On Swords and Sucker Punching
When you talk about self defense and martial arts, you can get sidetracked by a lot of things. To understand how to solve things, you need to know the problem you face. All too often, people are not ...
Patchy Bujinkan (or Confessions of a Japan Elitist
As we all should know, contact with Japan and Hatsumi is important for Bujinkan members. This has been said often enough. Students who don't come are not considered real students anymore. We all are c...
Resistance training and sparring
Every so often people raise the subject of "resistance training," "Alive training," or (more honestly) "sparring" in the Bujinkan. Surprisingly, few of the folks calling for it have any interest at al...
Kuki family history
I have been asked on a few occasions as to what the Kuki family were. Some sources say they were pirates, some say they were tax collectors. The truth is they ran a protection racket.
To understand...
Recognizing fraud in the martial arts
People have suggested that I should write something about how to recognize and deal with martial arts frauds. Living in Japan I have a better understanding of its martial arts and history and in the p...