Calendar of Events

Regular Class Schedule

Please click on the above link to view a current schedule for all available classes in and around Asheville, NC

Special Dates to Mark on your Calendar

We are in the process of updating this page, thanks for your patience.

Please check with your individual instructor for more details, events vary from teacher to teacher.

*For information on any event listed email us at;*

info@yamabushi.us

January, 2009

Winter Trip

February

Mountain warrior seminar, public: Three great teachers, one full weekend! Sean will covering taijutsu training, Steve will work on woodland field craft and stalking, and Spencer will get into Pressure Release study of tracks/tracking and some solid skill building on invisible scout fires and no match combustion!

March

7th - Belt test for LOTSMA students, outdoor. The farm, 10am-12noon. Video and slide show HERE.

29th - Turtle Island Open House; Meet Eustace Conway and visit our 1,000 acre nature preserve and living Appalachian History farm. Witness and participate with master level teachers doing buckskinning, fire practice, blacksmithing and blade making, animal kill/cooking, wildcrafts and gardening, sawmilling lumber, horse training, archery, canning, food storage, weaving and spinning, and Spencer Two Dogs will lead a 2.5 hour 'scout trek' in search of deer, forageables, tracks, a beautiful waterfall and teach natural relationship along the way! Free and open to the public. (we found the deer!)

30th - Sean Kennedy belt test for students at Kasumi Yama Bujinkan Dojo, W. Asheville, NC. 4:30 - 6pm.

April

10-12th - Sailing, SC.

18th - Workshop / Seminar; Blacksmithing forging and tool construction (we're working on froes for the later shingle making class) `.

25th - Asheville based movie Golden Blade III will be showing in Charleston, SC, during the weekend's film festival. Come on down for some sailing, training on the beach, and perhaps a bit of partying with some rowdy folks. Kid friendly campground nearby.

May

2nd - KOTO RYU Ninjutsu Clinic at Brevard College. $30, folks coming from far and wide for a great day training with Mr. Kennedy, 5th dan.

Review for Nina's black belt (Cho Dan) test.  

Workshop on Shingle making with expert shinge splitter Spencer Two Dogs; "White Oak Shingles and the Radial Split Grain"

30th - Clinic with Three Great Teachers; Sean Kennedy, Steve Opper, Spencer Two Dogs, $30, day

Sean Kennedy - Jiujitsu from Koto Ryu family, Japan

Steve Opper - Forest sensitivity, blindfold games

Spencer 'Two Dogs' - Whitetail Deer tactics for the bowhunter; primitive and compound

June

Highland Scout Camp I (SCI)! A true wilderness skills course taught by experts who have lived it. Learn skills ranging from plants, appalachian lore and music, storytelling, knots and ropes, mechanics, trapping, tracking, native american culture and heritage, history, fire building, archery, blacksmithing, horse and animal care, primitive navigation, and much much more. Contact us for more details. This year's theme is "On target; primitive tools and modern technology ". All ages welcome. Bows and rifles must be checked in upon arrival.

"The other day there a beautiful whistling of titmice-and now one of them lay dead on the grass under the house, which may well have been some fault of mine, as we dumped some calcium chloride on a couple of anthills - not as a poison but as something to move them elsewhere. What a miserable bunch of foolish idiots we are! We kill everything around us even when we think we love and respect nature and life. This sudden power to deal death all around us simple by the way we live, and in total "innocence" and ignorance, is by far the most disturbing symptom of our time. I hope I at least can learn, but in the light of the Holy Week I see, again, all my own internal contradictions - not all! Hardly! But the fact that I am full of them. And that we all are. A phenomenal number of species of animals and birds have become extinct in the last 50 years - due of course to man's irruption into ecology."

-Thomas Merton, When Trees Say Nothing

July

Scout Camp Advanced (SCII) , invitation only - Do you have what it takes? Pictures HERE

August

Scout Camp - Advanced part II??? Stay tuned.

Golden Blade III plays in L.A. Good gosh....

Wednesday the...5th (?) Playing drums with visiting jazz musician Stacy Knights, small cover, held at Jubilee in Asheville.

15th - Bolejack plays drums at YMI cultural center with Current Invention  

16th - King Pow-Wow; King, NC - dance, crafts, tradition, food, family fun, free!

29th - Sean Kennedy and guest Jiu Jitsu instructor cover sweeps, take downs, and angles. $50 ASHEVILLE NC

September

11-13th - Pow-Wow, native dance, culture, mountain folk, crats, music, SPRUCE PINE, NC

17-20th - Family Camp at Turtle Island Preserve. Everyone gets to step back in time a hundred years. Mom, Dad, and the kids....learn together the old ways of bygone Appalachia directly from Eustace Conway, Spencer Two Dogs, and a few other interesting folks.

26th - Stealth and Camouflage with Kennedy and Bolejack, bad to the bone, dont miss it. This is stuff you will never get anywhere else . . . part I, Part II later in Fall. This is a strong introduction into the larger credit-course at LOTSMA wilderness school. Part I features woods practice, mental work, physical techniques, tricks, and stories from some crazy dudes!

26th - Tipi clinic at Turtle Island, for more info CLICK HERE.

27th - Open house at Turtle Island Preserve, master teachers from around the region offer classes and demonstrations free of charge. Spencer will likely be leading a woods walk on some topic more interesting that you might at first think, all welcome near Boone, NC.

29th through Oct 2 - (see below)

OCTOBER

(sep29th) through October 2d - Durham Academy school at Turtle Island.

Hart's Square Festival. Visit the nation's largest living history festival held near Hickory, North Carolina. Hundreds of re-enactors will be demonstrating rare crafts and skills live for a audience of a few thousand. Tickets go fast, CLICK HERE. Over 200 acres are home to rifle makers, blacksmiths, tanners, skinners, cooks, corn processors, millers, clothing dyers, sheep shearers, animal raisers, and more than I could ever list. Spencer Two Dogs from LOTSMA will be demonstrating Cherokee skills and will hold the annual knife and tomahawk throwing contest - always a favorite. Great family event! Click here for pictures.

November

1st - Wrestling Season begins, Buncombe Co. French Broad Conference. See your school athletic director or coach.

14th - Stealth and Camo II; urban settings. Apply improvisational thinking, acting, observation, awareness, attention to detail, stealth and camo in a place alien to the wilderness where we frolic and froth! The City!!!

10am - 10pm, you know where

Hunter's Moon Camp - All of the awesome stuff at summer camp, but this time see how our forest changes - harvesting plants and trees, different crafts, weapons of the hunting season, details and tactics for bow, black powder, and centerfire rifles. Develop a deep relationship with nature and explore our mountains in perhaps the most colorful time of the year.

Happy Thanksgiving: We are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world, with the freedom to think, to act, to question, to praise, to critique, to worship, as we please. Remember those elsewhere who do not have these things, who are imprisoned for their thoughts, and the men and women in uniform who ensure these freedoms continue. And always remember, there are those working to ensure that they don't. What are you doing?

December

Winter. Snow. Cold. Wind. Good training!

Winterfire Scout Camp - Learn the art and science of winter wilderness with Spencer Two Dogs during what some consider the most challenging time of the year in high altitude Appalachia. See pristine and perfect beauty free of human interference, find what foods and fuels exist, and learn how to live in winter comfort. Students will learn the art of firemaking when it counts, and focus a lot on such skills as blacksmithing and navigation, both easier in the Winter! Cross high ranges without the fear of snakes or spiders, see longer distances in dense woods, and be part of the team that builds the new forge work area by the creek. And whataver you do, don't pass up the opportunity to experience The Redneck Hot Tub. Date; over christmas break. Contact us by November 24th if you are interested.

February 6th - Winter Ninja; Sean and Spencer team up to discuss and practice cold weather with students in the Bujinkan and guests

"Zanshin is an instinct we all have buried within us. Warriors don't learn it, they remember it. By building our Kiai and training our minds to enter mushin, we strip away the conditioning modern civilization has put upon us, impeding our access to this basic fighting instinct. Once we remove those blocks to our natural fighting skills, zanshin emerges for us to discover." - Forrest Morgan, Maj. USAF, Living the Martial Way

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