Author: Ellis Amdur Page 8 of 12

There’s this obsession whether aikido is street creditable. Heck, I know of an aikido club amongst correctional officers in one of the most hardcore prisons in America, and they tell me aikido has been more than useful.

So did I ever use aikido on the street? Yes, I did. Back in the early 70’s, I used to train at Terry Dobson/Ken Nisson’s Bond Street Dojo and also Yamada Yoshimitsu’s New York Aikikai (known to some as as 18th Street). I was a member of the former (I lived in the dojo) and a guest at the latter. I subscribed to Terry’s patchwork ideology: “Aikido is an art of love that will save the world, and if you are concerned about self-defense, you have to ask yourself, what is this ‘self’ you are concerned about, and how can you protect a ‘self’ without love . . . and if you piss me off,  I will probably f*ck you up, given the right provocation.”

Read More

When I was twelve years old, I wanted to do karate. Actually, another boy to whom I’d already lost a fight was taking karate, and I didn’t want him to have the jump on me that much more. My parents, however, thought it was low class, and refused. I kept nagging. Finally, my father took me down to the basement, picked up a length of two by four, maybe eighteen inches long and said, “If you can break this with your bare hand, I’ll let you do karate.” Honestly, I don’t know if Oyama Masutatsu, the ‘God Hand’ himself, could have broken a piece of dry wood that short, unsecured. Surely, my father thought, I’d try it once or twice, and give up and leave him alone.

Read More

Several decades ago, my friends Phil & Nobuko Relnick, high ranking members of Shinto Muso-ryu and Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu were traveling in Portugal. They visited a school of jogo do pau. Phil and Nobuko wanted to pay proper respect to the school they were visiting, and in proper Japanese fashion, asked, “Who is the instructor.” The older men looked puzzled, conferred with each other and pointing to one man, said, “Probably him. He’s the oldest.”

Read More

by Pedro Escudeiro

The 3rd of October 2017, at Ginásio Clube Português,

How old were you when you started practicing martial arts?

I must have started judo sometime around the age of twelve or thirteen, at the Budo Academy in Lisbon. I reached green belt, but then karate classes started–I was there from the start. Our teachers were all Portuguese. Since no one had visited Japan to receive direct instruction, their technical knowledge came from videos they ordered from Japan. A couple of years later, though, we had our first international seminar with a Japanese karate master: Murakami Tetsuji, from Shotokai Karate, a student of Egami Shigeru sensei. After this seminar, Murakami sensei became the leader of our karate group. There was another group of karate practitioners, students of a South African master, who initiated Shotokan Karate in Portugal. [Editor’s note: Although Shotokan and Shotokai come from the same antecedents, they are quite different, as can be seen in the links.]

Read More

An Interview of Hamaji Koichi by Gerald Toff

Translated by Matuoka Hiroshi & Edited by Russ Ebert, Published by Aijokai

These days, people have marvelous opportunities to study living martial traditions all over the world. Beyond those who’ve studied the ‘usual,’ among my personal acquaintances are people who have studied with teachers of authentic lineages of: Bökh (Mongolian wrestling); Esgrima con Machete (Venezuelan & Columbian machete fencing); Fllyssa (Amazigh [Berber] sword); Italian stiletto; Portugeuse jogo do pau (staff fighting); Nguni (Zulu stick-fighting) – just to name a few of many martial traditions outside the usually assumed limits of East Asia.

Read More

Because of some recent discussions on Ueshiba Morihei’s solo weapon practice, I would like to add some thoughts of my own. I am going to excerpt a relevant passage from my second edition of Hidden in Plain Sight, to set some context as to what Ueshiba was actually doing, followed by some recent observations I made during a trip to Japan, followed by another passage from HIPS.

Read More

A 2nd edition of my book, Hidden in Plain Sight has been published through Freelance Academy Press. It is two-thirds larger than the original, with eight new chapters. The revisions and development in the new version are enough to make it almost a new book entirely. Of course, I corrected all the errors that are enumerated below. Still, some may have the previous version on their shelves, and these errors should be noted, lest someone, unaware of the new edition, is misled. 

Concerning the 2nd edition: Every book is printed with errors, be they spelling, design, editing  and sometimes, regrettably, errors in fact. One of the latter appears in the 2nd edition. I note it below and note also how to download a glue-in correction of the book itself. It has been corrected in the electronic version, but will still remain in the bound version until all copies of this print run are sold.

Read More

By Nigel Sutton

Note: During the writing of this piece Master Lee Bei Lei passed away. He was 86  years old. Rest in Peace, Shifu!

I first met Lee Bei Lei (aka Li Bian Lei/Lai) in 1987 on my first visit to Malaysia. My brother-in-law was secretary of the taijiquan group that he ran in Batu Pahat, a town in the southern state of Johor. As a ‘visiting fireman,’ who had participated and enjoyed some success in a competition in China, I was invited to perform in front of an audience of several hundred taijiquan aficionados. At that time Chinese in Malaysia were not allowed to visit China, so a foreigner who had been there and practised Chinese martial arts was something of a rarity. I strutted my stuff, the 48 step combined taijiquan form and a baguazhang form and afterwards, I was introduced to ‘The Master,’ Lee Bei Lei. My youthful naïve ignorance protected me from even being aware of the dread I should have been feeling. I had come to his training hall as a ‘celebrity,’ demonstrated in front of his students and basked in their applause! A traditional martial artist of Master Lee’s generation would see all of this as a challenge, literally an attempt  to damage his reputation. This to a man for whom challenges were an everyday occurrence, the very lifeblood and nourishment of his existence! But I knew none of that.

Read More