Taikyoku Araki-Ryu Palos Verdes
Taikyoku Araki-Ryu is a distillation of Araki-Ryu, designed to provide access to essential elements of that koryu through focused modules – each encapsulating an aspect of the larger school's curriculum in a self-contained training method. We practice under the guidance of Ellis Amdur, who formulated the training model.
We currently focus on a set of five paired katas that eventually merge and provide a complete theory of engagement across combative ranges. Each kata has a sword and jo (five-foot wooden staff) variant. The sword variants are practiced with bokken (wooden sword) for safety. Live-blade forms are reserved for solo practice and engender respect for the bokken as a representative of the blade, not as a stick.
This style of weapons training is raw, emphasizing the kinetic realities of a violent encounter. Although we do not make use of traditional costume and have adopted minimal Japanese etiquette, we rely on kata as a container allowing rigorous exploration of the technical principles encoded. This allows for incremental exposure to spontaneous training as the basics are mastered – culminating in (occasional) freestyle exchanges using protective gear. We further examine the bridge between live grappling and weapons training through practices of torite (grappling with weapons – primarily, in our case, knife) – with an emphasis on the possibility that a weapon may unexpectedly materialize at any point during an apparently-unarmed encounter.
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In addition to paired kata, fundamental techniques are trained solo and with a partner. Araki-ryu insists on the principle that body usage is identical whether working with a weapon (especially sword) or grappling body-to-body. Ellis has introduced internal strength training to the curriculum as a way of most-directly actualizing this requirement, and this identity is critical to our line of Taikyoku Araki-Ryu. We fulfill the requirement for a robust live grappling practice through study of Yer'mèd Jiu-Jitsu – which synthesizes internal strength and live grappling methods, providing an ideal and explicit complement to our weapons curriculum.