Mesa Verde – Ancient Native American Home

By Janet Walgren
I have been fascinated by the photos that my friends email me or post on facebook or their blogs about the places that they call home.  I remember thinking what a beautiful place India is (after Archana posted photos of her trip to the Indian countryside). Before her post I thought India was a place that I would never want to visit… full of poor, fly infested neighborhoods with starving people who had snakes in their houses. Now, I know that isn’t true and I would love to go there.

I can imagine that many of my blogging friends around the world have watched TV, news and movies depicting America as a dangerous land overrun with large cities full of criminals and immoral people. Nothing could be farther from the truth so I thought I would do a series about the place, and the country, that I call home. 

The United States of America is a large diverse land with many landscapes and cultures. I would like to show you one of the places that I visited recently.

My dad is 86 years old and out hiked us all. He truly is magnificent!!!

I took my dad on a trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado for Father’s Day to see the ruins of the Native American cliff dwellings. The ruins are amazing. For hundreds of years these cliff dwellings existed undisturbed and undiscovered in the high desert canyons of southwestern Colorado.

There are over 4000 ruins, 600 of them are in the cliffs.

Know one knows where the inhabitants came from or where they went, we only know that at one point in history hundreds of thousands of people lived and thrived in these cities built on top of and in the sheer desert cliffs. It was quite a hike to go down to see the ruins and I can’t imagine trying to raise a family there. But this is where hundreds of thousands of people called home.

Imagine a sheer cliff of red rock and half way down is a cave with a city inside. Imagine raising a family with babies, toddlers and exuberant teenagers in a cave in a cliff.  Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans did just that.

“Split-Level History. Mesa-top and Alcove Living. Although the Puebloan used the cliff alcoves throughout the entire time they lived in Mesa Verde, the cliff dwellings themselves were not build until the final 75 – 100 years of occupation. For over 600 years these people lived primarily on the mesa tops.

Of the 4000 ruins within the park, only 600 are cliff dwellings. All of these cliff dwellings were built and occupied between A.D. 1200 and 1300.”

Here are some of the photos I took on my trip:

 

Judo, my favorite sport

By Janet Walgren
I’ve been compiling some histories, both personal and family, during my down time. Perhaps you would be interested in learning a little about, and seeing, my favorite sport which is Judo.

 Make sure to check out the youtube link and the Texas car wreck link at the end of this post.

Yep, that’s me throwing Jim Harrison in a women’s self-defense demonstration

I did lots of demonstrations in front of thousands of people for about ten years. Most of the self-defense routines consisted of karate and jujitsu techniques followed by a judo throw.

I broke my first board in front of thousands of people during a demonstration.  Jim sprung it on me; it was a surprise. I had never tried to break a board before. I was so nervous that I missed the boards he was holding on the first try and caught him hard with a back kick in the chest. Man did he ever deserve it. Thankfully, I broke the board on my second try or he would have broken my … when we got back to the dojo.

You don’t really hear much about Judo because judo doesn’t pay big profits like the other martial arts.  Jim Harrison promoted my karate tournament wins like crazy because it was good for business.

I was in in TV commercials,  newspaper articles, Karate Magazines, home shows, tournament half-time shows, and even featured at the 1968 World Fair because my karate accomplishments were good for everybody’s business.

In 1975 author, Bob Wall, listed me in the very first Who’s Who in the Martial Arts. Well known karate greats like Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee were also listed in that same edition.

  

When I was going through some of the newspaper clippings last Sunday, I found an interesting clipping detailing the tournament standings for a karate tournament. Check out the name of the winners. Chuck Norris was the lightweight finalist in the men’s black belt division.

Here is a photo of my winning back kick. I won every match with this powerful kick. Note the bend that is still in my leg. By the time my leg was straight, my opponent was out of the ring on her back side.

So why do I prefer judo to karate when I was so good at karate? Well for starters, Judo doesn’t involve knives.

For years when Jim was developing his knife defenses, he would appear suddenly and hand me a big wicked looking knife and say, “Come at me hard with a thrust!” Or, “Try to stab me with an overhand or lunge at me holding the knife like so.”

I knew if I didn’t come full force, I would get beaten up as he demonstrated what he wanted me to do. And, if I did come at him full force, I was still in for a bruising.

When people read his magazine articles about knife defenses, they said wow! They never stopped to ask, “How did he figure that out?” but I could have told them.

I like judo because it is relaxing. It is cool to throw someone and know that you really did it. It is also relaxing to be thrown. It is kind of like a nice relaxing full body massage.

Judo is a sport that requires self-discipline.

It is a great sport for young kids because they have to develop self-discipline to be able to use it. In order to learn the throws, you have to cooperate with your partner. Judo teaches cooperation.

Judo translates “the gentle way” because you use your opponents strength and momentum to throw them, and it is a life sport that doesn’t take a huge toll on your body.

My favorite judo player was a man named Paul. He was an old, tall, skinny, Ichabod Crane type of fellow who would come to our dojo to work out about twice a week.

Paul would just stand there, hardly moving a muscle as the young bucks attacked him furiously. Then there would be a slight move of his hand and a quick sweep of his foot and the young muscle head he had partnered with found himself on the mat. Paul would help the guy to his feet, but that would only last for a second before he found himself on the mat again.

The young guys had a hard workout but Paul seldom broke a sweat. I don’t think I ever saw anyone throw Paul. He was simply marvelous.

Check out this link on youtube to see a quick demonstration of the classic judo throws. This is a great credit card commercial:

I did a lot of self-defense demonstartions in Dallas, Texas in the 60’s. Perhaps these women saw one of them. Check this out: Texas Car Wreck