That said, despite my limited experience in the art there are a couple of things that come to mind.

While it is true that any school needs to have a healthy respect for the techniques of the past, because if you don’t know where you’ve been, you can’t know where you’re going, it cannot be limited to the past else it become an anachronism, teaching some form of cultural art that lacks relevance in the modern world.

How blessed are we to have such marvelous souls as An-Shu Hayes and Hatsumi-Soke to give us access to such a living art, and how sad that some pervert it until it is no longer living, and yet others are truly charlatans.

On this day of Thanksgiving (yep, I’m a Canucklehead) I am eternally grateful for the love and guidance I receive from all my buyu, even if they don’t realize they’re giving it.

/bow;

Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo!

I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I think you and To-Shin-Do are doing a great job navigating a very tricky area: maintaining the traditions of the past, while adapting them to modern needs.

I’ve been blessed to study martial arts under some great teachers, yourself included (although we haven’t met in person), and one common theme is their (your) ability to adapt.

In my limited martial arts experience it seems that teachers, particularly in the US take one of two very extreme view. One, they own and operate “McDojo,” “Black Belt Mills,” whatever you want to call them, where volume and the income it generates is the only goal; thus the quality of the art suffers. Two, teachers convey the traditional arts, but are so opposed to changing anything, out of fear of somehow hurting or betraying the art they teach that they end up teaching something with no application.

Now if I had to choose between one of the two, my choice would be the latter, but I wouldn’t be a martial artist seeking to cultivate the warrior ethos, because, in my own opinion, to be a warrior requires some grounding to the world around you, otherwise, you are not a warrior as much as you are an artist or philosopher in total abstractness. I think An-Shu’s statement in another post was dead-on there but equally-so here, LEARNING everything Togakure-Soke taught in the 1500’s and PRACTICING your art(s) today like he did then are two seperate things. It is vitally important to learn what the masters before us learned and taught, if we don’t, our art loses any connection it has with the past, with higher-purposes, and with things that enable us, as practitioners and students, to be part of something larger than ourselves. But failing to adapt to the times is a recipe for the demise of the art. History is full of examples. I wonder, and we will likely never know, how many styles of, say kenjutsu existed in 1550 Japan, the height of the Warring-States Period versus how many there are today…quite a difference, those that remain from antiquity into today do so because their masters adapted to changing times.

What I like about To-Shin-Do, is that is continues this tradition, An-Shu Hayes and Hatsumi Soke are people who recognize that if we don’t adjust to the times, we become righid and inflexible and soon die off; at the same time, they maintain the roots to the past which, if there weren’t any, would cause us to fly away and drift in whatever the direction of the wind was for the day.

Just my thoughts. I don’t know who wrote that criticism, but maybe he should spend that time and energy perfecting technique rather than attacking a master who is doing what he is being called to do, and doing it well.

I hope I my comment wasn’t taken as a cheap shot. It wasn’t ment as such. If so I apologize.

sincerely,

steve

Once more An-Shu you present a wonderfully relevant lesson we should apply.

May these lessons liberate us on our path while helping also liberate others as well.

Bill
LDS
Stationed overseas

It’s lovely being martially liberated !