Martial Arts and Culture
Inner Dharma is a writing project concerned with traditional martial arts and culture. As this project has grown, my research on Shinkage-ryū heihō can now be found on its own page. There is a topics page to aid discovery and navigation and an extensive source register.
I want to thank all those who provided feedback and encouragement over the last twenty years. I now have a companion book on Jikishinkage-ryū (opens in a new tab) in print, please consider purchasing a copy to help support this site.
I continue my practice in the Pacific Northwest.
June 2026
Examining swordsmanship preservation efforts in the late Edo period and afterwards. Survey of the Kōbusho, Gekken-Kōgyō, the Battōtai, Keishichō, Dai Nippon Butokukai, the Busen and later preservation societies.
May 2026
Essays on the history and philosophy of Daoism, esoteric Buddhism, Shugendō (修験道) and mountain asceticism, especially as they relate to martial culture from China and Japan.
April 2026
Tàijíquán, along with Xíngyìquán and Bāguàzhǎng, forms the core of the internal martial arts, distinguished by their grounding in Daoist philosophy and Nèigōng practices.
March 2026
Details on my continued practice of kenjutsu.
January 2026
Inner Dharma at twenty - a retrospective.
June 2025
Reading the kata of Jikishinkage-ryū through kuzushi — from the hidden order of initiative in tō-no-kata, through the turning point at its capstone, to the close-quarter application of kodachi — framed by the triad of heaven, earth, and man.
May 2025
When people become devoted to a martial art, they are doing so not at a single point in time but in a process that extends through time — the present moment, the memory they have of their training, and their expectations of the future. This can interfere with progress if nostalgia for their first impression of an art is in conflict with its higher-level teachings.
April 2025
Last year I began additional training in the union of Yoga and Buddhism offered through Tibet House. As part of this training, an essay comparing the Astanga (8-limbs) of Patanjali with the Buddhist Noble Eightfold path.
September 2024
Link to an essay on kata, heiho and shugyo, where I compare and contrast different surviving lines of Shinkage-ryū and reflect on my own practice.
February 2023
An essay published at Kogen Budo, where I look at some older writings from Japanese koryū that reference classical Chinese military treatises, and then examine how practices described in those works may be represented in arts surviving today.
October 2020
The Tàijí, Bāguà and Xíngyì taught as part of Yin Cheng Gong Fa includes an extensive curriculum of jian (sword), dao (saber), and qiang (spear).
September 2020
On solo practice, free sparring, entering HEMA competition, and the waning intensity of classical martial arts. A synthesis of reflections from 2017 to 2020 on what it means to keep kenjutsu practice alive.
August 2019
Reflections on a decade of practice in Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, the decision to leave the art, and an analysis of what may lie hidden beneath its surface.
June 2017
An important translation of the Tàijí Classics has been published. Highly recommended.
February 2017
Collected thoughts on the historical influence of Chinese martial arts on Japanese jujutsu and how they relate to the topic of aiki in Aikidō and Daitō-ryū. What interested me about internal martial arts and how I have related that experience to my practice of Japanese budō.
August 2015
At the end of summer, I traveled to Princeton for a seminar in Bāguà and Tàijí and was accepted as a formal lineal student by my teacher, Zhang Yun. I also traveled to the Pacific Northwest, where I was able to visit with budō colleagues in Oregon.
July 2012
Some notes on NYC area Aiki-jūjutsu from the 1980s and 1990s.
May 2011
A brief discussion of power generation in internal martial arts.
