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FEATURED POSTS
Ichi-Go Ichi-E, Wisdom for the Holidays
We spend days – weeks even – preparing our recipes, fussing over the physical preparations, but how are we preparing to meet what is the most important part of a Holiday…our relationships with the people present? Here’s a few examples and ideas for conversation starters:
Mountain Quest 2025
Rainy Mountain Quest 2025 on North Carolina’s Grandfather Mountain is now a grand memory… As promised, I will list notes from the kata taught over the August 2025 weekend. These are from the Kuki Shinden Ryu bojutsu collection Sabaki Kata GEKICHU KERI AGE TSUKE IRI GORIN KUDAKI (“Crushing the abdomen”) I did not include the description of what the adversary is doing with his sword in these descriptions. I don’t expect anyone to learn and apply this technique without having been there. It is listed as a reminder for those coached through the kata at Mountain Quest 2025.
ALL POSTS
Concepts, Principles, and Techniques
Something I will be emphasizing in seminars this year is the differentiation between concepts, principles, and technique instructions. If our students know the concept of
Why the 3-Part Student Creed?
When people come into our schools as white belts, they learn a three-part Student Code, or student creed, and promise to abide by it. We
Order and Chaos
What if martial arts training is really an interactive experience of order and chaos? When there is an imbalance, there is less than effective training.
Exploring Kuji No Ho
A few advanced black belts are taking private Skype lessons with me, studying aspects of kuji no ho “nine syllables of aspects of power”. I
Above the Fray
I am 70, and have seen so many cultural fads come and go over the decades. WWII vets got parades; Viet Nam vets got spat
A Strange and Surprising Opportunity to Learn and Grow
On our final Saturday of our Vajrakilaya retreat at Pema Ts’al Monastery in the Nepalese Himalayas, Eric Gadol, Lauren Garst, and Geoff Garst went with
Get Angry to Get Focused
Do not get mad at conditions in your life. That is pointless. What a waste of time and energy. Get mad about your reluctance to
Fire Preemptive Attack
In a third possibility, Hi no Kata fire element dynamics are the energy of committed intensity and focus. You learn to recognize a problem as
Water Tactical Positioning
Let’s continue our review the five elements that form the base for To-Shin Do training from the inside out. In this issue of Ninja Now,
Earth Ground Holding
Let’s review the five elements that form the base for To-Shin Do training from the inside out. In this issue of Ninja Now, we’ll look