The history of ninjutsu is often obscured by myth. Popular culture has filled the imagination with masked warriors leaping across rooftops, vanishing in clouds of smoke, or wielding strange powers that defy ordinary explanation. These images, while entertaining and not completely incorrect, rarely reflect the reality of the tradition. Ninjutsu did not originate as theatrical […]

A Note on the Term “Kyusho Jitsu” Many people encounter this art under the spelling Kyusho Jitsu, which appears frequently in Western searches and martial-arts discussions. The correct Japanese term is Kyūsho Jutsu (急所術), meaning vital-point technique. Because so many practitioners search for “kyusho jitsu,” this article acknowledges both spellings, even though jutsu is the […]

How ancient builders, upright posture, and martial-arts wisdom converge in El Salvador and beyond. The View from the Ruins In the midday light of a beautiful afternoon in western Chalchuapa El Salvador, I found myself standing amid the Mayan ruins of El Salvador, at the pyramid of Tazumal scanning the vista of the sun-washed plaza […]

Gait refers simply to the way a person walks. It is one of humanity’s most intriguing motor skills, enabling us to move from one place to another. Although bipedal locomotion appears uniform at a glance, closer observation reveals that each individual’s gait varies significantly based on factors like mood, skeletal structure, environmental conditions, learned behaviors, […]

Hemp has probably been around since the beginning of time. It’s more than sustainable and for a plant with a rapid growth rate, hemp can be transformed into food, health and beauty products, paper, textiles, concrete for housing, auto parts, livestock feed and the list is too great to complete in this post. We recently […]

Most Japanese people see cannabis as a subculture of Japan but they’re wrong. For thousands of years cannabis has been at the very heart of Japanese culture

There are two stories which explain the tale of Koi Tsukami in Japanese kabuki theater. The details differ slightly but the story endings are the same. Please enjoy this masterpiece of Japanese folklore complete with a video presentation of the show which includes famous Japanese kabuki actor Ishikawa Somegoro performing this Kabuki Spectacle at the […]