This last weekend was the 3rd annual Phoenix dojo campout and there was much fun to be had by all. Here’s the rundown.
Friday afternoon we hit the road. Unfortunately highway 87 leading north to Payson was closed due to fire activity, and we had to take I-17 north to Camp Verde and then over from there. This adds 90 miles to the trip. Unfortunately, everyone and their moms were also heading north and it took us 2 hours to make it 30 miles. 2 and a half hours more and we were there. Thankfully I wussed out and opted to stay in a local lodge with a nice comfy bed. Beds are good.
The next morning we started training working on Takage Yoshin Ryu and had a lot of fun. The sun was pretty freaking hot, and I kept praying for the clouds to shuffle in. Thankfully they did later that afternoon. We did some Shuriken throwing, and ended the evening with some fun night stuff until it started raining cats and dogs. Then we left the campers to their rainy misery, had a shower and settled into our warm comfy bed.
Sunday was short but sweet with multiple attacker defenses (for which Thad and I received much of the beatings) and then some sword work cutting water jugs. Sword work is hard stuff, but a lot of fun. Got a lot of good pictures of everyone cutting.
After we tied everything up and left the campsite we hit Payson for some chow and had a good reminder of why I don’t like Payson. The trip back to Phoenix took just over an hour and re-emphasized how painful the trip up was.
All told it was an extremely fun time, and despite muddy, rocky conditions no one got hurt with all the throwing we were doing. This is a good thing. Hurray for ninja hijinx in the woods.
Note: I was half considering naming this post “Me and a Sword and a Man on my Back”. Bonus points for anyone who catches the reference.