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...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #11
To the Reader
Every man has a price. That is what people believe. They believe it because, most of the time, they are right. But every once in a while, you meet someone who does not have one. And when you do, it will tell you more about yourself than it tells you about ...
To the Reader
You have been taught to be strong. To overcome. To dominate.
What if that teaching is incomplete?
The Teaching
In weakness there is strength. In strength there is weakness.
This is not wordplay. This is natural law. You cannot have hard without soft. You cannot have soft without har...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #10
To the Reader
In the martial arts, people will do extraordinary things for a piece of paper. They will travel across the country for one. They will lie about one. They will spend years chasing one and then, once they have it, spend the rest of their lives defending it i...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #9
To the Reader
The hardest part of learning from Mitose was not learning from Mitose. It was coming back to my school and trying to explain what I had learned to my students. Every visit to the prison gave me something new. Every class I taught afterward felt like trying ...
Kosho Chronicles Issue #8
To the Reader
You already know everything. That is the problem. You have studied, you have trained, you have built a framework of understanding, and now you filter everything through it. Whatever fits, you accept. Whatever does not, you reject. And you call that knowledg...
To the Reader
If you teach, this will challenge you. If you study under someone, this may confuse you.
Either way, pay attention. What follows strikes at something most martial artists protect without realizing it.
The Teaching
The student is a better teacher than the teacher.
This is not a contr...
