Saturday, September 1, 2012

St. Baldrick's 2012

On March 3 2012 I participated in a local St. Baldricks event to raise money for childhood cancer research. Even better I was given the opportunity to do so while representing Equa Do Martial Arts. In response to my request for a donation, Master Eric contributed five lessons and a uniform as a raffle prize, as well as twenty dollars with which to purchase boards. The idea was to show those in attendance how to break one properly and then sell the remainder to those interested in giving it a try for two dollars a board. The proceeds would go to the St. Baldricks Foundation.

The day of the event, even though my arm was in a cast, I was very excited. I was finally going to have a chance to share the martial art I so love with a group of people who were new to it. Plus, it was for a great cause. Because Robbie and Chad were contributing in other ways, we had to get there extra early, so we beat Sensei by about half an hour or so. That was a good thing though, because the bar we were at started to get crowded, and fast.

About two thirty in the afternoon, we got our chance to do our first of two demos. Sensei began by explaining who we represented, and left me to explain the philosophy behind combat hapkido. I then told a little bit about why I chose to begin in the martial arts. and how I felt it had benefited me. Then we showed them some light sparring before moving on to board breaking. Surprisingly, this ended up being a really good sell, and over half the boards we brought with were used up. One was even broken by a 501st Legion member dressed as a stormtrooper!

Between demos, we canvassed the crowd for feedback and kind of started to plan in our heads for the next demo, based on what we heard. Equally important was getting something to eat and drink so as not to exhaust our bodies.

The second demo occurred later in the evening, when the crowd had changed over to include more adults than just families, which was a completely different demographic. For this one, we focused more on the philosophy behind Equa Do itself, and added cane work to the sparring portion. The rest of our boards were quickly bought and we finished to thunderous applause.

Then we just waited for final totals from the evening to be calculated, which were quite high. Equa Do alone contributed just over one hundred dollars to the final total, not bad for a last minute decision to participate.

More soon,

Misha

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