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:
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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
Several years ago, Rumiko and I were invited as special guests to a showcase of Japanese karate instructors. These were the men who brought karate