Last weekend I was at an aikido seminar where Mr. Kenneth Cottier was teaching. He's remarkable in the world of aikido because he is one of the few Englishmen (and, indeed, non-Japanese) to have trained at the hombu, or headquarters, dojo in Tokyo while the founder of aikido was still alive and teaching — in fact [...]

Miyamoto Musashi was probably the most famous swordsman in all of Japan, and he created the ni-to ryu, or two-swords, school of fighting. As readers of Fudebakudo know, there are several versions of the story of how this came about (the book mischievously contains two contradictory accounts), but one of the most enduring is that the [...]

The key to mastery in any martial art is to start young.   This photograph, taken by an undercover journalist who had infiltrated a Fudebakudo Baby Camp deep in the cellars of a secret monastery in the Wutan foot-hills, shows the early stages of indoctrination. Presumably the parents paid handsomely for putting their offspring through [...]

I wanted to post this link to an interview with Berkeley Breathed on Salon for two reasons. Firstly, it has such a fantastic strap line (see myths if you are not familiar with Fudebakudo's "The Pen is Mightier . . ." motto). Secondly, I loved Breathed's Bloom County cartoon strip when it appeared in the 80s, and the interview [...]