Shinkendo

[TigerDude]

I found an "Shinkendo" Dojo near me & was looking into it.

It has an extensive Non-disclosure agreement, which basically says you can't talk about it to anyone. This seems to me a bit excessive. Anyone have experience with agreements like this?

http://www.atlantabudokan.com/materials/ISF_AB_KTRR_Non_Disclosure_Agreement.pdf

[bushido_man96]

Sounds like a joke to me. Do they have their patterns copyrighted? That is what the ATA did when they made their new forms systems.

I don't know, but it sounds kind of funny. I would definetly watch a class before signing up.

In my personal opinion, there aren't any "secrets" left in the martial arts. They must have some very special ways of doing things.

[lordtariel]

I think in other words, they don't want you teaching anyone without a pat on the head from the high muckety mucks. I'd find somewhere else, any dojo that requires something like that screams that it's way too mired in politics. It could cause you trouble down the road if you ever thought to teach, even if it wasn't that system you were going to teach. By the way... how do you copywrite a punch or combination? It's like Trump trademarking the phrase "you're fired"

[bushido_man96]

I am not sure how the copyright laws work exactly, but the ATA did get it done. Basically, you have to be an ATA affiliate in order to teach the forms. But how much you can get away with, who knows?

[shinnekodo]

Shinkendo is an art about Japanese swordmanship.

Toshishiro Obata originally published a couple of books circa 20 yrs ago (The Naked Blade & Crimson Steel) which detailed some of the aspects of Toyama-ryu batto jutsu.

Some yrs later, he organized the Shinkendo system, which, as best as I can determine, built upon the knowledge he had dispersed in his earlier books.

Shinkendo is now a very widespread system with licensed instructors in many places around the world. Their website is https://www.shinkendo.com.

My school encountered Sensei Obata many yrs ago, prior to Shinkendo, and learned some of his style then, primarily using his first book (The Naked Blade) as a basis.

We encountered one of his licensed instructors under Shinkendo a few yrs ago, Paul Couch. Had Sensei Couch over for a seminar.

The style is very interesting but the kind of committment they wanted (both financially and time wise) would have been difficult to maintain. We were not in a position to commit to them, with the limited time in our already busy schedules.