Hello PMA Family!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time and are soaking up these last few days of the year. I love this time between Christmas and the New Year with my family. Here are my 3 boys on Christmas morning (now 8, 5 and 2)!
Now it’s time to reflect on the past year and get ready for the new one!
Here are some of the things that jump out to me from this past year -
Kangeiko: The year started out with all of our classes still training outside and our students showed so much resilience training in the cold all winter.
March-June: Some students started to receive vaccinations and in-person training with contact started back with private training. By the middle of the summer, all of our group classes were back inside with contact again!
July: July was a big month at PMA. We got to hold our annual summer camp again after missing out last year, I hired a new assistant instructor in Maggie Fox, and we had the largest FILKENJUTSU Black Belt Test yet with 10 candidates testing from PMA and Fusion Martial Arts Club! This test was extraordinary, with a great group of candidates, and a great group of Black Belts getting together again from all over the country for the first test in 3 years.
NEW FILKENJUTSU BLACK BELTS:
Darrel Craig, Eric Ridenour, Christine Traigis, Miles Jackson, Ken Oakley, Tim St. Clair, Rick Wilson, Jesse Heidle, Bill McClintic, and Dr. Nick Xenopolous!
September: My great friend and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor, Felipe Costa, got to visit for a quick seminar with our students and tie the black belt on my wife, Brittany Corrigan. She became the first female Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt at PMA! We also picked three new FILKENJUTSU Black Belt Candidates who are now preparing for their 3 day black belt test - Sam Fox, Richard Sances, and Alex Torres!
October: Our competition team made a return to competition for the first time in 2 years and our Kids and Teens took home 3rd place at the NAGA Tennessee Championship! And in October, we expanded to Knoxville with SiFu Terry taking responsibilities as a chief instructor at the new location!
Holidays: We enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with things seeming a bit more normal than last year. We were able to have our annual holiday sale (best one ever!), our annual holiday party (best one ever!), Spirit Week, and we found out that we were voted as the Best Martial Arts School in Anderson County again.
Here is the 2021 End of Year Video if you haven’t seen it yet -
Here were our Top 10 songs played at PMA this past year in case you need some music for your workouts this week:
Way Less Sad - AJR
Bang! - AJR
I Feel Good - Ehrling
survivin’ - Bastille
Saturday - twenty one pilots
Feel It Still - Portugal the Man
One More Time - Daft Punk
Fly Away - Tones and I
Thunderstruck - ACDC
Cutthroat - Imagine Dragons
Play on Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/pmas-top-10-songs-of-2021/pl.u-Z6geWT6zPDD
Alright, I’ll leave you at that. I’ll be mostly offline the next couple of days with my wife celebrating our 12th anniversary on New Year’s Eve! Enjoy the rest this week, and I’ll see you all back on the mat for a great year of training on Monday, January 3rd!
David Corrigan