President's Message

Greetings and best wishes to all our JA members and friends!  On behalf of all the JA team, we appreciate your membership and we’re glad that you’re an active part of this organization.

You may have noticed our new website and the recent steps we’ve taken to make it even easier and more convenient for our members to manage JA registration online.  This is designed to help our member club head instructors to encourage broader membership and renewals.  The online registration is also in place to support our ongoing events, including clinics, tournaments, and annual convention.  If you haven’t already registered your JA membership for 2012, please do so today.  Your active membership supports the organization and our ability to present top-quality training and competition events.

Speaking of important events, the entire JA team is delighted to be presenting the 2012 JA Annual Convention in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, FL, on Sept. 28-30, 2012!  More details will be coming very soon, so please stay tuned and hold those dates on your calendar.  It promises to be another fun and memorable convention, combining 3 days of training clinics, national championship tournaments (JA/USJA Sport Jujitsu, Jujitsu Kata, & Freestyle Self-Defense), black belt testing, and social activities.  We look forward to seeing all our members there!

In the meantime, we’re busy putting together a full calendar of regional activities, training clinics, and competitions for 2012.  I’d like to encourage each of our JA Regional Directors to be sure to host an open JA training clinic in your area at least once per quarter.  These events provide a fun and unique opportunity for cross-training and sharing of knowledge and experience, giving all our members the occasion to benefit from the exceptional skills of our team of valued instructors.

We hope and intend to accomplish some big things for our members this year.  Just as importantly, we are going to remain focused on all the little things that add up to running a great martial arts organization on your behalf.  We are appreciative of the meaningful role JA plays in your martial arts endeavors and your lives.  Thank you for your membership and active involvement with Jujitsu America.  I wish you and yours the very best in 2012!

All the best,

Eric Renner

President

eric.renner@comcast.net

I want to extend a heartfelt thank-you to all our members and instructors for your active involvement and participation at the 2011 JA Annual Convention & JA/USJA National Championship Tournament! It was an epic event, and was made possible through your support! It was great fun to catch up with each of you. We had a very productive Board Meeting on June 17 and elected a new board to take us forward in the next term. Thank you again to all the outgoing officers and directors for all your time, energy, and support over the past two years, and congratulations to the newly elected team! I'll share more on this along with the meeting minutes when those are ready to be distributed shortly.
I've received lots of positive feedback from instructors and from students about the clinic format we debuted on June 18 at the convention. This brought everyone together for one highly interactive session at a time, so no one had to choose between sessions or miss out on training with any of the great instructors that were featured. We all enjoyed the diversity of the sessions and the unique perspective that each teacher shared, and had a great time with the marathon training session from 8am until after 5pm!

The JA Awards Banquet on the evening of June 18 was moving and memorable, with a wonderful tribute to Prof. Wally Jay. It was incredibly special to have Mrs. Bernice Jay join us for the evening and for the featured speakers (Coach Willy Cahill, Prof. Dave Castoldi, Sensei David Quinonez, Sensei Chris Peterson, Prof. Richard Bunch, Sensei Gary Goltz, and Sensei Graciela Casillas-Tortorelli) sharing their heartfelt reflections and experiences with him, along with an outstanding compilation of pictures and video put together by Sensei Chris Hardy. Congratulations to everyone recognized with special awards and promotions! (Mrs. Bernice Jay, Chris Peterson, David Quinonez)

The JA/USJA National Championship Tournament on Sunday was fantastic, with outstanding competitors in each of the three events (Kata, Freestyle Self-Defense, and Sport Jujitsu), and great camaraderie and respect shown by all. In addition to the competition, we all enjoyed an awesome demonstration presented by Master Jino Kang and his team from Hapkido USA. In all, it was
a lot of effort to run the tournament late into the day on Sunday, but the officials and volunteers, and especially the competitors, coaches, and spectators, all made for a phenomenal day and a tremendous way of wrapping up the weekend!

Our longtime partner Tiger Claw once again demonstrated their incredible
friendship, dedication, and support to JA by providing mats, and by supplying
equipment and medals for competitors. It was so nice to see Thomas Oh and
Jonny Oh at the convention, and we look forward to working with Tiger Claw
on many more upcoming events!
(Willy Cahill, Gary Goltz, Eric Renner)
Once again, my sincere thanks to each of you and I'm looking forward to seeing you again at the next JA event! Several
events are on the calendar now, including Traditional Jujitsu training clinics, regional clinics, and we’re finalizing plans
now for our next Annual Convention in 2012, to be presented on the East Coast.
Looking forward to talking with you soon!

All the best,
Eric Renner
President