Newsletter Publisher - J. Slinn Volume No.5 Issue No. 102 Date: May 2015

V5.102 1 May 2015

10th Anniversary

Yes, May 10th was the 10th Anniversary of the West Windsor TaeKwonDo & Kickboxing Academy! It’s been a good ten years professionally and personally.

I’ve been blessed with two beautiful daughters and our family moved to a new house in Central New Jersey. I won five Kickboxing Titles – 4 World Titles and 1 New Jersey Title; won 5th place in my first Body Building competition at the Mr Olympia Competition in Las Vegas; and even started competing again in TaeKwonDo Tournaments – I won 1st place in Board Breaking at Grand Master Giacobbe’s International Karate Championships in Atlantic City last July. I’m hoping to repeat this summer!

The Academy has also gone through quite a few changes – both in the number of students enrolled and the physical layout of the facility. We’ve added a MAX Fitness program, Adult Self Defense Classes, and a Leadership Class where we are training students to be instructors.

I am excited about the future – the next ten years – and the changes and challenges that we will face together.

Master StevenMaster StevenMaster StevenMaster Steven

Leadership Class

Successfully completing the Leadership Class in early May were Akitha De Silva, Ronit Deshpande, Pranav Doshi, Amey Kapadia and Michael Ravikovitch. You will see these young men helping Master Steven and Miss Amber teach in your classes. You can identify them as Assistant Instructors by the Red, White and Blue ribbons they wear on their uniform collars. Pictured below are Akitha De Silva, Michael Ravikovitch and Pranav Doshi.

Congratulations!!!

New Students

In April, the West Windsor TaeKwonDo & Kickboxing Academy welcomed back Harshil Bhullar, one of our long-time black belts who had taken a few months off. We’re very happy to see him in class again.

Black Belt Club

The Black Belt Club will continue studying Self Defense in May and also do some work on Tournament Preparation.

In April, Vikram Karamsetty and Nadeesh Sharma joined the Black Belt Club.

May Birthdays

Dhruv Soni - 1st Yash Agarwal - 1st Adi Tomar - 1st Raghu Nema - 3rd Tejaswi Penmatsa - 3rd Sanjana Ramalingam - 8th Yousaf Ahmed - 10th Krish Usgoankar - 11th Eshan Kulkarni - 13th Steven Chen - 15th Liam Connaughton - 16th Lisandi De Silva - 16th Dhruv Sharma - 16th Prabhav Vuttaluru - 18th Abhinav Uthaman - 18th Aryan Agarwal - 21st Jahan Kulkarni - 21st Pranav Anand - 24th Shaurya Shah - 25th Leland Quaynor - 26th Lionel Quaynor - 26th Sofia Aguayo - 27th

Upcoming Events

May 1st & 2nd – Special Black Belt Testing – NO REGULAR CLASSES

May 4th – Buddha Purnima – celebrates the birth anniversary of Gautama Buddha, a spiritual teacher on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.

May 8th & 9th – Battle of Champions at West Windsor TaeKwonDo & Kickboxing Academy – NO REGULAR CLASSES

May 13th thru 16th – Belt Testing – NO REGULAR CLASSES

May 25th – Memorial Day Holiday – West Windsor TaeKwonDo & Kickboxing Academy CLOSED

May 30th & 31st – New Jersey Martial Arts Alliance Invitational Championship – Hillsborough High School, Hillsborough, NJ

Like Us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WWTKD

Visit us at: www.WWTaeKwonDo.com

To see pictures from tournaments and testing, go to www.WWTKD.Shutterfly.com

Newsletter Publisher - J. Slinn Volume No.5 Issue No. 102 Date: May 2015

V5.102 2 May 2015

Tournament News

Congratulations go out to Akitha De Silva who won Grand Champion in Sparring at Grandmaster Kim’s Keystone Invitational Championship in April. Also participating in this tournament were Anika Kapoor, Anjali Bhatia, Ria Gurram, Meaghan Shannon, Rajiv Thummala, Anudeep Reddy, Senan Shannon, Pranav Doshi, Aryan Aggarwal and Jayan Doshi. Grandmaster Kim was very pleased that so many of our students took the time to travel so far – Allentown, PA – to compete in his tournament. Congratulations to all of the competitors.

New Black Belts

May 1st and 2nd, we held a special Black Belt Test. Congratulations to the following students who earned new belts:

2nd Dan – Amey Kapadia

1st Dan – Ronit Deshpande, Akitha De Silva, Senan Shannon, Pranav Doshi, Rajiv Thummala, Meaghan Shannon, Anudeep Reddy and Aadit Manyem

Probationary Black Belt – Aryan Aggarwal, Anjali Bhatia, Vishvam Rawal, Anika Kapoor, Srijan Velury, Satvik Dasariraju, Benjamin Kanter and Ria Gurram.

Did You Know?

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the United States – 1,210 people in each square mile!!! Wow! No wonder there are so many cars. But, even though there are so many people, there are still an awful lot of wild animals here in New Jersey.

In the woods behind the West Windsor TaeKwonDo & Kick-boxing Academy you will find a wonderful menagerie. In late spring, after the snow has melted and the catch basin is full, you will find wood ducks and Canadian Geese. There were even 3 goslings roaming around with their parents in early May. And when the water is high, lots and lots of frogs singing in the evening.

Over the past couple of years we’ve had a couple (sometimes three) of Turkey Buzzards fishing scraps out of the dumpsters. They compete with the crows and squirrels and possums. I’ve even seen a raccoon this year!

Around sunset you will often see one or more deer come into the clearing, but not so much when the catch basin is dry. Recently I saw a black squirrel being stalked by a fox!

In addition to the song birds, you will often be able to hear a woodpecker working away at his task. And most spectacular of all, this year we have a pair of New Jersey Brown Hawks hanging out in the woods.

So, if you’ve got some time, take a look around and see what wonders of nature you can spot. Do you have a fox in your neighborhood? What about rabbits, a possum, skunks?

Watch out for the mosquitos though!