The 4th Degree Martial Arts was proud to receive an unexpected surprise visit from Ernie Reyes Jr., son of the legendary creator of the West Coast Demo Team, Ernie Reyes, Sr. The father and son team starred together in Surf Ninjas (1993) and Ernie Jr. has had a successful career as an American actor, martial artist, action choreographer, director, producer, filmmaker, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.

In addition to his Sidekicks TV series role in the late 80s, some of you may remember Mr. Reyes from his numerous movie roles including Red Sonja, The Last Dragon, Rush Hour 2, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, The Secret of the Ooze (1991) as Keno just to name a few. He also performed utility stunts motion capture for Avatar (2009) and was a stunt double in Alice and Wonderland (2010).

Mr. Reyes holds a 4th Dan (Degree) Black Belt in Tae-Kwon Do under his father Ernie Reyes Sr. and has also trained and competed in Muay Thai.

Mr. Fauth and Mr. Reyes originally met in1982 when the Sr. and Jr. Reyes team was conducting an Australian martial arts tour. Mr. Reyes was in his teens then.

Everyone who attended our Saturday class got a chance to meet Mr. Reyes and chat with him or pose for photos. Some even got his autograph on their belts. Hold on to those belts guys! They are special keepsakes.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 week Summer break just letting the body and mind chill out (indoors of course). Prayed for rain the whole time but no such luck. It's great to be back teaching after recharging the batteries. Our kids got better and TALLER in just the 2 weeks that we were off! Amazing how that happens.

We're finishing up the month of August by focusing on our Back to Basics kicking drills and talking about the Powerful Word of the Month - Teamwork. Last Tuesday's class we featured a teamwork game called "Building Bridges". We even brought in our Lil Dragons to participate with the Jr. students and it was great seeing excited teamwork in action.

September's Powerful Word will be Self-Reliance. Which begs the question - on a scale of 1 to 5, how self-reliant are you overall?