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…
Below are technical notes for the various types of stepping in Taido’s unsoku. The Eight Steps Let’s go over some points for executing the eight steps of unsoku happo. SO So-soku is an advancing step for narrowing the distance to the target. Since it moves closer to danger, its very important to begin with a solid…
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.…
As far as I knew when I was starting out, there were only six hokei in Taido. I was off by a bit. Taido has five kinds of hokei. Each type of hokei looks totally different from the other types. This is because they are each designed to practice different things. Firstly, there are the six –tai hokei which…
