Kobukai International Budo - Australia

Darren Edwards Shihan taking shihonage from one of his students.

The technique is called shihonage — four direction throw. In most training, the shoulder is loaded to force uke to the ground. Uke complies because the alternative hurts.

This is not that.

Uke's balance is taken before the shape forms. The shoulder arrives at its position because uke is already going to the ground, not because the joint is being loaded.

Same technique. Different engine.

When the shihan of the lineage takes ukemi from his own students, it's because the mechanism doesn't require what your body has learned to be reserved about - pain.

Kobukai runs cohorts for experienced martial artists — aikidoka, jujutsuka, judoka — two Saturday afternoons with Darren personally.

Read the honest version: https://www.aikijutsukobukai.com/introducing-yoseikan

Your body knows what it can meet cleanly today, and what would cost more than it gives back.

You've been listening to it for years. That's why you've become discerning about which techniques you'll take, and how many. Your body has been doing the calculation and quietly telling you the answer.

At Kobukai we train in a way that matches what your body already knows. Not by softening the art. Because the art was never structured around what your body has learned to hesitate about.

Yoseikan Aikijutsu. Two Saturday afternoons with Darren Edwards Shihan. September 6 and 13, 1–3pm. Cohort of 3–4 experienced practitioners.

https://www.aikijutsukobukai.com/introducing-yoseikan

You still want to train. When you're the one initiating a technique, your body still produces it cleanly. Your mind is still asking the same questions of the art it always did.

What's changed is what you want to receive. A shoulder that clicks. A knee that swells. A wrist that's done. A lower back that pays for the hard breakfalls.

Fifteen times tonight was fine at 25. It isn't the same at 45, with the niggles you're managing.

At Kobukai we teach Yoseikan Aikijutsu. No joint locks applied through pain. No lifting and dumping. The reason to stop coming becomes yours, not your body's.

Next cohort: Saturday 6 and 13 September, 1–3pm directly with Darren Edwards Shihan. Cohort of 3–4 experienced practitioners also looking for training longevity.

Read the honest version here:
https://www.aikijutsukobukai.com/introducing-yoseikan

Aikijutsu — not what you think.

If Aikido comes to mind — big circular movements, cooperative partners, philosophical — it isn't that.

If Judo — throws from grips, competition — it isn't that.

If Karate — striking, katas, the class you did as a kid — it isn't that.

If Jujutsu — joint locks, pain compliance, tapping out — it isn't that.

Aikijutsu is a traditional Japanese martial art. Same historical lineage as Aikido. A different engine underneath. Taught in Scarborough for 23 years.

It's built on principle — how movement actually works, why certain outcomes happen without force or size. The technique looks familiar because the shape is shared with other arts. The engine isn't.

Which means a photograph can't show it. A photograph shows shape, and the shape looks like Aikido or Jujutsu — it has to. What makes Aikijutsu different sits underneath. It can only be felt.

If any of that sounds like the thing you've been looking for — the link in the comments will tell you whether it's for you.

A memorable Summer Seminar in Herentals. Solid Aikijujutsu and Kenjutsu and instruction. Clear principles, precise movement. Proud to be part of this international Kobukai group led by Jan Janssens Kyoshi.

There's a photograph from the William Street dojo, around the early 1980s, that most people would walk straight past. The image is grainy, the faces hard to place. But the man second from the left is Chuck Norris — at the height of his fame — standing in a small dojo in Perth, Western Australia, with Yoshiaki Unno Sensei.

Perth, in those days, was a long way from anywhere. A martial artist of Norris's standing being in the eastern states made sense — but Perth? That's four hours further west, off the map of any ordinary tour. So how did he end up on Unno Sensei's mat?

As Darren Edwards — Unno's long-time student — recalls it, the visit wasn't chance. It came about through a mutual connection in the Australian martial arts world, a senior karate teacher who knew both men and suggested Norris meet Unno while he was in the country. It was a small world at the top of the martial arts, more connected than it looked from the outside — and through it, a Hollywood star found his way to a Perth dojo to meet a teacher worth meeting.

What's striking isn't the celebrity. It's what the visit says about Unno Sensei's standing. In an era before the internet, before Perth was on anyone's martial arts map, his reputation was enough that a connection was made and a visit was worth making.

Unno himself, characteristically, made little of it. Asked about it years later, he was warm but unimpressed — a nice man, he said, big, travelled with a bouncer. And when asked whether they'd kept in touch, he simply smiled: "No… he's far too famous for me."

That was Unno Sensei. A teacher of standing enough that the wider martial arts world found its way to his door — and humble enough to wave it off in the same breath.

Twenty years on from his passing, we remember the man behind the photograph — and we'd be glad for you to remember him with us.

Twenty years ago today — 30 June 2006 — Yoshiaki Unno Sensei passed away.

Join us on the mat this Wednesday, 7:30pm, for our second evening of training in his memory.

173 Gildercliffe Street, Scarborough — free parking outside, wear your gi. Whatever line you came through, you're welcome.