Taido and Martial Art Links

This is not the “Ultimate Taido Links Page.” I don’t have the patience to link to every Taido web­site I can find — espe­cially since so few of them have any use­ful infor­ma­tion. Though sev­eral of the links below are not explic­itly about Taido, all of them will point you to infor­ma­tion that has the poten­tial to change the way you think about and prac­tice Taido.

Taido Information

WTF Homepage

Alvar’s old taido​.net has been rebuilt and re-purposed as the World Taido Federation home­page. Being offi­cial, it con­tin­ues to suf­fer form lack of mean­ing­ful content.

World Taido Forum

The World Taido Forum is hosted by Australian Taido and should inter­est most stu­dents. It’s a very friendly and open forum, so I encour­age every­one to par­tic­i­pate in the exchange of expe­ri­ences. I hope (and I know the Aussie Taido team does too) that par­tic­i­pa­tion in dis­cus­sion of Taido ideas and events can lead to improved rela­tions and a stronger inter­na­tional Taido com­mu­nity. These things can be sig­nif­i­cantly ben­e­fi­cial to you (yes, you!), but they won’t hap­pen unless you (yes, you!) contribute.

Manjigeri’s page

I prac­tice with this guy. There’s no English con­tent, but ran­dom click­ing will avail you of tons of videos of var­i­ous tech­niques and hokei. They are low qual­ity, but they are some­times help­ful. With some lucky surf­ing, you can treat your­self to the sooth­ing sounds of Mr. Manji’s kiai as well as the infa­mous Taido song. This is one of the old­est Taido pages on the ‘net and a direct inspi­ra­tion for Taido/Blog.

YouTube

There’s a good num­ber of Taido videos on YouTube, so make sure you check them out.

Dojo Websites

Toyonaka Dojo

This is the dojo I trained at most fre­quently most fre­quently when I lived in Osaka from 2008 to 2010. The blog func­tions pri­mar­ily as a train­ing log. More info about Toyonaka Taido here.

Yokohama Dojo

This is Negishi’s dojo where I prac­ticed and taught Taido from 2003 to 2006. There isn’t any English con­tent, but there are lots of photo updates on the blog. The peo­ple in Yokohama will always be a part of some of my great­est Taido memories.

Taido Associations and Dojo Directories

Australia

• Main Page

Denmark

• Main Page (Unavailable at last check)

England

• Main Page (Unavailable at last check)

Finland

• Main Page
• Dojo Directory

France

• Main Page

Japan

• Main Page
• Dojo Directory in Japanese
• Dojo Directory in English (Somewhat out of date)

The Netherlands

• Main Page

Portugal

• Main Page

Sweden

• Main Page
• Dojo Directory

United States

• Main Page
• Dojo Directory

General Martial Art Links

Kai Ku Do

Kaikudo is a new mar­tial art put together by for­mer Taidoka, John Okochi and Michael Issa. They have built their sys­tem around T’ai Chi Chuan, Taido, Aikido, and a few other things. As one would expect, the train­ing is eclec­tic. Before return­ing to Japan, I spent sev­eral months prac­tic­ing Kaikudo as the foun­da­tions were being laid. Over the next few years, this is going to grow into some­thing very special.

24 Fighting Chickens

Rob Redmond has res­ur­rected his URL. Though he has told us that the new 24fc won’t become another million-word free karate ency­clo­pe­dia, he is post­ing plenty of inter­est­ing con­tent relat­ing to prac­tic­ing the mar­tial arts. Rob has mel­lowed since going on hia­tus, but his insights will likely still prove both con­tro­ver­sial and ben­e­fi­cial to all who take the time to con­sider their implications.

JKA Silicon Valley

John Keeling has been teach­ing Shotokan for a very long time. A grad­u­ate of the Japan Karate Association’s leg­endary instruc­tors’ course, Keeling is also a pro­lific writer of arti­cles relat­ing to all aspects of mar­tial arts prac­tice (an arti­cle each month since 1998). You should read every­thing in his archive — really. I also heard a rumor that he can sell you a real nice karategi.

Training and Health Links

CST / RMAX

This site is ded­i­cated to Scott Sonnon’s Circular Strength Training method­olo­gies and asso­ci­ated prod­ucts. Sonnon’s art is a model of evo­lu­tion through prac­tice and col­lab­o­ra­tion. In fact, many of the stated ideals of RMAX closely resem­ble fun­da­men­tal goals of Taido. RMAX pro­duces an excel­lent selec­tion of train­ing tools and videos.

“The Stretching FAQ”

Brad Appleton has done all the dig­ging and research for you. Here is the infor­ma­tion you should digest regard­ing improv­ing your flex­i­bil­ity. Any instruc­tor with­out a base level of edu­ca­tion with regards to train­ing meth­ods is neg­li­gent at the very least. If you do not under­stand the infor­ma­tion that Appleton has com­piled here, you have no busi­ness giv­ing any­one instruc­tion in sports conditioning.

Body Weight Culture

Body Weight Culture is a com­mu­nity of peo­ple fanat­i­cal about improv­ing their phys­i­cal per­for­mance using only body-weight exer­cises. These guys can get in a work­out any­time, any­where. If you’ve been slack­ing off because you don’t have the time/space/whatever to stay active, you need to click this link. Check out the videos for loads of inspi­ra­tion and new meth­ods of self-torture.

Gold Medal Bodies

This is a shame­less plug for my own company’s prod­ucts — because they kick seri­ous ass. We do a vari­ety of things, but the ones that should most inter­est Taido folks are our Prasara Yoga (which focuses on tran­si­tional move­ment instead of hold­ing poses) and gym­nas­tic strength train­ing courses. My team and I coach hun­dreds of ath­letes, law enforce­ment offi­cers, mar­tial artists, and reg­u­lar peo­ple all over the world, so if you need help with your train­ing, get in touch. We can help you per­form the way you wish you could.