 flavors fresh every day. People often head there from the city to enjoy the drive and have the icecream. Being on the major highway half way between two cities they get a lot of drive through business.

As for the camp itself, the lake is actually a beaver pond which has about a mile of shoreline and I own a strip of land about 200 yards wide around the lake with an extra bit that is 100 yards by 100 yards on one side. That's where the cabins, tents and other buildings are. We have boats that people can row on the lake, a nice area for swimming and there are paths all the way around the lake for hiking. The cabins surround a practice area which is covered with sand and there is various equipment set up there. In all, it's a nice place and I'm proud of it.

For those who come out to the training camp there is good food, fresh air, practice as well as exercise of a more recreational style such as the boats, hiking, volleyball and other sports. Everything is carefully planned to provide an interesting variety of activities that will condition the mind and body to aid in improving the martial skills while making the whole experience enjoyable. I have people come out to the camp just as a vacation from the rat race.

Preparing such a camp is a challenge in of itself. Just putting together the food and supplies for a week long camp with about 60 to 80 people is an interesting job. That's almost 1700 meals plus snacks and lots of healthy drinks. After planning all the meals and picking up the food you start thinking food is the only thing of importance, but it isn't. The thing is, everything is in such quantities that it overwhelms the mind. Still, while I can't say that I like the work of setting up the camp, the actual camp itself is marvelous. The fact that the students who come out feel the same is a real bonus.

One of the things I enjoy in my work is the range of differences in the people I teach. I have always been an observer of people and I get people from all sorts of backgrounds. Some are quite strange, some are beyond that, and others are very ordinary but one thing I've learned is that none of them can be predicted. I love it.

The first camp of the season was a three day long weekend camp. I have staff who go out ahead of me to get things ready for the camp and then I come to do the actual teaching. My staff went out early Thursday to get things set up and I was to be there Friday evening for supper. By then the students would have been registered and they would be ready to get started. Thursday proved to be a late night for me but that was fine since I had planned to sleep in Friday and take it easy until it was time to head out to camp. Well I have to say that Friday was a busy one. My day started with a frantic call from a friend at 7:00 in the morning, his car had died on him and he was going to be late for his first day on a new job. I rushed over and got him to work on time and was back home by 8:00, just an hour before I had intended to get up. So much for sleeping in. I decided to get breakfast since I was up anyway.

After breakfast my plans to relax were interrupted by a call from the camp. While things were being set up it was discovered that the generator which supplied the camp with electricity wasn't working. My staff assured me they could manage without it until I got there that evening but it meant that I had to spend my day running around finding the parts that were needed to repair it. So much for a relaxed day before camp. Suddenly I didn't have time for the things I had planned to do that Friday. Well, you do what you have to do. I was on the go all day and when I arrived at camp I had a good four hours worth of work I was going to have to do in addition to the camp orientation and first lesson that night.

As if to remind me that nothing is as simple as it seems, the cook complained that some animal had knocked over the garbage while he was preparing dinner. Always nice to get problems as a hello. Makes you feel wanted.

Dinner was fine and the orientation lecture went by without a problem. The students were ready for three days of hard work and that's what I had planned. They were given 30 minutes to get ready for a class.

It was 8:40 when I finished my lecture, just 10 minutes behind schedule, and as the students headed out to their assigned tents to get changed and ready I took a few moments to center my thoughts on the lesson I was going to teach. Just before they were supposed to assemble for the class there was a commotion. One of the students came in to tell us that someone had seen a bear in a tree. Now when you are in a camp in the forest it is always possible to have forest creatures drop in unexpected, but as far as I knew there were no bears in the area and even if there were I didn't think bears were typically found in trees. Still I went out to see what it was all about, after all, people expect the person in charge to do that sort of thing. When I was shown were the bear had been, since it wasn't there now, I was amused to see that it was a rather small tree which was unlikely to be able to hold something the size of a bear. I decided to use this as an object lesson in my class that evening since it was about senses and how they can deceive us.

The class went ok and by 10:30 we had completed everything I had planned. I dismissed my students and sent them off to their tents with a warning that they should be sure to go right to sleep because breakfast call was at 6:00 in the morning and those who slept in would regret it. By then people knew that while I was to be taken seriously I was not really threatening them. People had already learned I had a sense of humor to be afraid of and no doubt I planned to have some fun with anyone who slept in. As for myself, I sat up in the dinning hall until almost 3:00 getting the work I had left to do taken care of before I staggered off to bed in one of the tents. If my students sleep in tents then so do I.

Not meaning this as an excuse but rather an explanation, 6:00 comes early if you have had a long day that didn't end until 3:00. Normally I wake up reasonably but somehow I just didn't quite make it this time. It is a tribute to my students that they have diligently sought to follow my example in all matters at the camp. So it was that at 6:15 a loud shouting of my name woke me up, 15 minutes late, and I staggered out of my sleeping bag and headed for the flap at the front of the tent. I tried to open it but for some reason I couldn't seem to work it. The reason soon registered on my sleepy brain as I noticed that the door was missing altogether! Now it took some thinking, but I knew I had the bag just to the right of the tent flap and that meant the flap had to be there. For several more moments I studied the problem. This was the back of the tent, even though I knew I was at the front of it. Finally it occurred to me that if this was the back of the tent, then the front had to be behind me. Looking back I found that this was indeed the case.

Now I thought at this point that someone had managed to move my sleeping bag with me in it to the back of the tent and turned it around to disorient me. Not a bit of it! When I walked out the front of the tent I found that I was at the back of the tent! Still confused I walked around the tent to find my students laughing as they waited for me. It turned out that what they had done when I failed to get up on schedule was to turn the tent around! This was no small feat since the tent was an army surplus 14 man tent which had a wooden frame that it was set up on and a platform for a floor. What they had done was to send seven people quietly into the tent to hold the center post, the two side posts and the four corner posts while others outside undid the ropes. Next they walked the frame and tent forward so there was room enough to turn it, turned it around and walked back to where the tent had been set up and they retied the ropes. I suppose it served me right for contemplating pranks on those who slept in.

Breakfast that morning was eggs and sausages, pancakes, grits and a high energy health drink. For those who don't know what grits are, it is a sort of porridge make from corn meal. In my opinion it is well named because it feels gritty in the mouth. Not one of my favorite foods, but it is a hearty dish. I noticed that some of the students reacted to it much the way I did the first time I had it, which is to say, not well.

The morning went fine, even if I was more tired than I would have liked, and before noon hit I was getting a second wind and going strong. For lunch we had a wonderful vegetarian stir-fry with rice and another herbal tea intended to help kick the body into high gear for the workout that was to come. After lunch we spent some time doing meditation and breathing exercises and then moved on to slow sets and from there we moved on to new techniques. This gave lunch time to settle before getting into the more physically demanding aspects of the afternoon.

One of the things I wanted to work on with my students was a flip which involved dodging backwards and then doing an areal back flip with a twist so that you land facing 90 degrees away from how you started. There are a number of uses for the move and it isn't really that hard to do. The secret is that you need fairly good timing and you have to relax and let it happen. You see, fear is what generally makes the move hard. If you can overcome the fear and nervousness over the move then it's easy to do it. One student in particular was having a lot of trouble with the move. I could see he was just not able to let go and allow it to happen for himself and I couldn't see what more I could do to help him. Suddenly I realized that he was one of the students that had reacted quite badly to the grits we had for breakfast but he had eaten them all even though he looked like it might have killed him. Armed with this observation I walked over to speak quietly to him.

"I see you are having trouble with the move." I said.

"Yes Sifu, I don't think I can get it." he responded.

"That's too bad, I think that if you can't get it on this next try that we shall have to do something to improve your movement. I'll have the cook serve you grits for supper to clear the toxins from your blood. If that doesn't work then we'll have to get more grits into you." and I walked away. Next try he got the move perfectly. All he had needed was the right encouragement.

After supper we had another couple students spot the creature that had been knocking over the garbage. The one reported seeing a bobcat but the other said it was definitely a lynx. So it seemed we had a bearbobalynx on the prowl. So far all we had were reports of an animal seen in the trees by one or two people and the fact that the garbage was getting bothered by something.

If people were nervous about the animal in the area it didn't show much and that was good. The cook seemed the most bothered and that was because of the garbage cans. By 10:30 we were done for the night and everyone headed off to bed. This time I was going to get my seven and a half hours sleep.

At about 4:00 I was woken by a yell outside. Someone was shouting "bobcat!" and everyone rushed out to find out what was happening. There were two eyes staring down from the roof of the dining hall. Several people had flashlights with them and the creature was caught in the beams of all those lights. There it was; the bearbobalynx! It was a possum that had been curious about our garbage cans. We let it get away and everyone headed back to bed to catch a bit more sleep.

Sunday went without incident or at least nothing worth commenting on and in no time it was Monday afternoon and the camp was almost over. In all it had been a good camp and everyone had gained something worthwhile from it. Now it was off home and I would have three days to recover before the next camp began.

Mary's cousin flew into town last night. The experience had already opened her eyes by the time she got off the plane since she had never really understood how big cities could be. What with London where she had boarded the plane for here and then the sight of the city spread out at night when she arrived here like a Christmas tree of lights as far as the eye could see, well, to say she was wide eyed and silent is an understatement. She had thought she was ready for the sight, but her imagination had never prepared her for the reality. It had been a long flight and she had been awake the whole time because she was too excited to sleep, so we decided that the best thing was to just take her home and let her wind down. The next day was soon enough to start showing her the sights.

It was refreshing to see her looking wide-eyed with child-like excitement. An adult untouched by the harshness of the world. I knew for sure that I would have to take care in exposing her to the real world so that her eyes would be opened without loosing that excitement and wonder at the diversity of the world.

I had already been awake for several hours when Katherine staggered out to face the world. Mary had an important appointment out of town so I was going to take care of our company for the day. I fixed her breakfast while she had a shower. I enjoy cooking but I don't get to do it nearly enough. While she eat I had a cup of coffee and we talked about what we might do that day. Shopping and seeing the city seemed to be of most interest and so we began with a general plan but no details. Details could fill themselves in as the day wore on.

Just before we headed out there was a call from Mary's older sister. Now there is a reason why I have never mentioned Mary's sister before. She is not my first choice for someone to spend time with. Penelope is a self-centered sort who wants the world to revolve around her and she brags constantly about how good looking she is, about the things she has done and the things she knows and on and on. But she is Mary's sister and that also means she is Katherine's cousin too. She wanted to join us for the day and there didn't seem any way out of it. So arrangement were made to meet her down town for lunch. That gave us the morning in peace.

The morning went well and we enjoyed a good time seeing the sights and shopping. The appointed hour came and we met Penelope at The Japanese Village Restaurant, a fine place for lunch and a new experience for Katherine. It was a nice place, one of those restaurants where they cook the meal right at your table. As was typical, Penelope was greatly over dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a backless evening dress that was floor length, high heels and a clutch purse. It was all in black sequins. Katherine and I were dressed casual as you might expect for a day of shopping and sight seeing.

The chief we had was quite a funny sort of guy who chatted all the time he prepared our meal. I enjoyed it and I heard no complaints from Katherine. Penelope on the other hand found flaws in the style since she had once dated a Japanese chief and he had taught her all about this style of cooking. At least that's what she claimed.

We had Japanese tea with the meal and sake to add that certain something to the dinning pleasure. I still remember my first time with sake. I wasn't much of a drinker then. Sashe, who was a Karate instructor from Japan, was visiting for a tournament. He invited me out for drinks and a light snack since I had helped him with some things that day. He ordered everything in Japanese and I just politely accepted whatever was put in front of me. There were many flasks of sake that day but I didn't feel like it was doing all that much. I commented at the end of the stay that it seemed alcohol didn't have much effect on me and I started to stand. Sashe smiled and said that my shoe was untied so I bent to tie it. Just as my brain told me I was wearing slip-ons, I noticed that the floor was still rising to meet me. I didn't pass out but boy did I learn that the sake had had its way with me. Never bend over while you are drunk.

The though of pulling that on Penelope crossed my mind but I decided that much as she deserved to be taken down a peg or two, I wasn't going to do it for her. The universe has a way of balancing things out over time and I prefer waiting for it to happen naturally. Well, most times I do.

Penelope did have a fair bit to drink, after all, she could hold her liquor better than most people, or so she said. I was already getting tired of her snooty superiority and her tales of all she could do and it looked like Katherine was also, but what could we do?

We drove down to the 8th Avenue Mall, a section of the street that was blocked to traffic for several blocks. There were a lot of shops to see along the mall and Katherine was looking forward to a couple spots I had told her about. Penelope rode up front beside me, naturally, and we headed off.

I pulled up beside the mall and was going to let Penelope and Katherine out there before seeking a parking spot. Penelope was showing some effects of her drinking but was not too far gone. She opened the door and ducked her head to get out. The single tie at the back of her neck caught on the hook above the door. She gave a shove and got out and standing straight and bold. The tie broke as she did this. The dress dropped to the ground. There was Penelope, no longer wearing the dress, she had nylons and high heels and her clutch purse and nothing more. It took her a moment to figure out what had just happened and then she stooped to grab her dress and swiftly dove back into the seat. As she started pulling the dress up there was the sound of clapping and whistles from the mall and Penelope said she wanted to go home now. I drove her in silence and she departed without a word. After Penelope was in her house I turned to Katherine. There was a smirk on her face that she couldn't hide.

"She did seem to want to be the center of attention." Katherine pointed out, "One might say she got what she wanted."

I couldn't find it in me to reprove Katherine over it. The universe was just balancing the scales in its own way after all. We drove off and parked near the mall and had an enjoyable time shopping and hearing about the sight seeing others on the mall had been doing.

I had been unsure if Katherine would be interested in coming out to my camp. Just because it is something I would find of interest did not mean she would, but as it happened the idea thrilled her. So it was that Katherine was packed to come along with me when I headed out to the camp the next morning. The students would already be there since registration had been the night before and the first day was largely free time to allow them to settle in. I would arrive before noon with Mary, Diana, Katherine and two assistant instructors and start things going in the afternoon.

Now it has always been a sort of tradition with me to stop for icecream in the small town 15 miles from the camp, and you might recall what I have said about traditions. Sometimes these things work in my favor. I had thought that Katherine would be impressed with the icecream since it is the best icecream I have ever tasted in my opinion, but I hadn't thought it would have quite the impact it did. As we approached the store I told everyone in the car that I was stopping for some icecream and that I was buying. That got the positive reception it always does. We stopped outside the store and I turned to Katherine and asked her what flavor she would like. After a moment's thought she said she wanted strawberry. Diana was next and asked for Tiger-tiger followed by Mary asking for Grasshopper. By this time I noticed that Katherine was looking at us oddly but I wasn't sure why. Next Robin, who was one of my assistants, asked for Rocky Road and then David asked for Chocolate Fudge. Katherine looked at me and asked what we were talking about and it dawned on me that she hadn't realized all the flavors she had to choose from. I asked her what flavors she was familiar with and she replied, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. She had never heard of any other flavor. Well, I took her inside to look at the choices and I don't think anyone has ever taken longer to choose. As we returned to the car, icecream in hand, she was radiating bliss like a child who had just now discovered there were treats to eat in this world.

In spite of the delay over icecream, we arrived at the camp in time for lunch. The cook had made a light lunch of tasty tidbits that were set out for people to serve themselves. I surveyed the students in the dinning hall. There were a number of regulars who came out each year as well as students who had joined my school in the winter and were coming out for their first camp, and as always there were a crop of new faces. From the looks of things my staff had done a good job of settling them in.

Unlike the three day camps I sometimes run this one was ten days long and the way it was handled was somewhat different. After lunch we began the program with 'following'. This is an exercise where one person touches the back of a second person's hands and tries to follow the hands wherever they go. It teaches you to relax since it's easier to do then and it teaches you to respond to the changing motions of your partner's hands. This is the start of blocking and maneuvering which is the basis of all the techniques in the art. If a student learned only one thing, this is the thing I would hope they learned. It also teaches the students to get used to each other and helps to form a comfortable environment to learn in.

This was then followed with a trust and awareness exercise in which one student touches the back of another students hand and then closes their eyes and the second student leads them around obstacles with only the light hand contact to communicate with. This teaches a trust in each other which I feel is important since the goal is not to compete with other students but to compete with yourself and to learn together with everyone helping each other towards the goal of advancing. It is also an important tool in developing awareness of things. After these two exercises which took about half an hour in total we finished with a half hour of meditation and slow breathing. This then was followed with two hours of swimming, volleyball and other physical activities which combine a workout with having fun.

The afternoon ended with a time for practicing sets, those are movements from the art which are practiced slowly. They are like a dance which conditions the body and mind. Sets can be done as an exercise or as a moving meditation or as a group of combat techniques you are working on perfecting, depending on the level of the student and what they most need.

Supper was a hardy meal which provided well balanced nutrition for all and was quite tasty. I take pride in having good cooks for my camps. After eating we sat in the dining hall and played some mental challenge games which required fast and flexible thinking to win. Kung-fu is not about hitting people, it is about developing the mind and body in harmony with the spirit and my camp reflected that.

Later in the evening we built a camp fire and I gave a lecture on meditational techniques and the philosophy of the art and then we turned in to rest until midnight when we had another activity planned.

At midnight we gathered outside the dining hall and headed for a walk around the lake. The idea was to teach awareness by expecting people to rely on other senses and not just sight so we went without light of any kind.

Now Katherine had no real experience in the wild, which is what she thought of the area as. The largest wild animal she had ever seen was a fox in a zoo back home. As a result, she wanted to stay close to me on the walk. This might not have been her best choice.

About a third of the way around the lake I spotted a moose on the hills beside us. Innocently I pointed him out to Katherine, it was a large 5 pointer standing majestic in the moonlight.

"Is it dangerous?" came a fearful question from Katherine.

I paused as I looked carefully in contemplation and then, not so innocently, I responded, "It looks like its eaten already so we should be safe. They don't normally charge that far unless they are hungry. But if it does charge, climb a tree because moose can't climb trees."