Bushido Ryu Dojo teaches the original martial arts “war arts” which are the most practical for street self defense.
Here’s what training at our Dojo will do for you. We call these the Four Pillars of the Dojo.
1. Self Defense
You will very quickly learn functional self-defense skills. We will teach them to you from the very first day you are in class. Proven effective skills. Everyone we’ve trained at our Dojo who has needed to use their skills has been 100% successful — since we opened in South Florida in 1992. If needed, you will be too. You will have the skills, strategy, and tactics to handle any type of street attack. Being able to defend yourself and your family will also give you a huge amount of peace of mind and confidence.
If you don’t have these skills now, or don’t feel confident in whatever skills you do have, I encourage you to take action and come learn. These aren’t movie martial arts where you need to be acrobatic and train for five years. These are simple, proven effective skills that have been working for generations.
2. Personal Transformation
The training is a personal improvement and transformation journey. As you improve your martial skills, you’re also going to improve yourself — in mind, body, and spirit. You will become a more confident, stronger, more dynamic version of you. The training will improve your strength, skill, speed, balance, coordination, mental strength, and more. Start from wherever you are. We will calibrate the training to your physicality, your skill level, and your mentality. Being a complete beginner is fine — and many times easier. Most martial artists have trained in kids’ karate or purely sport martial arts, so much of what they know needs to be adjusted to work in real life.
3. Brotherhood & Friendship
When you become a member of the Dojo, you immediately become part of the Dojo Brotherhood. One of the great aspects of training is the camaraderie of the people you train with and the friendships you make. Most students are men and women in their 30s to 60s. When you spend regular quality time with people you like and respect, you make real friends. That’s not easy to find as an adult — but it happens here naturally as part of the Dojo experience. The Brotherhood extends off the mat as well. We have a large network of Dojo members, past and present, and we help each other out. Most are professionals and business owners — between us, we have just about everything covered.
4. Challenge & Fun
Learning the skills is a lot of fun — and a genuine personal challenge you’ll benefit from and enjoy. The martial arts, especially the way we teach them here, are deep. We draw from a large variety of styles: Karate, Krav Maga, Jujitsu, Wing Chun Kung Fu, and Kali/Arnis (Filipino weapons arts). There’s real intricacy in how the techniques work across all the different ranges and systems.
You’ve probably been interested in the arts for a long time. It’s always resonated with you. Now you get to come out, learn the skills, and see how it all fits together. It’s challenging. And it’s one of the most interesting things you’ll ever do.
Welcome to our Dojo in Dania Beach, FL. We focus on training adults in functional self defense fighting skills that are proven in the type of real world self defense situations that happen more and more. To date, all of our students that have needed to use their self defense skills have been 100% successful. (Read through some of our hundreds of testimonials.)
People train with us because they want real self defense skills they can learn quickly. You are probably not interested in competing at the UFC, the “all valley tournament”, or getting a movie part. But you are interested in being able to physically defend yourself against an attacker and you will walk around feeling confident in your skills.
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You will also become a better & stronger version of yourself. Martial training is a GREAT personal growth path.
We only train adults. No children’s classes. Most students are 30s to 50s (we accept as young as teenagers and we have many students in their 60s). You will be training with adults. You won’t feel out of place if you’re 48 and never trained in martial arts before. The more advanced students all help out the new people. That “Dojo Brotherhood” culture is a big part of our school.
I’m the head Sensei for the Dojo. I’ve been training in the martial arts for the last 48 years and am an 8th Degree Black Belt.
I teach all the classes, write all the student resources, strategy & tactical guides and make all the martial instructional videos and create all the other content you will be given as a student here.
When you go visit a Dojo it’s fun and impressive to watch the really skilled Black Belts demonstrate their martial arts. But those top Black Belts are the 1% of that school. And the top athletes at most schools tend to look pretty good. But can they effectively teach other people those skills? Especially if those new people are not as flexible, in shape or as good an athlete as they are?
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If I were looking at a school I would look at the skills of the students with 1 year of training. Especially the students that are not particularly gifted athletes. How good are those green belts? Because that’s what your skill level will likely be next year if you train there. And those students show how effective the teaching at that school is.
When people look through their local martial arts schools it seems like a smart shortcut to finding a good teacher is to look to train with an instructor who is a high ranking Black Belt or has an impressive training pedigree (trained under Grandmaster so an so) or a cool resume (was in this or that elite military/swat unit etc).
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Instructors holding high rank and certifications are all good things BUT the main reason all that should be important to YOU -is because it (hopefully) translates into them being excellent TEACHERS and being able to teach those skills to you.
The highest ranking professors at Harvard are the most acclaimed academic authors -NOT the best teachers. Being a great academic (or a skilled martial artist) does not automatically make you a great teacher. You have to be able to quickly and effectively teach other people.
For YOU the most important part about my martial arts journey, belt rank & certifications is that I am a very skilled and experienced teacher and help you reach your martial arts goals quicker. (especially if your goal is to have the skill to effectively defend yourself).
I know how to customize & calibrate the instruction & training based on what you need. So that you learn the skills faster and get what you want out of the training much sooner.
Over the many years I’ve been a martial artist, I’ve met lots of instructors who are good martial artists but not good teachers. Some don’t have a real interest in teaching or they have too much ego and like to show off. Some are mostly focused on working on their own skills, getting ready for their next competition etc.
Some instructors from certain Asian cultures traditionally only show their real fighting skills to members of their family. They treat their real martial art like a military secret. (which made sense back in the day).
Click here to TEXT the Dojo for Info, Videos & Schedule of FREE Intro class times!
I know a Grandmaster of Filipino martial arts (FMA), who now lives in South Florida, who teaches locally. But he only teaches you some of the skills. He teaches the martial sport skills but not the real “war art” version of his martial art.
Maybe years later after you’ve “proven yourself” he will teach you more. I’ll see him teach a class or seminar and I know that he’s only teaching half of the skill (and he knows that I know. lol). I asked him one time “are you going to teach those guys the other part of that technique you’re leaving out?”. He said “eh…not yet. Maybe some day”.
The problem for his students is that at a minimum they are developing bad habits because they are practicing incorrect and incomplete skills.
And lots of martial arts I see demonstrated are just bad skills. (Really bad. Lol). Students always send me YouTube clips of people teaching various martial arts techniques. And some of it is just complete garbage. If you try it in a self defense scenario it is not going to go well for you.
The problem is some of the people doing the skills are good athletes and the “attacker” guy they are doing the move on is helping to sell the move. It’s like a Hollywood movie. It can look pretty good with slick choreography and good stunt men.
Some things I see demonstrated are really cool martial sports skills but not actual self defense skills that are likely to work in real life. If you don’t have knowledge about the fighting arts it’s easy to see flashy Karate spinning kicks or a Jujitsu guy on YouTube doing some super complex, 5 part setup into a triangle choke -and think that’s what REAL fighting skills look like. It’s not.
That stuff is cool and its fun -but it is NOT how real martial artists actually defend ourselves. And for most people those acrobatic skills are not what they need. You need skills you can learn quickly and will work right away.
I customize the instruction based on your goals, your job/life if its dangerous (law enforcement, certain travel jobs, etc), whatever level of martial training & skills you already have (if any), where you’re at physically, your comfort level and other factors. Many new students have no training at all and need to get up to speed on the skills (its actually easy to start from zero) and some students have Black Belts in sport martial arts and realize those arts are better for for the movies & tournaments and want to actually be able to defend themselves against the type of attacks we see happen all the time on the news etc.
Our large number of weekly classes & rolling course schedule goes beyond teaching only Krav Maga and blends both ancient “war arts” (aka “Bujutsu”) versions of Karate, Jujitsu, Filipino weapons arts (Kali), Wing Chun Kung Fu with more modern self defense techniques (pistol & rifle defense etc), creating one of the most versatile programs in Florida with a proven track record of students being able to actually defend themselves. Look through all our many self defense testimonials. Most of the students in the testimonials had less than 6 months of training.
Bruce Lee famously advised “absorb what’s useful” from the various martial art skills. Think of martial skills like a carpenters toolbox and you need and should have a complete set of tools. You can bang a nail with a wrench but it’s much easier to use a hammer. The good news is that the original martial arts (along with the modern version Krav Maga) teach complete sets of fighting skills. are all simple, proven effective skills that you will be able to learn quickly and get competent with.
All the fancy martial arts you see in movies or the MMA matches you see in the UFC on TV are sport martial arts. That’s not what we actually do in the real martial arts. That Chuck Norris style fancy Karate with the spinning hook kicks etc, that looks cool on the big screen, takes YEARS to learn and is not very practical for facing the type of attacks that actually happen in real life.
At our school you will learn skills at your first class that you can use effectively right away. These are the same simple but extremely effective skills that high level Black Belts would use if we needed to defend ourselves. My go to techniques I’d use if I had to defend myself are the same skills we teach you on your 1st day in class. Because we are teaching street effective self defense in the “war arts” we teach the most effective techniques first.
Karate, Krav Maga, Jujitsu, Filipino Weapons Arts, Wing Chun
About the Martial Arts Classes at the Dojo
To truly be able to defend yourself there are some main areas of self defense skill you NEED to be functional in. And also know how to defend against.
- Karate-Krav Maga style Kicking,
- Punching (palm strikes, knifehands etc)
- Infighting range (elbow/knee strikes etc).
- Grappling skills (so you can stay off the ground OR get back to your feet)
- Jujitsu joint locks & chokes, throws.
- Weapons fighting skills (using and defending).
- Multiple attacker defense.
The good news is that quickly learning to defend yourself effectively is a very simple & straightforward process. You are not trying to get ready for some UFC style MMA tournament against a highly trained Black Belt. You are training to be able to handle the kind of real self defense scenarios that happen all the time. You’re NOT dealing with some high level, trained Black Belt. You are going to have to defend against some random idiot with road rage or some low level street criminal.
They can be dangerous but they are not skilled fighters. And they are expecting no real resistance, they expect to be able to just victimize you. As we often say at the Dojo, attackers don’t want to fight with you, they want to beat you up. Hurting some clueless person is totally different from engaging with a skilled fighter. If you’re too difficult they will go elsewhere.
All of our students that have needed to defend themselves have been completely successful. And most of them had less than 6 months of training before their self defense scenario happened.
An expert martial artist (a real Black Belt) just has a much higher skill level in these different martial techniques.
As you probably know by now, most martial arts styles are “Budo” arts and teach martial sport and kids martial arts. Martial sports focus on 1 or 2 of the skill areas -and they do the sport version of those skills (EX: BJJ schools teach (sport) grappling, Tae Kwon Do schools teach (sport) kicking).
Classes are taught by our head Sensei -who has 48 years of Martial Arts experience
Martial Arts Training Instructional Videos, Books & Resources
The Dojo gives students a large variety of martial arts instructional materials we give to our students to accelerate their learning
Books & Dojo Info
General Dojo Knowledge
- Belt Rank Technique Curriculum
- Street Defense Series
- Martial Arts Strategy & Tactics
Martial Arts Videos
Skills, Techniques & Strategy
- Martial Skills Tutorial
- Street Attack Analysis Videos
- Daily Instructional from Class
- “Martial Roadmaps” Series
- Stretching & Conditioning
Student Resources
To help you learn skills.
- “Coach’s Eye” Video Analysis
- Strength & Conditioning routines
- Strategy & Tactics
- Street attack analysis video series
- Personal Videos sent to students daily from their sparring/skill sessions
Martial Arts
Bushido Ryu Dojo – Self Defense & Functional Martial Arts
All of our students that have needed to use their martial skills to defend themselves have been 100% successful. Below are some of their self defense stories.
Student Self Defense
When our students have needed to use their self defense skills they have ALL been successful. The biggest benefit of self defense skill is the peace of mind that you have knowing you can protect your family and yourself.
Remember also that in real world self defense you are not preparing for some UFC style MMA fight in a ring vs a trained fighter. These people who attacked our students are dangerous because they are violent (and most people can’t defend themselves) not because they are skilled fighters.
Martial Arts Self Defense Skills
Martial sports are a lot of fun and many serious martial artists first trained in the sport arts as kids before they started studying the original martial arts the sport arts are descended from. If studying “Martial Sports” like BJJ, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Boxing etc and playing martial arts as a sport (competing in tournaments etc) is what interests you then you should definitely pursue that BUT if your interest is in being a functional martial artist with real martial skills then the video demonstrates the different types of skills you SHOULD know (And absolutely MUST know if self defense abilities are part of your reasons for wanting to train in the Arts)Contact us if you have any questions about the different types of martial skills or would like the chance to come and train at our Dojo.
- Okinawa Te Karate
- Krav Maga
- Wing Chun Kung Fu
- Kali Filipino Weapons (FMA)
- Jujitsu
- Gun/Knife Defenses
- Speed, Strength, Power Development
- Personal Transformation (Mind, Body & Spirit)
If you’ve looked at martial arts schools around the area you will see that our Dojo is very different than the average martial arts school.
What makes us different is we started with a different training philosophy than the more common sport martial arts schools or kids schools.
The majority of those schools focus on playing martial arts as a sport, going to sport Karate tournaments, trying to win trophies etc. Since the late 1800s the majority of arts have been modified from the original martial arts (war arts) into sport derivatives of those arts.
As you’ve probably already learned for yourself while researching schools and styles, the norm in the world of martial arts schools is to take a large group of people…mostly children under 12 years old… and teach them “martial sports” or “martial ways”
Generally called “budo” arts these styles are derivatives and generally less functional modifications of the original martial arts they were based on. There is nothing wrong with Budo arts, a lot of of people (especially kids) really enjoy them. But they are not the same as the original arts they are derived from.
Our schools focus was on training in the best possible martial arts skills, studying those original arts. As we trained to perfect our martial abilities we also improved ourselves as people becoming stronger and more centered. We also enjoyed being a serious group of martial artists training at a Dojo together.
Our Dojo offers an exceptional and unique martial arts & Self Defense training experience
After over 48 years in the Arts my experience and belief has always been that people who get into the martial arts are overall a great group of people. The Arts have always attracted high quality people to them and many great people study them.
We respect anyone who has ever dedicated themselves to the Arts -especially when they try to pass on what they have learned to others.
But it is also a FACT that martial arts schools are NOT created equal.
If you are researching martial arts schools because you want to take classes you should be aware of that fact and keep it in mind as you look around at possible schools for yourself.
If you have a friend or family member who is an experienced Black Belt ask them to tell you candidly what they have learned over their years in the Arts about martial arts schools and martial arts instruction in our area -or nationally.
Ask them this question:
“What should I know about the martial arts and martial arts schools before I decide on a school I want to join?”
They will tell you that there are a very small number of truly exceptional schools, most schools are ok to good (or acceptable for certain needs -decent kids after school program, good cardio class etc) and some schools are poor or have some glaring negative that you would be better advised to avoid (unsafe methods, poor instruction etc).
We believe we have created the finest martial arts Dojo in the South Florida area. Offering better instruction, more diverse martial skills and more effectively giving our students the benefits they are seeking that caused them to want to start studying martial arts in the first place.
The 10 most important of those characteristics of the Dojo are:
- First class school, martial style and training.
- Personal Transformation…mind, body & spirit
- Real world, proven self-defense skills
- Becoming part of an exceptional group of people
- Adult only school and classes
- Real, original arts rather than martial sports or Budo
- Advanced Black Belt Instructors (with 48+ years in the Arts)
- Small class sizes with more personal instruction
- Dynamic, fun & functional classes
- Learn ALL of the martial skills
REAL WORLD, PROVEN SELF-DEFENSE SKILLS
While there are many benefits to training in the arts besides self defense many people who start martial arts do so because, in addition to all the other benefits they want, they also want the peace of mind that comes with being able to protect themselves.
Training at our Dojo will teach you extremely effective martial arts fighting skills that have proven themselves many times over when our students have found themselves in harm’s way (see our many testimonials). If you need to defend yourself, you will have the skills.
PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WARRIOR ARTS
Many martial arts schools just teach a series of techniques. If all you get out of being a martial artist is improvements of your physical abilities you are vastly missing out on all the most profound benefits of the martial path.
Serious Black Belts will tell you that having expert martial arts skills is satisfying, fun and functional …but the thing that they value most about being a martial artist is how it has changed them as a person.
Excellent Martial Arts training will radically change your life for the better. Training in the arts will cause you to grow and become stronger in mind, body and spirit.
Our school goes beyond just teaching excellent martial technique and uses the experience of being a martial artist striving for mastery of their Art (with all that journey will entail) as a medium and a method of personal growth and transformation.