Budo, Kobudo & Japanese Artisanry - The Seido Blog

Kimura Jiro Shihan is a Japanese Aikido teacher, the successor of Kobayashi Hirokazu Shihan in Japan, and director of the Buikukai. In 2018, Guillaume Erard, a Daito Ryu practitioner and Aikido historian, and Jordy Delage - who started Aikido in a group affiliated to Kobayashi Hirokazu - teamed up for a joint interview held at the master’s Dojo in Osaka. This is the story of this encounter!

Nowadays, the term "made in japan" has lost its meaning. How can you be sure what you are buying? Analysis of the situation.

In September 2019, the Horinouchi workshop who held about 40% of the production of all made in Japan wooden weapons, closed its doors forever. This article comes back to the reasons of that event, the state of the industry and how the prices of the products will evolve in 2020.

Hoshi Norio is one of those Budoka that you never hear about outside Japan. Reserved, simple, hard-working, away from the internationalisation of martial arts. He is nonetheless an extraordinary Kendoka and police officer. He started Kendo at age 10 aiming from the very beginning to become a professional Kendo teacher.

Following an exciting experience with Yoshinkan aikido practitioners at a Tokyo Police dojo, we were invited to attend the Kanto (Tokyo Region) Police Department’s Yoshinkan Aikido Demonstration / Competition on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at “Jutsuka”, the training center for the Japanese anti-terrorist units, located in Shin-Kiba (Tokyo).

For a decade, Seido has been deeply involved in assisting/counseling its partner craftsmen to help them going through this difficult time. Today, it is with heavy sadness in our hearts that we have to publicly announce that we failed at providing enough support to the Horinouchi workshop, to the point that the workshop is closing mid-September 2019. Let's start with a quick translation of the letter we received from the workshop in early August 2019.

May 2019, in collaboration with Aikido Journal, Seido crafted an Aikido quiz for the community. We didn’t make it extra-hard or tricky, but we wanted it to be hard enough so people can actually enjoy searching for the results on Google and learn more about Aikido History. Such quizzes have two goals: First goal is gathering email addresses for our newsletter (yes, let’s be honest, that’s one of the reasons) and consolidate Aikido Journal and Seido’s shared audience.
The second goal is to extract data from the quiz to improve our editorial line and provide relevant information to Aikidoists around the world.
The goal of this article is to present those results and discuss what actions could be taken for the community from those results.

February 16th 2019, Tokyo, Tsukishima Station 1pm. Nicolas Nothum, responsible for Seido's BudoStudies program and Jordy Delage Seido's founder have a meeting with Yamamoto Takahiro Shihan of the Kenjutsu school Hyoho Taisha Ryu for a 3h Keiko (practice) and interview. Here is the story of yet another encounter with a Kobudo master and fantastic human being.

The 24th of March 2019, a group of non-Japanese Budo and Kobudo researchers and practitioners working and practicing in Japan organizes a unique series of lectures on Don Draeger's impact on the martial arts community and beyond. Lectures by four people who knew and succeeded him. As practitioners and working actively for the international promotion of Budo and Kobudo, and because we believe it is of the utmost importance to support events organized by the new generation that succeed to Donn Draeger, Seido and Guillaume Erard offered their assistance to capture and publish videos of the event.

If Budo are ways to self-accomplishment, a company run by Budoka should embrace the same values we strive for in the Dojo. In the continuity of our work with traditional craftsmen and our support to various Budo events throughout the globe, our BudoStudies program was founded in 2016. With this program, we aim at promoting Budo and Budo studies both in and out of Japan by producing Budo-related videos containing interviews and documentaries, as well as providing wide event coverage.