Philadelphia Atillo Balintawak Seminar
October 12 - 15, 2006

     Grandmaster Crispulo “Ising” Atillo conducted his annual fall seminar here October 12th-15th. Longtime Filipino martial arts practitioner Michael T. Bates arranged a series of three seminars.
     Thursday evening 2 sessions of kids and adults trained at the American Kenpo school of Joe Breidenstein in Ardmore, PA. As is his custom Joe had a 2 hr private lesson with grandmaster to get into finer points of Balintawak. Friday was a daylong training session for Bates and several other long time students. Saturday found Grandmaster Atillo at the school of Irv Gill in Souderton, PA. for the fourth time. Among the group was Mike Gerrity and 5 of his associates coming from Bangor, Pa. to work out.
     Gerrity and his group are long time practitioners of Vee Arnis Jitsu. Sunday morning training shifted to N.E. Philadelphia. Amerikick Kenpo, a 20-school chain owned by Grandmaster Dennis Tosten hosted the final workout of the series. With the Eagles playing Dallas that day the turnout was less than our July workout (50 then 26 that day) but everyone worked hard and the day flew by.
Grandmaster Atillo promoted Dennis Tosten to the level of Escrimador at the days end. Lunch followed for the group at a local Filipino restaurant.
     Tensions were high as we drove to the airport later in the day hoping to avoid the massive traffic surrounding the Eagles football game. We made it there with time to spare. Our next training session will be March of 2007.

Grandmaster Tosten’s promotion to level of Escrimador