Articles and Essays
A selection of writing by Mark Raugas on classical Japanese martial traditions, the influence of Daoism, esoteric Buddhism, and mountain aesceticism on martial practice, and the practice of traditional Chinese internal martial arts.
August 2026: My research on late-Edo and early-modern Japanese swordsmanship — the Kōbusho, gekken-kōgyō, the Battōtai, the police schools, the Butokukai and the Busen — has been collated into a new book. Please consider purchasing a copy to help with the maintenance of this site.
August 2026: Examining the three volume 修驗道章疏 collated in 1920, we find small doctrinal differences between Kumano and Dewa area Shugendō along with details of Edo period Dewa Sanzan history.
June 2026: Ming Chinese master of Taisha-ryū and Shugendō practitioner. Some contrasts between Hiko Shugendō and Dewa Shugendō and a digression to a famous school of sword smiths.
June 2026: Dewa area bujutsu and the Shugendō connections of the original iai ryūha. Tengu-related origins as told in several martial traditions, contrasting them based on their period of development and social perspectives. How attitudes towards China affected origin tales over time.
June 2026: A survey of Jikishinkage-ryū memorial steles across Kashima Jingū and Chiba — their texts, and the succession dispute they record.
April 2026: A poem by Yu Xin (513-581) evokes some thoughts on training and teaching — the importance of solo practice, the results of different experiments in teaching, why it is best to be cautious before taking on new obligations.
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.
January 2026: My training notes from 2008-2016 and my Inner Dharma writing on Jikishinkage-ryū from 2016-2025 have been collated and revised into a new book, which is available for sale. Please consider purchasing a copy to help support the maintenance of this site.
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.
December 2024: Text on Jikishinkage-ryū Hōjō (foundational) swordsmanship, provided for reference based on Jikishinkage-ryū Sōhonbu and Hōbyōkan material. This is typically chanted or recited before performance of the Hōjō kata of Jikishinkage-ryū.
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.
July 2017: Some notes on Japanese mountain religion from the Tōhoku region of Japan and its importance to practitioners of arts derived from the teachings of Takeda Sōkaku.
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.
May 2011: A brief discussion of power generation in internal martial arts.
