It was a Monday morning. My knee was more painful than usual. I had spent most of the previous day working in my yard in the humid Florida heat. It was definitely one of those “really don’t feel like doing this” days. I had successfully followed through on my base line self-discipline rule, which is; […]
Reaction To Your Reaction
For beginning To-Shin Do students, just having an answer to a problem is the goal. We start with twelve fundamental techniques, based on common attacks, so that we have the skills to react to difficult situations. Reacting correctly is the next step. A black stripe on a color belt means it is time to start […]
What You Think You See
Go to a mirror and stand close so you can see your eyes. Now move your eyes so you are looking at your left eye then back to your right eye and continue to repeat being aware that you are physically moving your eyes. You will feel your eyes moving but what will you see? […]
Three Questions for An-shu
An-shu, what first got you interested in the martial arts? SKH: I wanted to be able to make there be peace when others chose violence and cruelty. As a small child in the 1950s, I remember seeing other children bullied and abused by bigger, meaner children. I was not comfortable with the thought of being […]
Verbal To-Shin Do
In the ancient Toltec wisdom tradition words are viewed as having magical potential. Words that create negativity, suffering, and pain are considered black magic. Conversely, words that comfort, heal, and facilitate the manifestation of positive realities are white magic. This belief is clearly consistent with the Japanese Mikkyo doctrine of Sanmitsu; the triple secret. The […]
Layered Goal Setting
Several years ago, when I started participating in triathlons, I discovered I needed to rethink how I set goals for my physical workouts. I’ve lifted weights and been a runner for most of my life, but specific goals in those areas we’re never a concern. My physical fitness goals went something like, “Get in even […]
Tuesday March 1st
Every year at the holidays I seem to always receive a desk calendar as a gift. You know the ones with something written on it for each day. This year I got Insight from the Dalai Lama and on Tuesday March 1st this was the quote from His Holiness. How do we overcome ignorance, by […]
A Proposal for the Future
To-Shin Do takes the timeless principles of ninpo taijutsu and brings them into the 21st Century. Have you ever seen a proud YouTube video of a poorly trained Bujinkan practitioner attacking slowly with a non-accelerating lunge right foot and right arm, and leaving the right hand out there so that the defender can make his […]
Is It Necessary?
We were winding up a seminar training session. I was taking questions. A long distance student asked a very common question. “What is the most important thing for me to work on at my stage of training?” There are always many things; improvement is continuous. Given that this student was a Black Belt my response […]
What it Means to Win
The martial art of To-Shin Do is about learning how to win. When I explain to new students my view of what it means to earn a black belt, I tell them a black belt is someone who has the tools to be more successful in every area of their life. I have yet to […]
Beyond The Belt
Why are you training? Think about that for awhile and we’ll get back to it. If you are involved in martial arts teaching sooner or later you have the conversation about why so many people quit training after they get their black belt. The answer I think depends on what you believe a black belt […]
Secret Study Now Revealed
Ever wonder what happened to me after I stopped writing the ninja book series in the early 1990s? Where I went once I slowed down my Japan trips and replaced them with trips to India, Nepal, and Tibet? An amazing series of events brought me in contact with the Dalai Lama. I started traveling with […]
Practicing Perseverance
Keep on keeping on. That was the lingo we used to encourage each other to persevere when I was a teenager. That phrase has resurfaced from my memory archives on several occasions during the past few months. The process of building my new five star training hall has been riddled with unforeseen challenges, setbacks, frustration, […]
Perfect Practice
We’ve probably all heard the idea that ‘practice makes perfect’. And it’s true that to get really good at something, you’ll likely need to do it a lot. There is an idea out there that it takes a minimum of ten years of intense practice to reach the elite levels of a sport or other […]
How To Be A Good Training Partner
This is one of the most important areas of our training and one of the things that sets our training apart from other martial arts. While training in To-Shin Do you are not working on memorizing a series of movements that can be done by yourself. You are learning to understand the cause and effect […]
