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This past weekend, the International Martial Arts Academy of Columbus hosted Guro Marc Denny for a two day seminar on Dog Brothers Martial Arts! Over 20 students from all over attended, including New York and Texas (Dog Chuck!). For many, it was their first experience to DBMA and one that would leave a lasting impression indeed! Saturday began with an over-view of the Seven Range Theory, and how important it was to be functional in all of them. This lead us to Snaggletooth training, a very crucial element to combining your stick with your footwork. Marc introduced us to the "Meteronome" training method, which all seemed to enjoy. It puts students of varying skill levels on the same page during a drill, thus increasing the benefits they get from the training no matter what their level. What a great teaching concept! From there, we progressed into the sixth range, the Standing-Grapple. With DBMA being a "system of many styles", Marc showed how to use Attacking Blocks with elements of Krabai-Krabrong to safely close the gap and achieve the standing-grapple. Once there, he gave us a whole new bag of tricks to dominate position, take-down or control and punish! Day two began with more SnaggleTooth training, adding to the footwork/striking pattern foundation from day one. Adding the second step to th! e SnaggleTooth, we were able to get through the "triangle from the third-dimension" and really wack the hell out of our opponent! A must-have skill for stickfighting!! We finished the day with my personal favorite, StickGrappling! Anyone who has heard Marc's analogy of StickGrappling and Pinball knows this is not a place you want to be with the Crafty Dog! It makes for a long day when a Punyo is cracking you in the skull; you try to defend, only to get hammered in the face with a punch! Again, you try to defend, only to walk into a matrix of chokes and locks! Not so fun on the receiving end! At the end, we watched some fights from the Gathering, with Marc pointing out some important details. The Dog Bros. phrase, "if you see it taught, you see it fought", says it all. Guro Denny is that rare combination of teacher/fighter. All in all, it was a Great weekend! I want to say a Huge Thank You to Guro Crafty for coming in and putting on one hell of a seminar! And for bringing us a taste of Dog Brothers Martial Arts to Ohio. Also, a big thank you to all the students that participated..especially Dog Chuck Blanchard for his assistance. We'll be looking forward to more of Crafty Dog in the future............Mike Hamilton