Essays and Articles
15 July 2026: My research into the Kōbusho has grown into a book on late Edo period bujutsu and its aftermath, focusing on the Bakumatsu Kōbusho and subsequent martial organizations, their teachers, and the traditions represented among them.
30 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.
10 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.
15 January 2026: Inner Dharma at twenty - a retrospective.
30 December 2025: A new book on Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu is available.
12 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.
26 July 2025: On 26 July 2025, the world lost one of its most knowledgeable teachers and scholars of classical Japanese martial culture.
15 June 2025: Examining the relationship between combative posture and initiative in a portion of Jiki Shinkage-ryū. What is first observed may be quite different from hidden layers of meaning and practice.
21 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...
3 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.
9 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.
15 June 2024: I provide some information on the organization, goals, and overal training context of my efforts at preserving a practice of kenjutsu (heihō) and related arts as part of the Gassankan.
16 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.
1 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).
20 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.
10 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.
11 September 2018: A discussion of what consititutes proper training intensity in traditional martial arts.
15 June 2017: An important translation of the Tàijí Classics has been published. Highly recommended.
23 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.
20 May 2011: A brief discussion of power generation in internal martial arts.
