TO THE READER
There is a particular kind of help that arrives from a direction you were not watching. It comes from someone who owes you nothing, who belongs to a different camp, who has no stake in whether you succeed.
When that help comes, most people are suspicious of it. They start looking fo...
TO THE READER
Most people, when they love something, protect it from the truth. They build a version of the story that flatters them, and then they defend it for the rest of their lives.
There is another way to go about it, and it is much harder. You go looking for the people who can tell you tha...
TO THE READER
A man sat in a prison cell for a crime he did not commit. He could have said so. The truth was on his side, and there were people willing to fight for him.He did not fight. He told the people around him that he was guilty. He said it plainly, and he let the verdict stand.
Hanshi has...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #20
To the Reader
The void is something that is nothing. And something that is nothing can be everything.
Sit with that for a moment before you read any further. If it makes sense to you right away, you are not thinking deeply enough.
Kosho Chronicles Issue #19
To the Reader
You could never touch Mitose. He always touched you.
I watched this happen over and over. Someone would reach for him, try to grab him, try to strike. And he was never there. Not because he was fast. Because he was already somewhere else before they started.
Kosho Chronicles Issue #18
To the Reader
I push my students hard. I want them to become so much better than what I could conceive them being. I push them constantly toward perfection. And I do that for a selfish reason.
If they get better, I have to get better. That is the only way I can stay ahe...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #17
To the Reader
I had a student once who was a top tournament fighter. One of the best. Then he started losing. He came to me and asked why. I told him the truth. Because everybody knows what you are going to do.
He asked what he should do about it. I said, change everyth...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #16
To the Reader
Most martial artists train to be soldiers. They drill techniques. They condition their bodies. They prepare for the moment of contact. There is nothing wrong with that. But in Kosho Ryu, the soldier is the last resort. Not the first. And if you find yourse...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #15
To the Reader
Every time I sat down with Mitose's manuscript, I hit the same wall. He was writing about God, about Christ, about Buddha, about religion. I am a martial artist. I wanted combat strategy. I wanted the keys to the art. Instead, I got philosophy wrapped in t...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #14
To the Reader
Nobody wants to be called a coward. You hear that word and everything in you rejects it. You want to stand and fight. You want to prove something. That reaction, that need to prove, is the most dangerous thing about you.
Mitose did not see it the way you do.
Kosho Chronicles Issue #13
To the Reader
You have been showing your opponent everything you are about to do. Every block. Every entry. Every shift of weight. You think you are fast enough that it does not matter. You are wrong.
The highest level of movement is movement that cannot be seen.
Kosho Chronicles Issue #12
To The ReaderThe Octagon is not a diagram on the floor. It is not a shape you step around during a drill and then forget about when the drill is over. It is alive. It lives in your body, in your opponent's body, in every joint, every crease, every rotation of every limb...
