At the suggestion of my good friend, and West Coast Buyu, Dave Furukawa, I am presenting a look at one of my daily workouts.  Please see Dave’s comments on my previous post here for reference.
This is a record of my activity from yesterday, Memorial Day 2010:
Morning
Life begins early here, even on long holiday weekends, since our 19 month old, Juliana, doesn’t distinguish weekends from weekdays yet!  So at 6 am I was up making coffee and searching through her Elmo DVDs to find the particular episode she wanted that morning.  As the …

Ever wonder how to put it all together?  How do you fit in conditioning, strength, core exercise, joint mobility, breathing exercises, solo martial arts practice and class time in one complete program?  Here’s an example 7-day program I created for a friend that integrates all of the above.   This program will require a set of dumbbells and a pull-up bar.  The repetitions may be adjusted up or down depending on your level of fitness. 
Warrior Fitness Longevity Program
Please remember that there are no “one-size-fits-all” programs and that this was created specific …

These days everyone is short on time.  Most are content to allow the daily grind and family time to fill their days while lamenting about the fact that they have no time for working out.  The complaints are common and heard often.  But somehow these same people are able to find time to watch an hour or more of TV every night before going to bed.  Now, I’m not going to ask you to forego your Thursday night Lost episode in favor of hitting the gym for an hour, so …

Chuuto Hanpa Kihon Happo or, The “Incomplete” Kihon Happo, is a new DVD by Bujinkan instructor, Rob Renner.  Rob has been training in the Bujinkan since 1986 and living in Japan since 2005.  He trains with Hatsumi Soke and the Shihan, senior instructors, typically 5 to 6 days a week.
This DVD is, as Rob points out, not the “official” version of the foundational techniques of the Bujinkan, but rather a synthesis of each Japanese Shihans’ take on the techniques as studied and interpreted by Rob.
The DVD begins with Rob’s expanation of Hanmi, or “half-body” …

As a teacher and student of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, I often hear the same question over and over again - how can I improve my skill?  What should I practice to get better?  Since I remember myself asking that question several times (probably several hundred times if you ask some people!) to my teacher and seniors in the art, I always take time to give a thoughtful and honest answer.  And, my answer to these sincere seekers is always the same  – practice the basics. 
Basic Does NOT Equal Simple 
I think maybe the term “basic” …

As promised in my previous post, So Ya Wanna Be a Ninja, here is an example strength endurance workout to start you on the way to building ninja-like endurance.  We will work the upper body, core, and lower body for a complete, whole body workout.  The goal of this type of training is to improve the body’s general endurance capacity so as to increase our overall resistance to fatigue.  This will enable you to train longer, harder, and more frequently, as well as improving your ability to recover between training sessions …

Jon will be teaching a Bujinkan martial arts seminar at Redemption Kettlebell Gym in East Windsor, NJ on Saturday, April 24, 2010.  Please click on the flyer here for more details: Bujinkan Seminar Flyer
The seminar is $50 at the door, or to pay in advance, please click here:

In part one of this series, here, we discussed why it makes sense for Bujinkan practitioners, and indeed all martial artists, to include a fitness regimen as part of their training.  We also reviewed the basics of General Physical Preparedness (GPP), and why it is necessary.  Today, I’d like to talk about some specific examples of GPP type exercises and how to incorporate them into an overall training plan for both martial arts and fitness.  If you are attending classes and training on your own outside of class (highly recommended …

As a 20 plus year veteran of Bujinkan martial arts training, as well as being the owner/founder of Warrior Fitness, one of the things I pride myself on is my ability to access the fitness needs of my fellow martial artists, particularly those who train in the Bujinkan.  A common misconception that you’ll hear bandied about from dojo to dojo all across the world is that strength, and by association overall, general fitness, is not required.  I think this has to do with a fundamental misunderstanding of how we train.  In …

One of the first things fellow parents tend to ask me after they find out I’ve been involved in the martial arts for over 25 years is, how do I find a good martial arts class for my kids?  Well, after years of answering this question, I realized my answers tend to follow a certain pattern.  They may be expressed in slightly different terms and the order of the points may change each time I’m asked, but the answers remain the same.  So, for all those parents out there who are looking to …