Tōsha Dōjō (Jiki Shinkage-ryū at Lonin)

I began training at the The Hōbyōkan in 2007 and continued until I moved to Seattle in 2016. I received a Hōbyōkan chuden menjo in 2018 and have since worked with a small number of people in order to continue training, including Jake Harlin, Nicky Sayah Sina, and Anthony Nehls-Smith. Anthony graduated from UW and now lives and trains in Japan, while Nicky and Jake have progressed to the point where they have a firm understanding and practice of Jikishinkage-ryū foundations and now coordinate a weekly practice of their own:

Tōsha Dōjō ( 闘者道場 ) practices as part of a non-profit martial arts cooperative called Lonin League in Seattle.

The characters in that name are a reference to the lion dogs (komainu 狛犬) that often guard shrines and temples in Japan. One usually has its mouth open, the other closed. This represents the concept of a-un, which is the fundamental breathing in Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū. In esoteric martial practice, the syllable "tō" is associated to the outer (gai) Lion with its mouth open and the syllable "sha" is associated to the inner (nei) Lion with its mouth closed. Literally, sha means person and tō means battle or war, but you usually don't see them together in common language.