Perhaps the highlight of our year was the Annual Aikido Summer Retreat at Menlo College.
This was the 30th anniversary of this week-long retreat.  A major tradition of this camp is the Friday night amateur / talent show known as the “Aiki Follies”.  From the year before, Danielle and I had been chosen to be the hosts for this year’s show.  It’s quite a responsibility! 
11 years earlier, Danielle and I had also been Follies hosts and it was from that experience of working closely together that our relationship ultimately moved to a deeper level. As hosts we are responsible for organizing all the details of putting on the Follies as well as (again, by tradition) a daily “skit” announcing/promoting the show.  Being the 30th anniversary we introduced a “Pearl” theme, which tied together western tradition (gift of pearl) and eastern mythology that says that pearls come from the brains of dragons.  For our opening announcement, Rita and Jordan graciously drove up from Monterey, bringing their taiko drums.  They played a rousing festival piece while several of our students got beneath a Chinese dragon costume and our friend Michele Simone “teased” the dragon with a “flaming” pearl dance.  So, we definitely got things off with a bang!  When we were hosts 11 years earlier, Danielle suggested that we open the show with a dance.  Even though I mildly protested that that wouldn’t be a good idea, because I didn’t know how to dance at all, somehow I found myself, with her, taking private dance lessons – learning a Tango to which we added a few Aikido-style elements.  So, naturally, Danielle thought a Tango would be a fitting opening for this year’s show.  Yikes!  We hadn’t danced at all since the show 11 years ago.  Nevertheless, we looked up our former dance teacher and arranged lessons.  Working with her we created a dance for a favorite musical piece, “Spente le Stelle” by Emma Shapplin.  Again we incorporated Aikido elements, plus some Jo (wooden staff) movements.  We even had a private lesson with a visiting instructor, Cate Caplin (www.catecaplin.com ), who, among other things, was the dance coach for Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere for the recent movie “Shall We Dance?”.  Overall, it was quite an experience and in the end our opening performance went well and was enthusiastically received.  A web-movie version of it (19MB) can be viewed by clicking here, AikiTango (requires free Real Media player).

This year was our 14th Annual Big Sur Weapons Retreat.  Even though we don’t actually hold it in Big Sur anymore…  For the past 3 years we’ve held the event at Douglas Ranch in Carmel Valley.  Not quite as scenic, rustic or remote as Pico Blanco camp in Big Sur, but still a beautiful setting, much closer – and MUCH more comfortable.  It’s a week-end retreat, Friday night through Sunday afternoon.  Danielle, Dennis and I were the instructors this year.  This year, the “entertainment” committee organized a “Luau” theme for the Saturday night dinner. Colorful, fun, and a bit wacky – especially when it degenerated into karaoke singing later that evening in the Lodge!  Fortunately no film of that ;-)