Martial Arts and Culture
Inner Dharma was a writing project concerned with classical and traditional martial arts and culture. I want to thank all of its readers who provided feedback and encouragement over a period of more than twenty years. A selection of its essays can be found below.
April 2026
Some thoughts on training and teaching.
April 2026
Reflections on researching and writing about inner principles of Japanese swordsmanship and relating those back to my internal martial arts practice.
April 2026
Tàijíquán, along with Xingyiquan and Baguazhang, forms the core of the internal martial arts, distinguished by their grounding in Taoist philosophy and Neigong practices.
January 2026
I have collected my notes on Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu into a single volume and expanded them with research into Japanese language historical documents and publications on that art. The result is now available as a small book.
December 2025
Reflecting on twenty years of writing on martial arts, the integration of internal principles into classical swordsmanship, and a concluding pilgrimage to Japan.
October 2025
We examine some features of armed and unarmed grappling and small weapon styles from the medieval period to modernity and draw some parallels and distinctions between them, especially as related to combat sport and contemporary military practices.
July 2025
On 26 July 2025, the world lost one of its most knowledgeable teachers and scholars of classical Japanese martial culture.
June 2025
Examining the role of kodachi kata in the progression of skill in Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu, with a description of application to close quarter armed grappling.
June 2025
Examining the relationship between combative posture and initiative in a portion of Jikishinkage-ryū. What is first observed may be quite different from hidden layers of meaning and practice.
May 2025
The title is a pun on a famous saying associated to Shintō-ryū, the art of war is the art of peace. Old traditions are small traditions — it is the content that matters.
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.
September 2021
I provide some information on the organization, goals, and overal training context of my efforts at preserving a practice of Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu (heihō) and related arts as part of the Gassankan.
October 2020
A discussion of what consititutes proper training intensity in traditional martial arts.
October 2020
The Taiji, Bagua and Xingyi taught as part of Yin Cheng Gong Fa includes an extensive curriculum of jian (sword), dao (saber), and qiang (spear).
August 2019
The section titles of this essay are drawn from the shichijō no tachi of Kashima Shintō-ryū — seven essential articles of kenjutsu, encoded in TSKSR as three kata and in Kashima Shintō-ryū as seven.
June 2017
An important translation of the Taiji 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.
June 2013
A brief reflection on a demonstration of Araki-ryū and Tenshin Bukō-ryū at the NAMT 2013 Night of Budo by Ellis Amdur a reknowned kobujutsu, Aikidō and internal martial arts researcher and practitioner, demonstrating two arts he has mastered.
October 2008
In Baltimore, after leaving my first dōjō in NYC, I continued to work on refining the modern goshin-jutsu護身術 methods I had first learned with my colleague Ben Lawner. The result was a smaller curriculum informed by our practice of Gao lineage bagua.