This program is no longer being offered. I am leaving the page here for information purposes only.
- Create an active following where martial arts is discussed, demonstrated and practiced in a light hearted manner. Quick pacing into active participation in physical forms – as opposed to the slow paced, lengthy training of traditional martial arts teaching is our goal here.
Introduce martial arts as a grander concept. I want to talk about what martial arts are, what they are not and answer as many questions as I can whilst demonstrating examples for real life situations – with examples from personal experiences from New York City streets.
Keep it active and sweaty. Siljun Dobup is a bit more practical than most traditional Japanese Iaido Ryu (schools) in the sense that an active curriculum can be created through its basic training levels where you as the student can spend physical effort and develop new skills at the same time. I believe it is a good foundation that can touch various forms of martial arts through the instructor’s knowledge base and keep things interesting. Wing Chun and other Chinese empty hand styles has punches, short ranged kicks and techniques that are fun to learn and fun to do on a punch-bag. 1 minute of punching a bag is quite a good exercise and it is also quite entertaining.
Keep it interesting. I have been practicing various martial arts for a very long time, almost 25 years now, with a primary focus on close range fighting styles. Kaizen AikiJutsu, Sheng Fu Sheng (a type of Chinese karate), boxing, karate, street fights. I will be bringing a few, simple techniques into the curriculum to keep things interesting. But the real emphasis will always be on awareness, self-improvement and avoidance and the martial arts teachings will be very shallow on purpose. This program does not have a subscription to any particular martial art and participants who are interested in more advanced concepts or levels will be referred to local dojos that I personally have visited, met the senseis.
The primary goal of the program is to exercise, get in shape, and learn about various martial arts while doing so.
Keep it calm and mindful. With years of martial arts training comes years of studying literature and scripture. I am an avid reader of world religions, spirituality, meditation, science and practice Zen meditation myself. There will be classes where meditation is discussed, practiced, with questions and answers and sometimes in conjunction with martial arts training and real life implementations. All our classes will end with a few minutes of solitute to reflect on what we have learned.
Keep it martial. Even though we will always have a light hearted approach to martial arts, it is still a martial arts class. We will learn and observe proper etiquette towards our exercise grounds, towards each other. No uniform purchase is necessary, but I will be wearing my uniform; those who are interested in obtaining one will be assisted in that pursuit.
I will be demonstrating Siljun Dobup at the beginning of each class.
