38 years ago, I began my journey through martial arts. I was training Shotokan in a large hall, with over 60 students at every session. There was a rule everyone knew: the last to enter the hall was always the instructor. And whoever saw him first had to shout the alignment command, so everyone else would immediately line up in rows and columns, re...   Read more  

In life, you don't discover yourself. You create yourself with every choice. Many people come to their first training session and tell me the same thing: "I want to know how to defend myself." It's an honest starting point. But what they discover along the way is something else — that it's not just about what you do with your hands or feet in...   Read more  

Why It Is Not Enough for a Technique to Work At one of my recent courses, a student asked whether he could continue a technique with an additional manipulation of the aggressor's arm. I asked him to show me what he had in mind. The movement was logical and reasonably well executed. And yet I told him I did not recommend forming it as a reflex. His ...   Read more  

I Follow Tradition for Efficiency, Not for Tradition's Sake There is a fundamental difference between knowing the origin of something and understanding the purpose for which it was created. In martial arts, this difference is often ignored. Tradition becomes an end in itself, techniques are passed on identically from one generation to the next, and...   Read more