Hey, how’s it goin, man. I know its been awhile. I just finished the school semester, praise God. How have things been with the dojo family (Tristen, Kristy (I apologize if that’s misspelled))? How about everyone else? I was trying as long as possible not to contact you till I had some substantial amount of news to report but I guess this will have to suffice for now. So before I left Philly I had begun what I am now calling the “Takamatsu Journey”. I have since last year, been going about to practitioners of other styles to get a feel for their stuff and test all that I’ve learned from taijutsu training. The first people up were of course my boxing teammates. You heard a little about how that was going at the time that I was still training under you while in Philly. The ichimonji no kamae and the taisabaki footwork involve worked beautifully against the people I boxed with. Then there was the Aikido practitioner from a class  I took last semester. I attended a seminar with him where some high ranking Aikido practitioner was teaching. I got a feel for how the moved and expressed what I saw through taijutsu. I received comments from the Aikido practitioner who was teaching about how well I moved, I also was asked a lot of the time if this was my first time training with them. I was able to use their techniques taijutsu-style and the results were the same. Next, was the Eskrima practitioner from Temple. For about two or three nights in a row, we were able to get a feel for each other’s arts and then on the last two days we fought against each other. We were not wearing gear so of course we couldn’t go full contact. The first of the two days I gravitated more towards what I had acquired from my boxing experience to work against him since the Filipino-style stance was almost the same as the boxing stance. I felt I’d be able to match him better that way. The results were alright, I got tagged a little and so did he. However, on the second night, I used purely taijutsu and the results were ridiculous. He couldn’t land anything effective. The very first strike landed to start off the fight was the fudoken that is taught from shizen no kamae. He never saw it coming and it connected, drawing blood from his nose. He tried to return what he had received but that taisabaki had him confused. I was surprised at how well it worked. I also reported this to you earlier while I was in Philly. Next, was the two new training partners I got from school who came with me to train at the Kahns. Over the course of my training with them, I was able to test the taijutsu training because they were always willing to spar and fight, because of their enthusiasm. One of them had streetfighting and wrestling experience. The other had about a month or two of MMA experience. We attacked each other, fought each other and learned a lot altogther. We worked knife defense realistically, because the streetfighter attacked me like he wanted to do harm to me. We were also able to work multiple attacker scenarios, where the two of them attacked me simultaneously and I was able to defend myself effectively against them. We also trained working throws and all of that other good stuff. They eventually though, due to an experience they had on campus decided that taijutsu would take them too long to become efficient at immediately and so they ended up pursuing Krav Maga. I wanted to show them that taijutsu is still a sold art when trained realistically, its on the person to use it effectively. So last stop was the Krav Maga school in Conshohocken, PA. I attended two classes there in at their training facility. The first class, gave me a feel for their training and the second class was a fight class. When I went to the fight class on the second night, it was a groundfighting class. Now, I have extremely limited ground experience, it might as well be called no ground experience. All I had was everything that I had learned in standup taijutsu and the principles that I knew would work on the ground just as effectively, with just a slight change in use of kamae, understanding leverage etc.  This is where I was fully convinced that taijutsu was THE ART. In that fight class, I took on every single person available from their school with their training in BJJ and krav and used taijutsu against it all. I was never pinned or submitted and always ended up in a dominant position where I could have gotten up and escaped or done whatever was necessary to stop my opponents. Because it was my first time applying some of the taijutsu locks in a ground grappling situation I was not able to right away submit anyone. However, there was one guy I went against who I submitted twice with a rear naked choke using taijutsu. All I can really say is I thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to train under you and John while I was in Philly. I learned a great deal and I am continuing to hone my basics. I just took a final today and I was able to train afterwards for five hours. It felt great. I was also, during my time here able to meet some practitioners of other styles (JKD, boxing etc.). I intend to continue my journey, first getting a feel for their arts and then using my taijutsu against it. I will try to keep you updated on my progress with this so next time I won’t have such a long email, lol. Oh, and if possible please post more videos of you guys training either on facebook or youtube. Keep me posted on seminars, events etc. Keep up the good work there in Philly, you guys are a rarity.

 

                                                                                                                            With much respect,

                                                                                                                                    C.J.