Well, I got a lot of response to my last month’s article. Mostly agreeing, but some disagreeing. In last month’s opinion, I urged you to cut out online arguing. Don’t get into political battles that eliminate half of your potential training partners. Don’t “rant” and expose focusing on what is not working in your life. […]
Ready to Learn and Advance
We are all training in martial arts because we want to get better. We want to grow. We might have different reasons, different burning desires that keep us coming back to class week after week, year after year. Some are looking for self-defense. Some enjoy the historical techniques. Some want the personal growth and empowerment […]
Edge of Training
There’s a Tom Cruise movie that came out in 2014 called Edge of Tomorrow. IMDb describes it as: A military officer is brought into an alien war against an extraterrestrial enemy who can reset the day and know the future. When this officer is enabled with the same power, he teams up with a Special […]
Modern “No Name, No Art”
Back in the Warring States era of Japanese history five hundred years ago, the ninja secret agents of the time developed a way of living guaranteed to keep their identity a secret. MU MEI MU GEI translates as “No name, no art” and sums up the attitude of the Warring States invisible warriors. If an […]
Yesterday’s Lunch
It was a typical summer day in London, shifting temperatures and periods of light rain. I was just outside the British museum spending time with friend and teacher Lama Rigdzin Dorje deepening my understanding of the esoteric Buddhist practice of Vajrakilaya. This practice is very complex and was introduced to me by my teacher An-shu […]
Sliding Scale of Responses
I like to remind students (and myself) of options. More specifically, I like to remind students that we do have options, and how easy it is to lose sight of that. It is an easy habit to practice a technique in a given way so often that it because an automatic reaction. In some cases […]
Context
One of the difficulties that English speaking people have when they try to learn the Japanese language is that it is a situational language. How you speak in Japanese depends on the context of the situation. You can’t just translate word for word back and forth from English to Japanese. For example to simply say […]
Advancing Age, Advancing Skill
As a child, I wanted to be a force against brutality and cruelty. Once I started martial arts training, my entire focus was on practical defense. How do I handle the worst possible thugs and brawlers? I was never attracted to training as “art” or sport. But after a few decades of training, I came […]
Mindfulness Practice
The term mindfulness has become a bit of a buzzword lately. There is a lot of confusion around the concept and the practice. While mindfulness essentially means paying attention, or being aware, the concept is quite expansive and can be applied in a number of ways. For starters, being aware or paying attention is far […]
The Star of Your Own Movie
A couple of months ago marked the twentieth anniversary of the day I threw all my belongings in the back of a U-Haul trailer and moved to Ohio to be closer to my teacher. I didn’t have a job, or a place to live, or much of a plan at all. I just assumed those […]
Failure Is Not An Option – It Is A Requirement
We are in a time where everyone gets a trophy just for showing up. Where everyone has the ability to spout whatever he or she want about a subject whether they are qualified to or not. Where parents yell at teachers because their child didn’t get an A+ for C- work. Where people want only […]
Hombu-Registered Instructors and Trainers
Our mission for NinjaSelfDefense.com is to provide every student with easy access to the best possible training material so they can understand and advance. This plays a key role in our vision to make life mastery and inner peace attainable to anyone in the world through To-Shin Do training. One step towards the realization of […]
Why Don’t We Spar?
I have been asked this question a number of times over the years. To this day I remain a bit mystified by how difficult it is for most people to grasp the fundamental and critical difference between sport and athletic performance oriented martial arts and martial arts that focus exclusively on realistic self-defense. As I […]
Being Your Own Teacher
The other day I heard an exchange between a school teacher friend of mine and one of his students. The student asked the meaning of a word. Rather than give him the definition, the teacher said to look it up on his phone, an answer the student didn’t appreciate. The student felt like he was […]
Teaching not Telling
In January of 1992 I started a training group at the request of my teacher Mark Davis. He told me that teaching this art is about creating an experience for the student so that they discover the principle you are trying to teach them on their own. Take a moment to understand that statement. Teaching […]
