All,

Recently Soke sent me a letter with some comments on this year's theme.
Its a great insight into his training
and life philosophy. Those who attended Michael Pearce and my seminars
recently may recall Michael
talking about these during training. I found Soke's comments to be
profound and I also thought it interesting that
he referenced handing off the art to the next generation.

Take care all and I look forward to seeing many of you in Pittsburgh for
my "birthday" seminar, with advanced
edged weapons and fundo training and the traditional opening ceremony of
the new Pittsburgh BTS Dojo!

Cheers, Phil



From Soke:

This year's theme is to cultivate in each of us the "talent", "spirit",
and "vessel". We all have talent. Spirit you
can say is a spiritual life, and the vessel - our capacity for spirit
and talent. To possess these three
things leads us to mastery of the martial arts that will be handed down
to the next generation.