In recent years many professional athletes and teams have discovered the power of visualization training. This is a tool I used quite a bit myself when my career at the time had me travelling to an average of two to three cities a week. Needless to say, my time in the dojo was very limited. […]
Clever for the Win
A relatively small raccoon can kill a much larger hunting dog with a surprising tactic. The raccoon can run up the front of the dog’s chest under the dog’s jaws and reach around the dog’s muzzle to scratch out the dog’s eyes. This is not specially taught behavior or a “raccoon martial arts secret”. It […]
Shito Ryu Approach to the Five Elements
A friend of mine who studies Shito Ryu karate relates how their founder developed a set of approaches to combat. Though he does not know about our 5 elements, he explains that the Shito Ryu approaches cover 5 different responses to fighting. It is debatable how many Shito Ryu students are aware of this. What […]
Techniques as Relationships
I took me years to appreciate how techniques in our martial art were determined by the relationship between attacker and defender, as opposed to just, well, a technique. I knew the idea almost from the beginning, of course, but it took me a few years to realize just how profound that concept was. The other […]
Front and Center
An important concept in our art is the ability to take the attacker’s center from them to control the situation. At our recent seminar with An-shu Stephen and Rumiko Hayes, An-shu Rumiko was demonstrating an angling defense against a punch and then moving in taking the attacker’s center. She did a number of variations taking the […]
Advice for Younger To-Shin Do Students
I was asked what advice I have for younger martial artists. I’d have to reply: Take it easy on yourself! Be smart. In my 20s there was a kind of prestige implied in what we called “hard training”. We actually damaged nerve plexuses and joint tissues by hitting and twisting body targets too many times […]
The Most Important Thing
As many of you know, it is standard procedure in our training halls to do a short meditation at the end of class. If you are training on your own or with a small group we recommend that you do this as well. There are endless ways to turn these quick meditations into valuable exercises. […]
Be Better Than A Goldfish
There is a study by Microsoft Corporation that has been around for a few years now, and many news sites like to reference it. Several big news sites as well as some popular science sites have all mentioned this study and written about how we as humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish. […]
A Lawyer And A Scientist Walk Into Your Brain…
Okay if you read the title and thought I was going to tell you a ‘walk into a bar’ joke your lawyer took over and you’re half way to understanding my post. As you can see it says ‘brain’ not ‘bar’ above. Now we need the other half, your scientist, to keep going. I was […]
Why Do We Not Use San-Shin and Kihon Happo?
I am occasionally asked this question. The truth is I do not consider those exercises very important at all for new students looking for realistic self-defense fighting capability. The San-Shin kata were never intended for real fighting; not now or not never. No Japanese warrior ever fought using a kata from that set. They were […]
Not So Repetitive After All
To get good at something, you need to practice. To get really good, you need to practice a lot. It’s common knowledge that with a lot of practice, there is a lot of repetition, and one of the theories for keeping students engaged in a classroom (especially in martial arts) is disguised repetition. The idea […]
Get Good First
I saw an advertisement online offering comedy lessons with Steve Martin. In the opening of the promotional video he says he was talking to students and they were asking him things like how do I get an agent, where can I get my headshots and he thought to himself, shouldn’t the first thing to be […]
What Don’t You See?
There is an exit off the highway that I take almost every day going back to my house. I have to make a right turn at the intersection at the end of the off-ramp. The shoulder there is unusually wide, and frequently as I’m trying to make my turn I find there is someone to […]
How Your Beliefs Affect The Outcome Of Your Life
We all believe in something. We’d like to think our beliefs are based on “rational thought.” But truth is we more often act out what we believe instead of what we know. Some of our beliefs are so iron-clad they turn into inflexible conclusions about life. This is especially true if they were unconsciously imprinted […]
The Value of Sword Training
Many new students make the mistake of discounting the value of sword training. The common thinking is that training with a weapon that you are highly unlikely to ever face is probably a waste of time. On the surface this logic makes sense. The advanced, or unusually savvy, student will look beyond the surface to […]
