A lit­tle before the end of 2008, the World Taido Federation pub­lished the first issue of The Taido Times. The Taido Times is set to be a twice-yearly mag­a­zine full of inter­est­ing news, his­tory, and train­ing ideas from Taido dojo all around the world.

If you’re part of an orga­ni­za­tion that is in the World Taido Federation (which essen­tially means ‚“if you don’t prac­tice in America”), you’ve prob­a­bly already received your copy. In the mean­time, I wanted to give a brief syn­op­sis of the contents.

First Impression

My first impres­sion when I took the mag­a­zine out of the enve­lope was that of qual­ity; this is not some cheap pam­phlet that some­one printed up on their home com­puter. The ver­sion sent out in Japan (pub­lish­ing in Japan and Europe were han­dled sep­a­rately) is printed on on nice, glossy stock, and (aside from an insert with some trans­la­tions) full-color.

It took a really long time for WTF to finally get this thing out, but I’m glad they didn’t cut cor­ners and make a cheap newslet­ter that peo­ple end up toss­ing in the trash after a quick look-over. The Taido Times is wor­thy of hold­ing on to. People take high-quality pub­li­ca­tions more seri­ously, so it’s nice that this impor­tant forum is given the ben­e­fit of a pol­ished appearance.

Taido Times Issue One

The front cover fea­tures a badass look­ing photo of Shukumine from his first pub­lic per­for­mance of enmei no hokei in 1986. I love these old pic­tures of Taido’s cre­ator doing what he did best.

On the back, Taido’s gojo­jun is writ­ten in Japanese kanji. It would have been nice to have an English ver­sion along­side, but I guess English just doesn’t look cool enough.

The Articles

There were a vari­ety of arti­cles in this issue writ­ten by Taido Soke (Shukumine’s fam­ily) and instruc­tors and stu­dents from most coun­tries where Taido is prac­ticed. Here’s a breakdown:

• Taido Balance by Taido soke. Notes on bal­anc­ing Taido and life. Taido was designed to be valu­able to mem­bers of mod­ern soci­ety, so it’s impor­tant that we con­sider how to make the most of it. Taido has a lot to teach us about being effec­tive in life, and it goes way beyond just get­ting stronger and more con­fi­dent. Taido includes processes that can be applied to any sit­u­a­tion. Finding the bal­ance between train­ing and life should be a pri­or­ity for all Taido students.
• An out­line of the his­tory of Taido in the UK. Though they’ve been around for a while now, English Taido has had a hard time get­ting off the ground. Being a small group with lit­tle access to high-level instruc­tion, they’ve had to rely on the efforts of a pas­sion­ate few to keep going. But they aren’t giv­ing up.
• The story of how Taido came to Denmark. Essentially, the first Taido teacher in Denmark never actu­ally learned Taido. They had a rough first few years, but things have smoothed out considerably.
• A review of a Finnish Taido train­ing camp. There isn’t a lot to say about it here, but I do enjoy read­ing about how oth­ers prac­tice Taido. Camps are a lot of fun, and I wish we had them more often in Western Japan.
• A few para­graphs about the Taido demon­stra­tions at Bercy Martial Arts Festival in France. This is a major event that resulted in a lot of pub­lic­ity for Taido in France. The French Taido Association has had a lot of sup­port from Japanese Taidoka in putting on these demos, and they were really suc­cess­ful. If you haven’t seen the videos on YouTube, you should check them out.
• Two arti­cles about nutri­tion and injury pre­ven­tion from 2002. Though I dis­agree with some of the the points made, I’m glad to see an attempt at apply­ing sci­ence to Taido train­ing. Since Taido is a “sci­en­tific mar­tial art,” it only makes sense that we would want to study new devel­op­ments in sport sci­ence and ath­let­ics. Though we’re only recre­ational ath­letes, we can learn a lot from pro coaches and train­ers. These arti­cles are a step in the right direction.

Taido News

The arti­cles were pretty inter­est­ing. I learned a few things I didn’t know about Taido’s his­tory and how it’s prac­ticed else­where. There was also a fair amount of infor­ma­tion about recent and upcom­ing events in Taido.

There was also an invi­ta­tion the attend the World Taido Championships this August in Hiroshima. I can’t repeat often or emphat­i­cally enough my rec­om­men­da­tion that every­one with the time and money to spare attend this event. Even if you don’t plan to com­pete, you will learn a lot and make a ton of new friends. Even if you’re new to Taido, vis­it­ing Japan needs to be on your list of things to expe­ri­ence. The WTC is the best time for Taidoka to visit Japan.

The last cou­ple of pages lay out the plans for the next issue and make a call for con­tri­bu­tions from Taido stu­dents. If you have an arti­cle idea or some inter­est­ing pho­tos to share, def­i­nitely get in touch with Alvar. If you have ques­tions you’d like to see answered, send those in too. There are plans to release a new issue twice a year, but this can’t hap­pen if peo­ple don’t write to share their experiences.