By Jonathan Haas
Foreword by Jack Hoban, Bujinkan Shihan

Since ancient times, stories have abounded about the legendary physical prowess of martial artists.

Today’s lifestyle, coupled with a lack of knowledge about how to combine fitness and martial arts training, has led to a rapid decline in martial artists levels of strength and conditioning.

Warrior Fitness will help you and your students attain a new level of strength, flexibility and endurance — quickly and with little chance of injury.

“Jon Haas’ new book on Warrior Fitness is a welcome addition to any martial arts library. It weaves ancient admonitions on strength, flexibility and endurance with some of the latest fitness technology to assist sincere practitioners to attain a high level of physical efficacy”. – From the Foreword by Jack Hoban, Shihan

Warrior Fitness Combines Old School Fitness Training With Modern Sport Science.

Warrior Fitness covers:

• Ninja-like Flexibility
• Joint Mobility for Injury Prevention and Increasing Range of Motion
• Flow Drills to Connect the Movements Between Techniques
• Breathing Exercises for Energy, Recovery, and Relaxation
• Bodyweight Strength Exercises
• Conditioning Exercises
• Recovery Training
• And much more…

E-Book Version Only $25 USD via PayPal (no shipping cost!):

Take advantage of technology and save on shipping with our e-book version of Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Arts.  Instantly downloadable to your computer upon purchase.  No shipping cost.  No waiting.  Instant access!

E-Book Version (no shipping cost!):

Praise for Warrior Fitness Book

“Jon, I have started reading your book Warrior Fitness and I have to say thank you. I have been studying Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu for 17 years now and have always struggled to find the perfect supplementary fitness routine to go along with my training. I had always worried about developing too much of this too little of that and as you… say in your book “muscling my way through technique”. But the practices and routines in your book have changed all of that. I now have the perfect amount of everything needed for Budo to work for and would definitely recommend your book to anyone training in the Bujinkan or any other warrior Martial Art. Keep up the great work and Gambatte Kudasai!”

Chris Parrill, Bujinkan Shidoshi

“As for the book, I really enjoyed it for several reasons… I found it to be clear and easily digestable. What I like about your style of writing/descripions is that though your training is in Bujinkan (with a little Z/Rmax thrown in), the drills and progressions are ‘style-less’. I also liked the cycles in the back, allowing one not well versed in setting up a training/conditioning program to get right into it. I will recommend this book to my students who are interested in augmenting their s/c programs. It’s really accessible info.”

John Heinz, RKC Team Leader

“The book is great! If you write any more books or anything like that please email me!”

Steve W.

“Hi everyone. I think those of us who have immersed ourselves in Budo Taijutsu will benefit tremendously by adding Jon’s book to our library. Just received my copy yesterday and I look forward to adding these fitness drills and techniques to our program.

Jon has great insight into exercise physiology and methodology and his explanations are clear and concise. Get a personally autographed copy today and get onto the road of being in top physical fitness. This book could not have come at a better time. Even the U.S. Army is in the early stages of revamping their entire fitness program with a new training manual soon to be released. Take care!”

Dave Furukawa

“Just received my copy today…  it covers a lot of material which is “foundational” to what we do and is written from a “Bujinkan-centric” perspective. There are very good reasons for referring to it as “warrior conditioning” as distinct from, say, “mixed martial arts athletic conditioning”. In my personal opinion, EVERYONE IN MY DOJO SHOULD HAVE A COPY OF THIS BOOK.

That’s about as strong an endorsement as I can think of. :-)”

Dale Seago

“Hello Jon: Your Warrior Fitness book will become a classic for all serious practitioners. It is a very clear and practical manual with all the essentials well covered.”

Ron F.

“I am a student of Dale in SF. I have been in martial arts about 30 years (karate, aikido, tai chi, chi kung) but only 4-5 years in the Bujinkan.

I got the book today and just finished actively reading it. I mean I was actually playing with the flow exercises and intend to go out tomorrow and do the circuit. The jo climbing and jo pushups are the most difficult for me – I saw it on Systema video too. I t is a nice goal to aspire to be able to do. I really appreciate your putting together in a coherent way so many core exercises!

I really like the book. It is well organized and provides a lot of useful information. I knew probably 70%-80% of it but it was really worth it to read for the remaining 20% 😎 plus getting another angle at it!! Thanks for sharing and publishing the book.

… And it is so true about being able to trust yourself by keeping the commitments.”

Mariusz N.

 

“It is exactly the type of fitness / martial arts book I (and I hope I’m a part of a bigger community) can and would read, draw concrete benefits and training ideas from, and recommend to others without hesitation.

First of all, it is well balanced – there is a motivational part which did exactly what is was intended to – I have personally lifted up a notch the intensity of training in my group and those who were always persistent liked it a lot. And those whose attendance was shaky started to notice that being late or skipping without a reason has started leaving them behind, and they stopped being comfortable huffing and puffing on the obstacle course and trembling on their “Elvis” legs after a few extra crocodile walk laps.

Also, there is a good deal of sport science (but without overloading the reader with Latin terms) giving usable perspective on what is relevant – explanation of muscle structure as pertaining to MA training, or plyometrics, or explosive effort, what periodization has to do to combative MA training, etc. In one form or another I’ve read on these subjects but it’s good to have it in a readable, compact yet not over simplifying form.

Since I’ve been working for over a decade on a certain training regiment, carefully selecting ideas and specific exercises – with a goal of having a coherent and relevant attribute development suite – from all the books I usually take a few concrete ideas to extend this suite (or replace less effective exercises with newer and better equivalents).

In this case – loved the 2 minutes combat improvisation routine – already tried it on a few trainings and started to build it up further from that foundation.

Some exercises are brutal! The pole push-ups and walking is wicked :-!

Best regards and thank you for your great effort!”

Oleg Yakimovich – Russian Martial Art Instructor

“I ordered and paid for Warrior Fitness a few weeks ago and it arrived promptly in the post a few days later. At first glance, I was really impressed – it’s quite an in-depth look at an often neglected area of our martial arts training.

The contents are extremely interesting – Jon has intelligently started out by addressing just exactly what fitness is – fit to do what exactly? – and gone on to outline a clever and well thought out approach to support the study of Bujinkan Taijutsu through a separate but related health and fitness training regime. The book includes detailed instruction in fitness training including essays on recovery and restoration, joint mobility drills, flexibility training, breathing, leg training, core training, upper body work and conditioning exercises. In addition, there are also sections on motivation, creating a training programme and proprioception.

Often, not enough attention is paid to the role of physical fitness and endurance in Bujinkan training. The reason is that this art doesn’t depend on physical attributes to be effective, but it seems to me that it also doesn’t dispense with the need for them either. Strength is only a bad thing in budo training if it becomes a substitute for technique, but it strikes me as much better to be fit and healthy than not.

A wiser man than I once pointed out that the majority of people engaged in martial arts training are preparing for self defence situations. Truthfully though, if defending yourself and staying safe is a goal, then the majority of people would do well to cut down on the amount of fatty food they eat and take a run every now and again – a heart attack is much more likely to kill you than a mugger!

There’s an awful lot of our training that simply can’t be done without a partner, and not much that can be done on your own at home. This book will give you lots of tools to improve your strength and flexibility, in a way that will support your budo studies. That’s a key benefit – there’s no shortage of DIY fitness publications out there, and some of them are aimed at martial artists, but none or them to my knowledge are aimed at people training in the Bujinkan.

This book mixes aspects of the Bujinkan Dojo’s junan taiso body maintenance system with aspects of yoga and modern sports science to come up with what seems like a really nicely rounded approach to physical maintenance. Jon has thought about and created lots of interesting drills that use movements most Bujinkan students will already be acquainted with, to allow you to improve your health and shore up your physical weaknesses at the same time.

Sure, you could go to the gym, but that’s boring. This way you get to become stronger and fitter while also improving your form. In addition, because a fair bit of biomechanical thinking has gone into this, you’re also likely to learn quite a bit about how the body works and how to train in a way that doesn’t tax it or potentially cause long term harm.

All that said, I think this is an excellent work, and one of the few that attempts to bridge the gap between the kind of physical culture promoted by Japanese martial arts training and the obvious benefits that can come from an understanding of modern sports science. Top marks to Jon for filling an important niche for Bujinkan practitioners.

Anyone else out there got it? What are your thoughts?”

Alex Meehan, Bujinkan Meehan Dojo