Gassankan Jūjutsu

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 by working my colleague Ben Lawner. Ben had first trained under my sempai in Florida before moving to Baltimore for his medical residency. At the time, I was teaching a small class in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which was the inspiration for the name of this blog, Inner Dharma.

I had begun learning Bagua Zhang after I moved to Baltimore and shifted my practice towards training in internal martial arts after leaving this school. Shortly thereafter I began training in more traditional approaches to Japanese weapons as well.

Before I completely shifted to Chinese methods and approaches, I received permission from my Gao bagua instructor to teach Ben what I had learned. I introduced Ben to the more sophisticated tactics and body mechanics of Baguazhang, even while we continued to drill our core set of aiki-jūjutsu techniques. Over time, we pared down the curriculum we had first practiced and revised its body mechanics to draw largely from Bagua instead of Shorinji Kempo.

Ben had first trained under my sempai in Florida before moving to Baltimore for his medical residency and was a rigorous training partner who had a strong distaste for what a friend calls "aiki accomodation syndrome" — training outdoors on a variety of surfaces, including Pennsylvania bluestone, did not lead us to simply take ukemi as we might have done on smooth tatami.

The result we called Gassankan Jūjutsu ( 月山館 柔術 ).

Its practice has a focus on grappling and close quarter combatives that is very fluid and spontaneous, with a core set of finishing techniques consisting of a number of locks, pins, strikes, chokes, sweeps, and throws. These techniques are performed with proper body mechanics and a general theory of movement drawn from my continuing study of the Chinese Internal Martial Arts of xingyiquan, baguazhang, and taijiquan. Attention is first paid to posture, balance, and alignment of forces inside the body. Whether striking, deflecting, locking or throwing, we always retain the ability to feel, move, and change. Once the body is developed, we begin addressing proper mechanics of movement, attempting to maintain the integration that was previously practiced statically while moving through progressive drills that explore three different ranges and contexts.