Today in my conversation on the Budo is Dead Martial Arts Podcast, I joined an illustrious group of other martial art experts. Budo is Dead is hosted by Carlos Tama of Yoshin Project, who asks the question whether traditional Japanese martial arts (Budō) are dying out or evolving in the modern world. I will post a link to my Episode when it's published on YouTube... stay tuned.
Previous guest include:
- Episode 1: Alexander Bennett Sensei (historian, author, and Budo academic)
- Episode 2: Jon Marshall Sensei (Aikido and combat sports perspective)
- Episode 3: Jessica Gerrity (Kyudo practitioner and media communicator in Japan)
- Episode 4: Yusuke Nagano (Tokyo-based Shotokan Karate instructor and digital creator)
- Episode 5: Luca Rebuffel (Cross-training across multiple martial arts)
- Episode 6: Gary Lever (Tradition vs. self-protection and real-world application)
- Episode 7: Paul Cale (Former military, Zen Buddhist monk, and combat veteran)
- Episode 8: Mitchell Ratchik (Senior instructor at the New York Budo Association covering traditional Japanese sword arts)
For myself I am humbled to be included in such a group, but host Carlos Tama assured me that after spending 25 years crossing Japan, China and South-East Asia talking with masters of martial arts and filming them teaching, that I will have something worthwhile to offer. I do hope he's right!
I am sure my conversation will include the many masters I have spent time with such as Higaonna sensei above, but I hope to talk about the behind the scenes stories that have up until now been mostly resigned to a locked cabinet ... maybe some were not meant to be made public.
For the first full episode of Budo Is Dead, Carlos Tama sits down with Alexander Bennett sensei — one of the most respected voices in Japanese martial arts today. Alex if you remember from my many posts that feature his name, narrated our Warriors of Budo Series, for which we are eternally grateful.
