Are you upgrading when you take a small obscure military specialty from a bygone age and give it a new role improving the lives of a new century of beneficiaries? Or is it a desecration of the historic, an affront to the spirits of those who died fighting to hold their homeland free from invading […]

Here’s Rumiko on the beach south of Ancona, Italy, on the Adriatic coast. The young Italian couple in the water are collecting bags of mussels that they will sell to restaurants along the coast. Another Tuesday morning working for a living for them. Look where they have chosen to work. Look what they have chosen […]

Our To-Shin Do martial art was developed from the original combat methods of the Togakure ninja of Japan. One of our hallmarks is an educational process that incorporates an understanding of psycho-emotional influences described by a series of five element-nicknamed patterns. The water element describes a tendency to put distance between self and others in […]

Have you seen my niece Sabrina on the Tuesday night Fox network Hell’s Kitchen television reality competition hosted by London super chef Gordon Ramsey? Three episodes into the intensely high-pressure series, and Sabrina is holding her own. None of us – not even close family members like this loving uncle who blessed her vows in […]

I have seen people enroll in a martial arts course for the purpose of learning things that they want and need and do not yet know, and then display displeasure when they are given guidance as to how to learn what it is they want to learn. “Flex those knees deeply and see what that […]

My friend Luca Paniconi, head of our Ancona, Italy, To-Shin Do training group, got his first article published in the Italian media. Luca’s essay so impressed Kevin Keitoshi Casey, co-owner of our SKH Quest Center in Boulder, Colorado, that he worked to translate it into English for all to read. Here are Luca’s thoughts condensed […]

Secret scrolls of the warrior sage are what I set out to find when I left for Japan in 1975 in search of the ninja. As a young man, I longed for contact with the wisdom of the ages. What if there really were special secrets guarded by generations of warriors sworn to the highest […]

I was a die-hard fan of the early 1970s TV series Kung-Fu, starring David Carradine. Back then I was a low ranked karate black belt in an America that barely recognized – let alone understood – the Asian martial arts. Shaolin Temple monk Kwai Chang Caine, wandering in exile from China in the rough American […]

Many years ago, I used to tell students of an interesting comment once made by ninjutsu teacher on one of our walks late at night after training. I was continuously probing with questions about what a ninja really was. I wanted to move on from my Western stereotype ideas, and closer to the authentic truth […]

At the Boulder Quest Center seminar recently, I asked head instructor Mary Aitoshi Casey and a few other skilled female practitioners how they related to my constant emphasis on the realities of street self-defense. Other martial arts are prettier than our To-Shin Do. Maybe such things would appeal more to women? I am always talking […]