Some years ago, Unsui stood in front of a crowd of students and guests from around the world to make a toast. With a glass of Swiss beer in hand, and over a spread of fondue, his sentiment was...
Alexander Hamilton, a real American bad-ass leading a group of soldier at night to attack camped out British troops using only fixed bayonets. He was 19. The guy went on to defend New York in it's...
I offer you something I enjoyed today, so that you may do the same, maybe even more so.
The Iroha Poem
'The leaves may shine with colored gloss,
But they will fall, forever lost.
In this false world,...
The path taken within the Dojo and throughout the life of someone studying Kobudo.
Darkness is not a safe place for the untrained. It just isn't.
The path involves you facing yourself, be it through...
When I teach a seminar, I try to show a technique with the toughest, most capable uke. Not the easiest, lightest student with graceful ukemi performed to make me look good. I want to mix it up with...
Amazing time teaching in Los Angeles this past weekend, Koto Ryu Koppojutsu and Togakure Ryu Bikenjutsu. An enormous amount of material covered, and still a long way to go. I have so much gratitude...
Taken from the cover of a book, Adam Mitchell purchased at an antique book store in Japan, the "Kikusui" logo literally translates to “Chrysanthemum water”. It's original reference...
"I am invincible" Maciej said as we were leaving the Dojo on Saturday morning. I knew what he meant, I think maybe more than he realized.
After morning training, I asked Maciej if he wouldn’t...
練習, renshu. To train repetitively. Knowing with the mind and knowing with the body are different things. I’m not interested in talking about a martial art I can’t realize and perform...
In 2014, I was led into an old Japanese tea house, by Sensei.
Accompanying me were a dozen or so folks I really knew nothing about, other than I’d trust my life with each one of them without...
Observing a student. You have to know each one in a way they do not know themselves. This is what separates a teacher from a charlatan, it’s the willingness to learn about the individual...
It just took some time to learn this.
“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others” - Confucius
I spent almost all of my life looking to fight, face...
