My initial attraction to martial arts was through the weapons as artifacts. I was entranced by the beauty of the swords at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.[1] I still covet and collect weapons but the pragmatist in me knows this is a servile and dangerous affliction. The importance isn’t the tool, it is theContinue reading “KNIFE WORK”
Tag Archives: katana
SWORD TAKE-AWAY: Tachidori
Testing for shodan requires demonstrating weapon take-away techniques against tanto, jo, and bokken. Simplify the phrasing and the concept we are discussing is disarms. Here is the secret: all empty hand techniques in Aikido are disarms. You have been doing nothing but disarms since your first ikkyo omote. Aikido is not an unarmed art. IContinue reading “SWORD TAKE-AWAY: Tachidori”
EDGED ETTIQUETTE
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon In the Aikido dojo the sword is the soul of the samurai and that spirit remains salient. Even a bokken (wooden sword) should be handled as the symbolic representationContinue reading “EDGED ETTIQUETTE”
Protective Arts 