About Us
Our Dojo offers the most exceptional and unique martial arts training experience. The 10 most important of those differences 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 Head Instructor (with 45+ years in the Arts)
- Small class sizes with more personal instruction
- Dynamic, fun & functional classes
- Learn ALL of the martial skills
1) FIRST CLASS DOJO, EQUIPMENT & TRAINING RESOURCES
Our Dojo is equipped with the very best training and safety gear. If you get to train at our Dojo you will immediately see that we offer a unique and exceptional training experience. A huge amount of time, effort and thought has been put into creating our Dojo and giving our students the best possible training.
In martial arts as in other important areas of life we believe it is important to go with the best. Training in an outstanding martial arts program will make huge positive changes in you as a person and in the quality of your life.
Overview of Dojo Training Facility, Equipment & Resources
New students at the school are given (free) an intro informational book, a series instructional videos to help them get up to speed, plus access to our 500+ video library and other resources to help them on their journey on the martial path.
Our Dojo is very well equipped and spacious at over 2,400 square feet
Intro package for prospective students
You will be given the package below when you come in for your 1st class. It is designed to help you learn about the Dojo and get up to speed quickly and comfortably with the new skills and information.
It was designed to be especially helpful if you are new to the Arts -or very rusty from a long gap in your training
Our Dojo extensively uses video because it is a excellent learning tool.
The Dojo has a large variety of top quality training gear, strike pads, protective gear, practice weapons.
With fully matted floors and walls for safety and training options
Changing rooms, equipment storage, etc
2) 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.
in the physical area you will greatly improve in many ways. You will get stronger but you will also improve your speed, your timing, your power, your reflexes, your hand-eye coordination, your stamina, your balance, your flexibility, your agility, your body tone and more.
You will get the same multifaceted growth in the areas of mind and spirit including: self-discipline, focus, awareness, confidence, motivation, self-respect, stress management, concentration, self-control, personal growth, goal setting, leadership skills, public speaking skills, persistence, emotional control, fear control, rapid decision making and more.
The martial arts culture and the environment of the school put a lot of emphasis on developing dynamic, strong people who live by a code of conduct that includes self-discipline, integrity, personal responsibility, self-respect, respect for others and a commitment to improving themselves and their life. We tend to value strength in others and we like and respect ourselves most when we are strong and self-disciplined.
The codes and culture of the arts have endured for so long because they offer people a way to develop these positive attributes in themselves and allow them to live a better, more enjoyable, more elegant life. Having a code that you believe in and the self-discipline to follow it is like having a road map to where you want to go and the willpower to make the trip.
3) 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.
The Bushido Knights 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.
Knowing you can take care of yourself and your family because you are extremely well trained will give you peace of mind and confidence.
Many of our students have avoided violent conflicts and the need to physically defend themselves simply because the aggressor saw that they were confident and seemed well prepared. Predators look for weakness and fear to help them choose prey that will be easily targeted with minimal risk to themselves. When you don’t display the expected fear and weakness you don’t look like a good target.
If they choose to continue their aggression anyway, they will do so facing a well trained person who is fully prepared to counter any of their attacks. This is the essence of “peace through strength”. One of the ironic things about training in the martial arts is that the better your skills become the less likely you are to ever have to use them in a violent conflict.
Over the years we have had over 40 students (mostly people who work in dangerous professions, law enforcement etc) that have needed to defend themselves.
All of our students who have needed to defend themselves have done so successfully and most of them had less than 6 months of training at the time.
It is worth noting that none of our students received any significant injuries and none of them found it necessary to severely injure the aggressor.
None of them had any legal problems due to their self-defense actions. There is certainly some good fortune to our self defense success rate but the common denominator was good, effective martial arts training.
Most times our students have avoided potential self defense situations due to superior awareness and because aggressors were dissuaded by the confidence they displayed. Criminals look for easy targets and are drawn to weakness. A well trained martial artist is neither.
Our students many success stories illustrate the effectiveness of the Bushido Knight’s martial arts teaching methodology and also shows how quickly the students develop the skills needed to protect themselves.
If self defense abilities are one of your goals then why take Budo classes purporting to teach self-defense (as virtually all schools claim) if you will need to train for many years before they become even marginally effective?
Over the years we have met many people who had gotten their Black Belts in Budo arts and were discouraged because they did not feel they had significant self defense skills after years of training and reaching high rank.
If self defense skills are important to you then Budo arts are the wrong place to seek them. Some sport arts will work better than others but none of them are truly designed for it. (Boxing is a tough martial sport but look up “boxers fracture” and you start to see how using a sport for self-defense can go wrong)
Hopefully you never need your skills to protect yourself or your family but having real skills and not needing them is much better than the alternative.
4) BECOMING PART OF AN EXCEPTIONAL GROUP OF PEOPLE
Many martial arts programs will only let a new student try one intro class and many schools will accept anyone that wanders in the door and wants to sign up. They have no admissions criteria or minimum standards for who they will teach.
At the Bushido Ryu Dojo we have an admissions program that allows prospective students to train with us so they can experience the Dojo.
The people in your life influence you and effect the quality of your life. Being around negative people and situations will drain you and your life of the positive things you want and need. Being around positive people and situations will do the opposite. Spending time with quality people similar to yourself is one of the best ways to raise the quality of your life.
5) REAL MARTIAL ARTS FOR ADULTS
We are one of the very few schools in America that only teaches adults. The youngest we will accept a student is 15 years old. The majority of our students are 25-45 years old.
This distinguishes the Bushido Ryu Dojo from most martial arts programs that specialize in teaching younger children (12 and under). We do not teach young children because we focus exclusively on real martial arts for adults, martial arts as it was originally taught.
Children’s martial art programs are excellent for teaching kids confidence, coordination, respect etc, and we recommend that people get their children involved in the arts, but kids martial arts (even when they are retooled into an “adult” program) are not right for adults who want more serious training in the same way that many serious adult subjects are not appropriate for children.
“Mushin” -Silent Mind
That’s why we recommend you look at all the other martial arts schools in the area that interest you and then come and see our Dojo.
When you have seen the type of training that is commonly available and also the very high percentage of schools that almost exclusively focus on offering classes for young children …you will have a better appreciation for the outstanding quality and uniqueness of the teaching you will experience at the Bushido Knights Ryu.
6) BUSHIDO vs. BUDO
When you research the martial art schools in the area you will find that most of them do what are called “Budo” arts.
Budo arts are either “Martial ways” or “Martial sports“
MARTIAL WAYS
Martial ways are derivatives of the original martial arts that seek to remove much of the “Martial” aspects of the arts but try to still retain the personal development aspects.
We believe that systems removing the core “martial” elements from the Arts is a mistake because those elements are the main mechanism that drives and causes all the growth in mind, body & spirit that martial artists achieve.
Martial “Ways” (“Do” arts, Karate-do, aikido, Iaido etc) seek to improve the mental and spiritual development of the practitioner through the practice of aesthetically attractive techniques that have been derived from the original martial arts.
By focusing on perfecting the movements they strive to improve the person. Martial ways modify the original techniques based on the appearance of the technique rather than its functionality. The major drawback of these modifications is the techniques are not as effective as the original and much more likely to fail in a self defense scenario -or even in vigorous training.
For example when striking a solid object with power the most commonly used punching techniques in the budo karate systems (Karate-do) can easily result in a broken wrist or a fracture in the radial or ulna bones of the forearm unless it is performed perfectly.
The same technique executed the way it was originally taught is much more powerful and is structurally much stronger and will work even if it is performed imperfectly.
Secondly, when the original martial arts techniques and concepts that form the nucleus of real martial arts have been removed or modified you lose the essence of what made the arts great and what made them effective. It would be like removing all the weights from a gym but leaving all the cardio equipment. You would still get results but it would only be a shadow of what you could previously accomplish.
Without those essential core elements the arts are much less effective for self defense and they are also not as effective as a personal development tool.
MARTIAL SPORTS
“Martial sports” use derivatives of martial arts to create a sport version of the arts (more “Do” arts -karate do, tai kwon do, judo, MMA -Mixed martial arts, Kickboxing etc) that can be competed in for the enjoyment of participants (esp younger kids) and spectators.
Martial sports also many times create an atmosphere of competition between the students at the school that can be a detriment to proper learning -esp for newer people just coming into the school. The object of sports is to win the game and in martial sports that means beating the opponent. We find that a challenging but non competitive atmosphere works better.
Martial sports also remove much of the original martial art techniques that are too functional and effective because these techniques can’t be used safely in sport competition.
Martial sports also add in some non-functional, flashier techniques to give their competitions more spectator appeal. Jump spinning kicks for example.
Martial sports also use some techniques that take advantage of the rules of their sport. For example competitors in sport karate will sometimes partially turn their back to the opponent because the back is not a legal target area under the sport rules. This conceals the legal targets on the front of their body and will possibly force the opponent to draw a penalty if they do strike the exposed back area.
There is nothing wrong with playing the rules to your advantage in sport competition but in real life of course exposing the back (spine, kidneys etc) to an aggressor is an extremely dangerous and foolish thing to do. Under stress you will react the way you have practiced. If you have developed non-functional habits from your sport training you could be in trouble.
Many of the techniques that sport martial artists practice don’t work well outside the sport environment and they are never taught many of the techniques that DO work or they are taught non-functional sport versions of the techniques.
BUSHIDO
Bushido is translated as “The Way of the Warrior” and we use the term in its literal translation to refer to the ancient warrior arts. (more commonly it is used to refer to the samurai code -“Yu, Rei Gi” etc)
The Bushido arts (also commonly called “Jutsu” or “Jitsu” Arts) are what the newer Budo arts are based on.
These arts are the parent arts to the “Budo” systems. Like the Budo “martial way” systems they develop students in mind, body and spirit -creating strong, dynamic self-disciplined individuals.
We have found that the older warrior arts are even much more effective at this.
The older arts are extremely functional and effective because the founding Masters of these systems lived in a time where they needed to be able to protect themselves and if their art failed them they were unlikely to survive to teach the next generation.
We teach these arts because they are much more complete than the arts that were derived from them and offer a great deal more to the people who study them beyond even the great self defense skills.
Look at all the other schools and types of martial arts available and see for yourself.
7) LEARN FROM ADVANCED BLACK BELTS
The instructors at the Bushido Knights are advanced Black Belts, with over 30 years of experience in the Arts who do martial arts full time and have focused their lives on doing and teaching the best martial arts.
There are very few schools where a brand new white belt gets the opportunity to learn from senior Black Belts with this level of expertise.
At the Bushido Knights if you are accepted as a student the majority of the classes available to you are taught by the head instructor.
There is a huge difference between learning from a master teacher with over a 30 years of experience as opposed to being in classes run by a junior Black Belts who may have been teaching for only a year or two.
8) SMALL CLASS SIZES WITH MORE INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION
The Bushido Knights offer smaller class sizes than big commercial schools which may have 30-40 people in a class.
Our class sizes are kept small, generally 6-12 people per class, so our students get a lot of individual attention from the head instructor.
We limit the number of students we will accept to maintain the smaller class sizes and the high quality of instruction our students receive.
9) DYNAMIC, FUN & FUNCTIONAL CLASSES
Our classes teach real martial arts in a very functional way but the classes are also designed to be fun and challenging so our students learn faster and to find it easier to be motivated to train more.
We teach in a very “hands on” fashion where you get to actually work the skills in realistic scenarios. This allows you to learn and internalize the skills much quicker than schools that use less functional methods (i.e. line drills, all kata, kicking air etc)
We spend a large percentage of our training time on perfecting our students techniques and on what is traditionally known in Budo arts as “Bunkai” (or the application and meaning of the techniques -usually as found in “kata”)
To be a great martial artist you need to have great skill in your techniques but you also need to understand how and why those techniques are best used.
Otherwise it is like owning the best set of tools available -but not knowing what can be done with them or how they can be optimally used.
This is why the average 12 year old Black Belt from a sport martial arts school does not compare to an older Black Belt from the Warrior arts.
The 12 year old may have great physical abilities (speed, flexibility, clean technique etc) but he will not have the mental skills needed to have a deeper understanding of the techniques, the “way of strategy” etc.
The physical techniques must be mastered but it is the mental abilities and knowledge combined with that physical mastery that separate the good “technician” from the great martial artist.
10) LEARN ALL OF THE MARTIAL SKILLS
The Bushido Knights teach a much larger variety of martial arts skills than are commonly taught in other martial arts schools (Most styles focus on only 1 “range” or type of skill (i.e. just kicking or just grappling -the Bushido Knights teach all of the 4 “ranges”).
To learn all the skills that are taught here you would have to simultaneously study at least 4 different Martial Arts styles that specialize…and then put all the skills together.
Go and see for yourself.
Watch a class at all the martial arts schools in the area and look at the teaching method, what type of students take classes there and the curriculum they teach.
Then compare it to classes at the Bushido Knights Ryu.
One of the difficulties in choosing a martial arts school is that you have to decide which type of skills you think you need and then hope you don’t end up in a situation that is outside the scope of the Art you have chosen.
For example if a Black Belt in Karate ends up on the ground in a grappling encounter they would be in trouble because none of Karate’s kicks or hand strikes work well unless they are standing up -preferably three to six feet away from the attacker so they can kick and punch comfortably.
A Black Belt in a grappling system such as Brazilian Jujitsu could easily handle an encounter on the ground but they would be in trouble if they faced multiple attackers -or any situation where they could not grab the opponent and go to the ground such as a knife wielding opponent.
The Bushido Knights students don’t have to worry about ending up in a scenario that is outside their skills because our students are trained in all the different martial skills not just one or two. Again, Come and see for yourself.
