Note: This article makes use of some Japanese characters. If they look like gibberish on your computer, try changing your browser’s text encoding and installing the appropriate language packs. If that doesn’t work, you will just have to use your imagination. What is Taido? People often ask me what Taido is. I find this very frustrating.…
Toyonaka Taido is my dojo. Well, not my dojo, but the dojo I primarily train at. Toyonaka is one of the northern suburbs of Osaka; I live in neighboring Suita, so the commute is fairly painless. We practice at Budokan Hibiki, which is a large public training hall, and we usually have plenty of space to work out. Though quite…
I’ve lived in Japan for a few years now, and I’ve gotten to see and experience a lot of really cool things. I’ve practiced zazen at five hundred year old temples in Kyoto, admired Picasso ceramics at the Hakone Open-Air Museum, picked tea in the hills around Mt. Fuji, made my own Cup Noodle at the Nissin…
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…
There are a lot of things that make jissen a fun and challenging game, but the biggest thing that makes jissen difficult is that we must make our movements respond to those of our opponents. I’ve covered how to practice the individual unsoku and unshin movements elsewhere — these drills are designed to teach you to move around someone else.…
