CrackedFinger
August 2003 CrackedFinger Newsletter:

1 - CrackedFinger introduces a new director of sales and new distribution facility
2 - Team Updates
3 - Sites of the Month - August 2003
4 - Call for Articles
5 - Henry Ellis' latest update about POSITIVE AIKIDO - the book
Article Submitted
6 - Postponement of The South Of England Martial Arts Festival And Conference 2003
Article Submitted

[ Visit CrackedFinger > ]

New phone number for CrackedFigner Sales - 01908 374733

CrackedFinger is happy to include the 2nd discount for all newsletter subscribers - 15% Discount valid until 31st August 2003! Simply enter this token when checking out: FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY You can use this token as many times as you wish, and you can pass it onto a friend.


1 - CrackedFinger introduces a new director of sales and new distribution facility
July 25, 2003
CrackedFinger is proud to introduce Ken Edmonds - a new director of sales and distribution. Ken Edmonds brings 15 years experience in sales & marketing in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America to CrackedFinger. His experience will allow CrackedFinger to grow the existing operation, fulfilling a greater number of orders whilst maintaining the current levels of high customer satisfaction.
To enable Ken to set CrackedFinger on a growth path immediately, distribution has been relocated to a larger facility in Milton Keynes and new automated processes are being introduced to speed operations.

The new distribution facility for sales and returns is 13 Ravel Close, Old Farm Park, Milton Keynes. MK7 8EY.

CrackedFinger new sales line is 01908 374733, and Ken will be more than happy to assist you with your enquires.

CrackedFinger
END


2 - Team Results

CrackedFinger would like to congratulate Lucas on his recent achievement:
July 20th - Lucas Rowe wins Gold in the BJA Eastern Area Mini Mon, Orange & Yellow belts U30kg.

[ Clubs @  CrackedFinger > ]


3 - Sites of the Month Award - August 2003

2 sites from CrackedFinger's Directory received awards this month, Kent Wing Chun and Jujitsu Scotland.

Is there a site that you think should receive a commendation? If so feel free to [ Suggest a Site Here > ]

[ Sites of the Month awards > ]


4 - Call for articles

CrackedFingers newsletter subscription is growing rapidly. Do you have an announcement or information you would like to contribute to this newsletter? (its free) If so email the article to articles@crackedfinger.com for inclusion in next months newsletter. Please note that the newsletter aims to be sent during the 1st week of the month, so any event announcements should be sent 5 to 6 weeks before the event takes place.


5 - Henry Ellis' latest update about POSITIVE AIKIDO - the book

POSITIVE AIKIDO will soon be available on bookshelves around the globe.
This book, an in-depth look at our school's special brand of technique, strategy, philosophy as well as unique history, has taken about 15 years to compile, but will soon be offered in print by the world's leading publisher of martial arts material.

CFW Enterprises, a California publishing company boasting some of the largest circulation magazines in martial arts, has agreed to publish the book. CFW publishes Inside Kung Fu, Grappling, Martial Art, Workouts, Action Pursuit and Paintball magazine, as well as numerous book and video titles each year. Positive Aikido is currently scheduled for CFW's spring 2004 line-up.

The production of POSITIVE AIKIDO has gone through numerous stages. The hand-drawings describing each of the positive techniques in traditional Aikido were begun in 1987 with the intention of providing new students with a reference guide - at the time to be photocopied for students in the U.S. and later possibly for the U.K. students as well. That plan, however, never took hold as more and more drawings were produced. The drawings of the first four groupings were finished in 1991 and in 1993, the second four groupings were added, along with some transcripts from a recorded conversation between Sensei Ellis and Rogers on a long POSITIVE AIKIDO road trip between Dallas, Texas and Alamogordo, New Mexico. Rogers made his 1st Dan during that trip, and picked up a lot of its histories and background information. Still, it was no more than a sheaf of papers cobbled together from various sources.

In 1999, however, with the advent of digital photography, Rogers decided to augment the drawings with some digital photos and possibly put together a proper booklet for students in all the Ellis Schools. The photos, however, required some supporting text - and there was a lot of other material which needed to be conveyed as well. The transcripts were rewritten and cleaned up a bit and the photos were digitally processed for the first four forms. During another visit to New Mexico, Sensei and his assistant Anita Wilson along with Sensei's son did the demonstrations needed for the last four forms. Later, the first four forms were re-shot with Sensei Rogers and one of his first U.S. students, Jeff Glaze of New Mexico.

By this time, POSITIVE AIKIDO was being developed as a book.

The agent and publishers we first contacted agreed, but the material was still fairly rough. More photos were shot and extensive digital work was done on them to clarify technique. Additional sections were added to describe combat strategy and the philosophy behind "POSITIVE AIKIDO." Sections on ethics and morals within the arts were developed along with material dealing with the selection of a martial art for beginners. And of course, the history section was strengthened and sharpened.

Lastly, a complete reorganization of the material was accomplished with an addition of a section on pins and control and weapons (jo and sword). The finished work is comprised of more than 1000 photos, 600 hand-drawings and complex explanations and tips to make the techniques of Aikido work properly. It includes detailed writing on the "Positive" mindset as well as complete sections geared to beginners, intermediate students and advanced practitioners.

In the end, the results were enough to bring a solid commitment from CFW, and the authors couldn't be more pleased. CFW is a prestigious martial art printing company dealing with many well-known names in the martial art world. Their work speaks for itself. To see more about CFW, look at their website at www.cfwenterprises.com. When the book is printed, it will likely be available both through CFW, your local bookstore, and this website as well.

Of this book as it stands now, the authors say this. There are a lot of books on Martial Arts out there, and this one fits into the crowd well - but it also stands alone in the sheer comprehensiveness of the work. It is a nearly complete representation of a single school's technique - it is a historical marker - a book of strategy - an ethical guide - a technical manual - and it is a chart, graph and manifest of all the things which make martial artists as a whole stand together as sisters and brothers with the same warrior spirit.

See the latest on POSITIVE AIKIDO at: http://www.geocities.com/ellisaikido/book_pa.html

For more details about this book please contact either Sensei Rogers of "The Hut" branch dojo of "Ellis Schools of Traditional Aikido" in Alamogordo or Sensei Ellis of "Ellis Schools of Traditional Aikido" in the United Kingdom. Details of email addresses can be found at http://www.geocities.com/ellisaikido/ .


6 - Postponement of The South Of England Martial Arts Festival And Conference 2003

A message from Terry Taylor:

I thought I should write to you all to let you know that very regrettably it has been felt necessary to postpone this year's Festival and Conference.

Although all of us on the Committee have more than our fair share of commitments the timing of this has unfortunately clashed with a final opportunity for me personally to undertake further study/professional development. This was only offered to me quite recently. It would be unwise for me to pass this up.

Thus it is planned that the Committee re-convenes in February 2004 with hopefully an objective of staging the Festival and Conference for late that year/early 2005.

There is still a lot of exciting, imaginative and groundbreaking work still to be undertaken. This will continue.

I would in the meantime like to thank all of you for your support thus far and hope that you will continue to do so for the future.

Please feel free to get in touch with me should you need anything further.

Yours in budo

Article submitted by Terry Taylor, Festival and Conference Chairman. terry.taylor@twt.org.uk

[ Find out more about the conference here > ]
[ Terry Taylors main web site > ]




CrackedFinger.
Sales/ any questions: 01908 374733
sales@crackedfinger.com
www.crackedfinger.com



______________________________________________


Web Hosting Offer
CrackedFinger in association with Tree Frog Design offers professional quality web hosting at only £85/year. This hosting package is the same as CrackedFinger's itself and boasts 1000MB (1GB) Server Space, 10000MB (10GB) transfer bandwidth/month, up to 1000 email addresses, up to 10 mySQL Databases, Full script access (ASP, PHP, PERL, SSI), Up to 25 FTP Users, Webmail. Contact - [ hosting@crackedfinger ]

Clubs @ CrackedFinger
Clubs @ CrackedFinger enables clubs to publish themselves using an intuitive interface, providing an internet presence without requiring any knowledge of HTML - for Free! Eligibility to join Clubs @ CrackedFinger requires you to meet all of the following straightforward criteria - [ Join Clubs @ CrackedFinger > ]

Clubs Directory
CrackedFinger includes a Free UK Martial Arts and Boxing Club Directory, providing a free solution for all club owners to promote themselves. This aims to become the UK's largest, and more importantly - the Most Useful Directory of Martial Arts and Boxing Clubs - [ Add your Club here > ]

Links
CrackedFinger Directory enables you to link to your martial arts related site. If you have already added yourself to the directory why not make a link from your site to CrackedFinger, helping CrackedFinger to grow? - [ Add your resource here > ]

______________________________________________


Why did you get this newsletter? This is an opt-in mailing list, where your email address was subscribed to CrackedFinger's newsletter when you either purchased products, added a resource into the Community, you are a registered CrackedFinger trade buyer or you have a Clubs @ CrackedFinger account. If you do not wish to receive any further newsletters you can remove yourself at any time by visiting http;//www.crackedfinger.com and use the Newsletter subscriber to remove yourself.
Copyright CrackedFinger Limited