Jissen is not simply a matter of one person controlling another person. Both players have the same goal: hit the other dude without letting him hit you. At lower levels, it’s often enough to simply bully your opponent, subjecting him to your will. But a strong opponent won’t allow you to do this, and you’ll find that…
Note: Anyone who’s taken a Taido black belt test administered by Taido Honin has probably read the name “Ostwold” in connection with Taido’s taiki theory. Ostwold won a Nobel Prize for explaining how the body takes in and expends energy, but I feel that his name is wrongly invoked in Taido to justify some pseudo-scientific idea about energy…
Though each unsoku step has a different purpose, they all work on the same basic principles of movement. Mastering these principles will make your unsoku more effective. You can apply the concepts below to any unsoku practice and should keep them in mind when practicing jissen as well. Expansion/Contraction on Sidesteps When we begin learning unsoku, we…
i recently spent five days talking and training with two of members of the hanshikai, and let me tell you this much — they are crazy excited about unshin. everything we practiced came back to a very select number of themes, and the possibilities of moving in full 3-space was one of them. i’ve had this article on…
Maybe I’ve gone kobo-crazy, but I believe intelligent and creative use of kobo-derived drills can have incredible potential for improving students’ Taido skills. This isn’t necessarily a new development, but it’s something that I have used successfully with students in a number dojo now, so I am convinced that it works. In this article, I’ll describe a method for making kobo progressions…
