Hudson Valley Taijutsu

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Hudson Valley Taijutsu is a martial arts club dedicated to the practice of Bujinkan Budō Taijutsu and to fostering a community rooted in friendship, mutual support, and shared aspirations.

05/28/2026

Teaching my ten-year-old daughter Taijutsu for the first time.

Please be mindful and respectful if you should choose to comment.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/16/2026

Ganseki Nage - 岩石投げ

One of many possible ways.

05/15/2026

Isshi Sōden 一子相伝
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Hatsumi sensei has often stated that, although he may have many students, his teaching style is isshi sōden, or one-to-one, teaching each student as a parent would their only child. I wanted to share these clips from a private lesson because they evoke that feeling for me.

Private lessons are very different from classes. There's no pause, just a continuous back and forth. As the student, you don't get to screw it up while the teacher looks at someone else. As the teacher, you don't get to think about what's next while the students practice. And you don't get to rely on visual demonstrations. It's a form of communication that involves the whole body.

I have removed the sound (it was a private lesson, after all), but the movement should mostly tell the story. We'd been working on hon gyaku variations off of a wrist grab when I stated that hon gyaku is a "faster" lock than, say, omote gyaku, because there's less play in the linkage to the spine. And because it friggin' hurts. So there are a few omote gyaku clips thrown in to show how many joints need to have their (larger, in this direction) freedom of motion eliminated before the wrist controls the spine, as compared to hon gyaku, which tends to affect structure immediately.

I appreciate my students very much. Each one. Though I do always question my sanity a bit when giving them pointers on how to better apply hon gyaku to my own wrists...

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/13/2026

A couple of thoughts on Sanshin hand positions.

In my view, the Sanshin forms are templates, not literal prescriptions. They're the root notes of Taijutsu. This means they're very general.

It's not that you learn these five forms and then literally go use them as-is. Rather, you learn these forms, ingrain the principles through them, and then those principles show up in every movement you do.

But the first time you're asked to practice them, that's not so obvious. At least it wasn't to me.

One of my personal sticking points was the hand positions we use. I just couldn't understand how to reconcile these hugely powerful movements with the (kind of weird!) hand positions chosen for the strikes.

Over time I've come to understand that the hand positions are what they are for generality in a martial art that embraces any and every imaginable kind of weapon. I give a few examples to get you thinking on your own, but there are many more.

Taijutsu has taught me, over and over again, not to settle for my first interpretation, my first reaction, my first understanding, but to keep looking deeper. This is one example.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/11/2026

Mutō Dori Asobi - 無刀捕り遊び
--

Just a few slow-paced natural henka. Asobi means play, so view it as such.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/09/2026

Mother bird cannot feed you the larger prey.

You have to hunt them down for yourself.

Not everything is written. Not everything is taught.

We each must blaze our own path. In the end, ability comes only through our own effort.

Your taijutsu can only come from you.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/08/2026

Moguri Nage 潜投
--

From a seminar in January 2005. Posting just for fun.

I like that moguri, or diving down, has the potential to allow a smaller person to throw a larger person they would otherwise struggle to lift. By starting what would be a shoulder throw and then dropping way down before the opponent's weight reaches the pivot point of the throw, you take only a fraction of the weight. Being so close, it becomes difficult (but possible) for the opponent to drop their weight straight down onto you.

If you have a strong and well structured crouching kamae, it also becomes possible to bear and redirect even a heavy load because you are bone on bone - your muscles don't have to hold it, you just have to tolerate getting a bit squished. You've already squished yourself before they got the chance, and the structure of the posture makes it easy to redirect the load.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/08/2026

Clips from class.

Just working on connecting some basic movements.

Not a fight.

Enjoy your training, and keep going!

05/06/2026

Sanshin no Kata 三心之型
--
Two of many possible ways.

Both from a recent solo practice session.

In the first, I'm working on ushiro tobi, doing two iterations of a form and then leaping back to the starting position. I have a stick laying on the mats at the starting line so that between that and the feeling of the seam under my feet I can check the accuracy of each leap by feel and peripheral vision instead of looking down. As I train without a mirror, I often resort to such methods to get external feedback on things like this.

In the second, I'm working on transitioning from standing to kneeling and back again. All I really care about here is knee alignment as doing this with poor knee mechanics will destroy your body quickly. And again I'm trying to keep the distance and movements consistent enough that I end up back where I started, more or less, at the end of each iteration.

I have found that using sanshin as a template to practice a second thing makes it more enjoyable both to practice sanshin and to practice that second thing. I hope this gives you some ideas for your own training.

Enjoy your practice, and keep going!

Address

9 S Mesier Avenue
Wappingers Falls, NY
12590

Opening Hours

6:30pm - 8:30pm

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