“This stuff is amazing,” he said. “Okay, you got my attention, what stuff,” I replied. “To-shin Do, To-shin Do is amazing,” he said. “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “What’s the story,” I asked, because I knew there had to be one. Geo is a black belt student of mine. With great enthusiasm he proceeded […]
Ukemi 受身 Break-Fall Skills
One of the most important self-defense skills in our martial art is the ability to get to the ground safely. Set aside the idea of a fight for a moment, and just think day to day life. Slips and falls are one of the leading causes of visits to the emergency room. Injury often happens […]
Why Classical Weapons?
One of our newer students asked if our focus is self-defense why we still train with classical weapons like the katana. They felt it was very unlikely that they would run into anyone with a Japanese sword. I can understand a new person’s perspective believing they may not see these particular weapons in a fight […]
Kofuku no Shiori
“The way to experience happiness is to let go of all worries and regrets. Being happy is the most satisfying of life’s feelings. Reflect back on all the progress in your life and allow the positive, creative, joyous thoughts to outshine and overwhelm any sorrow or grief that may be lingering there in the recesses […]
Why is Cultivating Compassion an Important Part of Your Training?
The young woman was trying hard to mask her pain. I sat in the warm sunlight enjoying its touch on my skin. I sipped my coffee as did most of the other patrons. Every time I looked up from the pages I was studying, my eyes were drawn back to the grieving woman. Was this […]
Kuzushi 崩 Balance Control
The idea of balance control is closely tied together with last month’s topic of kamae. We want to be aware of, and ultimately have control over, both our own balance and the balance of our attacker. To describe it in another way, we want to break our attacker’s kamae or base, without sacrificing our own, […]
Whose Thoughts Are You Thinking?
One of the side effects of teaching our ninja martial art is that you get into the habit of observing people, how they move and what they say, not just while training but in every day situations too. I was listening to a number of people talking about politics. One person in particular kept making […]
We’re Growing Fast!
To all of our NinjaSelfDefense.com subscribers, The response to NinjaSelfDefense.com has been overwhelmingly positive! People like you have helped make a little experiment more popular than we planned for at the present time. We are happy to announce that we’re upgrading our platform to be better prepared to accommodate this enormous growth. Some key improvements […]
Do You Guys Spar?
A difficult question to answer. Difficult because I know the answer will be misused by people not sympathetic to our training methods. Fast answer is there was very little “sparring” in the dojo back in the 1970s. The classics, when done the way they were practiced in the 1970s, were applied as a flow of […]
Choosing Peace From a Position of Power
Why do we train with such dedication? Well, for one thing, it’s fun; got to have fun! Beyond that, for very serious To-Shin Do students and teachers this is a life style. It’s a healthy life style for mind, body and spirit. To my mind there is a component to this life style choice that […]
Kamae 構 Base
Spend any time at all in a To-Shin Do dojo, or watch any of our NinjaSelfDefense.com courses, and you’ll hear us talk about kamae all the time. Without the proper structure to our body, techniques don’t work the way they should and we open ourselves up to more dangers. Without good kamae, we create more […]
Science of Striking
We had a question about striking in class recently from a newer student who had trained in boxing and karate. We were doing some pad work with jabs and cross punches. He made note of how different it was from what he had done before. It seemed to him that the difference between the styles […]
From “…The Cold Moon”
Here is a New Year’s Extra from An-shu Hayes and NinjaSelfDefense.com. A short excerpt from Wisdom from the Ninja Village of The Cold Moon Despite the love you feel and the joy you radiate there are those misguided persons in the world who would see you harmed. They will confront you with fists or […]
The Art of Winning
I remember a conversation I had with my ninja martial arts teacher way back in the 1970s. I was in my twenties and had just moved to Japan to become a student in the grandmaster’s home dojo. I asked my teacher what was the most important thing to remember about martial arts training. “Why do […]
Shu-Chu 集中 Focus
One of the twelve keys already discussed was about gathering as much knowledge as possible. In this concept we are looking at how and where we can gather that needed information in a conflict so that we can make the right decisions. Learning new ways to take in information, and being able to direct our […]
