This past weekend, my dojo joined Taido students form several other prefectures in Tottori for some training and play. Tottori is a small costal city. It’s known for fishing, hot springs, and the sakyu (about which, more later). The local Taido scene is a small, loose-knit group held together by a guy named Uchiyama. Uchiyama is a neurologist and moved…
Below are the basic patterns and routines for practicing unsoku. I’m willing to bet that you haven’t mastered them all… Unsoku 8po The most basic unsoku practice is unsoku happo, which contains the eight unsoku movements. The order is: so — in, ka — gen, ko — ten, tsui — tai. Notice that they are grouped in pairs of obverse movements. Unsoku happo is…
So in Japanese, the word jodan means joke. It’s one of the first Japanese words I ever learned, but in a Taido context, I always thought of jodan as referring to high kicks and punches. It’s also one of our three kamae. A few years ago, I got interested in jodangamae and began to practice it pretty seriously. I worked on…
This is an article that I originally wrote at the request of the Finnish Taido Kamae Magazine. While by no means exhaustive, I believe it’s a good background on what sets American Taido apart from that practiced elsewhere. Since only a Finnish translation will actually be published, I’m posting it here for the benefit of Taidoka in English-speaking countries.…
Compared to the various Kobo Drills, the ones on this page look more and more like jissen, and by extension, they look more like the drills you typically use for jissen practice. They are not the drills you typically use. If you do them the way I am suggesting, you will get much more out of…
