January 19th, 2020
Happy new year. My wife and I headed to Fort Lauderdale for a cousin’s wedding this past weekend. It was a quick trip, Friday to Sunday but I found I could catch the Advanced Class Saturday 10:00am at Florida Aikikai, Sensei Bernath’s dojo: I could take class, get back to the hotel, and shower with plenty of time for family pictures.
Peter Bernath Sensei is on the Technical committee and his wife, Penny, is also a Shihan so I couldn’t go wrong! http://www.floridaaikikai.com/new/
My Uber got me there early as I was worried about Florida’s legendary bad traffic i have read about in the Dexter book series (you may know the TV show, the books are better). When I entered the dojo I noticed, after the beautiful Kamaza, after seeing the huge mat, i saw.......the seminar posters. They had our Demko Seminar flyer and the Keith Rosello flyer at APS !!! Pretty cool to see our flyers all the way down in sunny Florida.
Sensei Penny Bernath taught a really cool class. It was a lot of fun. It was all Jiyuwaza and Randori in small groups of three. I was regretting that huge vacation breakfast I had eaten right before class. The eggs did not appreciate rolling. I think they were scrambled a second time and did not like it. Imagine an hour-long Shodan test after a huge breakfast. We even did Koshi with any attack for five minutes. Thankfully, I had Advil back at the hotel. The people of Florida Aikikai couldn’t be nicer, both on and off the mat. I felt right at home. I have now added Fort Lauderdale to my list of dojo's I have practiced and would recommend if you go down to bring your gi. It would be well worth your time.
Oh yeah, the wedding was fun also.
--Sensei Jay