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The Riddle

Feb 13, 2026
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Kosho Chronicles Issue #4

 

To the Reader

Last issue I told you about timing. About how Mitose moved slow but moved on time. About how he dropped me to my knees and called me stupid.

This issue is about something that confused me even more. Something that took me years to understand. Something I am still working on after more than four decades.

This is about the book that did not make sense.

The Teaching

Next time I saw Mitose, he came out with a textbook. He had written a manuscript called "What Is True Self-Defense?" and he wanted me to publish it.

I read it.

I said, "I cannot do this."

He asked why.

I said, "Nobody is going to believe it. It does not make sense."

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26 - The Bubble
TO THE READER There is a comfortable place you return to without noticing. A favorite technique. A preferred side. A distance where you feel safe. You have rehearsed it for years, and it feels like mastery. It is not mastery. It is a bubble, and you are living inside it. The trouble with a bubble is that it feels exactly like home until the moment it fails you, and by then it is too late to lea...
24 - Never Offend Another
TO THE READER You can know a thing perfectly and still be unable to live it. This is one of the quiet tragedies of being human, and the martial arts are full of it. There are men who can explain peace with such clarity that you weep, and who cannot get through a single afternoon without conflict. And there are men who could never explain it at all, who simply are peaceful, the way water is wet....
23 - The Mentor's Gift
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 for the angle. What does he want? What is this going to cost me?Sometimes the answer is nothing. Somet...

The Kosho Chronicles

Each month focuses on a single Kosho principle. Once an issue closes, it doesn't return. No fluff. Only original Kosho material.
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