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 […]
“Do you guys spar in your martial art? I read on the internet you only practice techniques against a cooperating training partner.” A visitor was checking out our dojo, and wanted to clear up something that was getting in the way of his enrolling with us. There is a lot of outright ignorance on the […]
I just got home from a meditation retreat hosted by a senior Tibetan teacher. While there, we participants spent hours each day tucked in side by side on Asian style meditation cushion seats on the floor. At one point I looked around at my fellow American participants and noticed an odd unstated discomfort. People did […]
I’ve written 19 books so far. I have 4 more in the works in various stages of completion. My books in English and several other languages have sold way over a million copies. I must be pretty good, huh? Yes, but… I want to be better. I sent one manuscript in progress to my friend […]
Two young men in Texas – Patrick Tow and Rayford Outland – decided to do a History Fair high school project about ninjutsu training and my work. After gathering information from my books, DVDs, and the internet, their teacher asked for more detail and urged them to write to me personally with some more questions. If you might be […]
One of my friends at the Sakya Pema Ts’al Monastic Institute, just outside Pokhara, Nepal, sent me some photos of senior students of the shedra (monk college) in their computer training class. As from a description of meditation for beginners, they sit in perfect upright posture, focused in unswerving meditative concentration, letting go of the […]
Sometimes people ask me why I want them to spend more than just a little time on each new lesson in our Dayton Quest Center martial arts school. Why all the review and repetition? “Hey, look! I’m done! I’ve got that one down already! What’s my next lesson?” an exuberant student might shout out. Well […]
Two young men in Texas – Patrick Tow and Rayford Outland – decided to do a History Fair high school project about ninjutsu training and my work. After gathering information from my books, DVDs, and the internet, their teacher asked for more detail and urged them to write to me personally with some more questions. If you might be […]
Each January 7 we celebrate the founding of the Kasumi-An that took place on the first day of the Heisei era, January 7, 1989. The Kasumi-An is my personal dojo training hall that is my house, and the name thereby extended to all people who practice the To-Shin Do self defense and self perfection arts […]