Rukawa

I think this school is located in the US, not Japan. It says somewhere on the site: "...unless you have some other legal means by which you can stay in the US for three years, you are not eligible to particiapate in the BKH program"

I am actually from Denmark. I used to be member of a Kyokushin dojo back in Copenhagen, but after I moved to Japan I wanted to try something different. So I joined a small JKD club and that completely changed my view on martial arts. Unfortunately the number of members kept decreasing until basically it was just me training there, so I stopped. I really want to find a new place to train, but haven't been able to find any place or style which is as creative, interesting and challenging as my JKD class was. The Japanese bracnh of JKD (IUMA) I have found to train almost like a traditional Japanese karate club.

I don't live in the US, so is there a website or something where you can read more about it?

I have been in Japan for about 5 years now, and I absolutely love the country, the life style and the people. I wasn't sure though whether I would like to live here or not, so when I came the first time I stayed on a tourist visa for 90 days, and then extended it for another 90 days. In the meantime I had found a job and then went back to my home country over Christmas to get a new visa. If you are interested in learning Japanese I know of a bunch of good websites where you can teach yourself the basics. The below site is quite rich with cultural information and also has a short introduction to the writing system. There are also links to sites where you can look for a job as an English teacher (might be good to earn some money while you're there ) http://internationaleflcafe.com/japanese.htm

Used to do Shotokan and Kyokushin. Later Ju-jutsu. Finally ended up with JKD which I have found to be the most flexible and useful system if your main interest in in SD.

I trained Kali for some time, and the training mostly focused on stick fighting and trapping techniques. It's really quite enjoyable and you will learn some things that are not taught in most other martial arts. But I recommend you to supplement it with some other MA.

I too believe it was acting, but why would anyone come to this place and "train" for two hours something that is absolutely useless? It didn't even look good, like, say, the perfectly timed, stylised sword fights of Iaido practitioners I have seen once. And why wouldn't they let us try, even after the regular training? Not the best way to get new students is it?

A couple of months ago a friend convinced me to come with him and sit in on a training session with the famous Daito-ryu club run by a shihan Seigo Okamoto here in Tokyo where I live. Not knowing anything about this style, I went there with an open mind, but what I saw shocked me, not so much over the techniques that these people did, more because I wasn't really sure what it was I was actually seeing. When the class started it looked almost like a traditional Japanese aikido class. Except it was a bit more "basic". There were about 50 students, and they lined up in four rows, at the end of each row one student would sit down and perform a certain technique on each of the students one after the other as they approached. . The shihan would come by each of the rows from time to time and show them how to do it. The first techniques were really simple: The attacker would grab the guy's wrists with both hands and to get free he would do a twist and point his fingers slightly upwards thereby breaking loose of the attacker's grasp. Really basic stuff. But when the students (who were all but a few, brown and black belts) were to perform it on the shihan, the result was completely different! His techniques although they looked to be the same, seemed to be much more effective: When the shihan was attacked, the attacker would usually be thrown away as if pulled by some invisible wire, and sometimes he would yell out as if he had received an electric shock. The techniques then changed, different escape techniques, in itself nothiing spectacular. Then gradually it got stranger and stranger. The shihan's next technique was outrageous: The student would approach him and try to grab the collar of his gi jacket, and in the same instance the shihan would move slightly forward in a little jerk, and the attacker would suddenly fly away, collapse backward in pain or throw himself into a judo fall rolling over one shoulder and land on a feet and a knee. But all the time without the shihan even touching him! Yes, he didn't even use his arms. Later he briefly explained that he could do this with any part of his body... I still have no idea what was going on. Was it an extreme perfection of skills? Was it a mass hypnosis? Was it just acting? Has anyone heard about this? What do you think happened? This style is famous around the world, and there are several dojos in other countries - the one I went to is supposed to be one of the main dojos. Btw, after the training the shihan disappeared, and we were never allowed to train or even be thrown by any of the other teachers (we had to become members first, they said)