Kobukan - United States Shibu

09/21/2026

Your martial arts organization should contribute more to your training than a patch and a certificate.

It should help you develop, uphold consistent standards, and hold its instructors accountable for their teaching and conduct.

Those are reasonable expectations when you invest your time, effort, and trust.

The Kobukan is open about its training and transparent about its structure. Instructor affiliation carries responsibilities. We do not accept someone simply because they want to represent the organization.

New and current instructors are expected to uphold Kobukan’s standards and integrity. Their teaching, conduct, and treatment of students matter.

Every instructor helps shape what students experience and what the organization becomes. We intend to grow thoughtfully, with people willing to uphold those responsibilities.

That includes taking responsibility for what we pass on.

During Kancho’s instruction, you regularly hear him refer to how a technique is described in the written records, or densho. Those descriptions can leave details unstated or open to interpretation. Direct teaching helps clarify what the words alone may not convey.

But what happens when an instructor learns only part of the material, then fills the gaps with personal preferences and experience?

The result may feel convincing. It may even work. Yet it can introduce a change in mechanics, purpose, or teaching method that the instructor does not recognize—or does not disclose.

Over time, that can create a branch in the art, intentionally or otherwise.

The problem deepens when students inherit those choices without knowing where they came from. Some become instructors themselves. What began as one person’s assumption becomes “the way it has always been taught.”

An unexamined preference becomes gospel to the next generation.

Experience and experimentation have value. Instructors also need the honesty to distinguish what they were taught, what they have verified, what they are exploring, and what they still need to clarify.

Students deserve to know the difference.

This is why continued access to instruction, clear standards, and instructor accountability matter within Kobukan.

The structured curriculum provides a framework for progression. Kata gives us specific material to examine. History, terminology, and direct instruction help us understand its purpose and context.

Variation, progressive resistance, and pressure testing appropriate to the material help us investigate application. We can explore what works while remaining clear about what we are preserving, adapting, or developing.

Seminars, live training, and published resources support continued study. Teachers and training partners provide opportunities to ask questions, receive correction, and revisit assumptions.

For instructors, that means accepting that the responsibility to learn continues alongside the responsibility to teach.

For students, it means having a clearer path forward and people who take the quality of your training seriously.

Whether you are beginning, returning to practice, or bringing decades of experience, there should be meaningful work ahead of you—and support for doing it.

Bring your experience. Bring your questions. Expect standards.

Judge Kobukan by the quality of its instruction, the conduct of its instructors, and what studying with us helps you understand, develop, and pass on.

Curious about training? Message the Kobukan United States Shibu and discuss what affiliation could look like for you.

09/16/2026

Happy anniversary, Kobukan!

On September 15, 2023, the Kobukan Kobudo Renmei held its first formal seminar in Canada. Attendees came from Europe, North America, and Japan for the beginning of something very special.

Now, we proudly celebrate the third anniversary of our organization's inaugural training.

And while our formal beginnings are recent, that moment had been decades in the making.

The idea was simple: to build a Jujutsu and Ninpo organization with clear progression and high standards, grounded in mutual respect and friendship, without unnecessary secrecy or gatekeeping.

Three years later, that idea has become a growing international community.

Thank you to everyone who has helped make it a reality, and who continues to do so.

To the students who put in the work every week. The instructors who make our training available in their local communities. The Shibu-cho who organize and provide regional support. And, of course, James Wright Kancho, who started it all.

We have also received tremendous support, both publicly and privately, from friends and fellow martial artists around the world. For that, we are humbled and grateful.

As we move into the future, the Kobukan will continue to grow while maintaining the identity and purpose that brought us together in the first place.

If you've been looking for hard, meaningful training, if you believe skill and knowledge matter more than rank, and if you've been looking for a martial arts community built on mutual respect and friendship, we invite you to train with us.

Happy anniversary, Kobukan!

09/15/2026

After another visit from our friends on Long Island, we're pleased to announce two more successful tests in Kobukan Gyokko Ryu Joryaku no Maki.

That makes three excellent tests in the last two weeks, and it's great to see the work being put in continue to pay off.

The Kobukan way is straightforward: show up, train hard, meet the standard, and you progress.

No gatekeeping.
No dangling carrots.
No ego games.

Just good people, solid training, clear standards, and martial friendship.

Congratulations to Elliot and Pedro on a well-earned achievement.

If you'd like to experience Kobukan training for yourself, visitors are always welcome. Reach out and we'll arrange a time to train with us.

09/14/2026

From cross-training last week. Erik Desmond Sensei demonstrates a Muso Dori variation from the ground.

09/10/2026

Welcome to the Kobukan, Austin.

We’re pleased to welcome our newest Kobukan Study Group, serving the Austin area and based in Dripping Springs, Texas.

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So, what is a Kobukan Study Group, and why do we have them?

The idea is simple: where you live shouldn’t be the only thing determining whether you have access to serious training.

Not everyone lives near an established Kobukan dojo or has the resources to commit to regular long-distance travel. Study Groups give people in those areas a way to connect with local training partners and begin training together as part of the larger Kobukan community.

They’re intentionally informal. There is no local instructor, and no one charges for training. Someone simply takes the initiative to organize a suitable place to practice, whether that’s a garage, a park, or another available space, and opens the door to finding others nearby who want to train.

The organizer remains an active Kobukan member and trains through the U.S. Shibu, either directly or through Kobukan University. Training, testing, and progression remain connected to the Shibu-cho.

As members progress, in-person training and evaluation become increasingly important. Progression beyond Shokyu requires more substantive hands-on review through the Shibu or an agreed-upon Kobukan instructor, with flexibility in how we make that possible based on location and circumstances.

Organizing a Study Group also doesn’t make someone a Kobukan instructor. Teaching authority comes later and is earned through demonstrated skill, safe practice, integrity, and commitment to the standards and mission of the organization.

For someone curious about Kobukan, a Study Group can be a simple way to get involved, find people to train with, and experience what our martial arts are about. For those who choose to go further, it can also become the beginning of something lasting: a local Kobukan community with deeper connections to the organization and, for qualified practitioners, a path toward greater responsibility.

That’s what Study Groups are really about: making meaningful training more accessible, bringing people together, and giving Kobukan communities an opportunity to grow where they might not otherwise exist.

No Kobukan near you? Maybe your community should be next.

09/09/2026

Congratulations to Erik Desmond on a successful Kobukan Gyokko Ryu Joryaku no Maki test!

Erik made the trip down from Long Island for a packed day of cross training, including kosshi-jutsu and bojutsu: as well as sharing his knowledge in BJJ.

Excellent day or training! Well done.

09/07/2026

As the third anniversary of Kobukan's official start approaches, I've been reflecting on what Kobukan was, what it is, and what it is becoming.

To me, saying the organization is only three years old has always felt a little odd.

Kobukan didn't spring up overnight. In many ways, it was decades in the making.

It was built on Kancho's decision to move to Japan and make training a central part of his life. Decades of hard training, hard conditioning, study, and learning, with multiple lineage branches leading back to Takamatsu Sensei.

And much of that happened quietly.

Kancho didn't build his reputation by chasing martial arts trends or continually promoting himself. His reputation grew largely among the people who met and trained with him. People spoke of his encyclopedic knowledge of the Takamatsu-den, the intensity of his technique, and his experiences applying what he had learned outside the dojo. Eventually, that reputation reached a wider audience, including being featured on the Discovery Channel.

I've been fortunate to know and train with Kancho from before Kobukan existed. Since Kobukan began, I've attended every seminar and Taikai he has taught and almost every online class.

I've experienced the intensity of his technique, the depth of his martial knowledge, the conditioning, and, thankfully, the humor that comes with all of it.

To me, those things help explain the core of what Kobukan is.

It isn't about chasing the latest martial arts fad, trend, or boom.

It isn't about unnecessarily guarding knowledge so that only a select few ever have access to it.

And it certainly isn't about martial LARPing.

It's about studying, preserving, training, and passing on the knowledge represented within the Takamatsu-den martial arts without feeling the need to continually reshape it around whatever the martial arts world happens to be excited about at the moment.

Our martial arts don't need us to manufacture their relevance.

That doesn't mean our training should never evolve. Of course it should. We should continue learning, asking difficult questions, improving how we teach, and finding better ways to develop the skills and understanding contained within these arts.

But there is a difference between allowing our training to evolve and continually redefining the arts themselves around whatever the market currently values.

To me, this is what Kobukan was and what Kobukan is.

So, what's next?

Because Kobukan is often associated with Ninpo, many people assume we're looking to grow primarily from the same group of Takamatsu-den enthusiasts who have been around these arts for decades.

That community has become smaller over the years. Some people have simply moved on. Others became tired of the politics, personalities, secrecy, and some of the directions these arts took during and after the boom years.

There will always be a place in Kobukan for experienced practitioners looking for a different, open approach.

But I don't believe our future is limited to that same group of people.

I believe there are people well outside the existing Takamatsu-den community who would find tremendous value in these arts if they were simply given the opportunity to experience them without all the baggage that has accumulated around them.

And we don't need to tell them what they're supposed to find valuable about these arts.

We can simply teach them.

Let them experience the Kata. The striking, grappling, throwing, controls, weapons, movement, strategy, and the relationships between them. Let them begin to understand the principles and ideas contained within the material.

Some will connect with it. Some won't. That's okay.

We're trying to understand what was transmitted, what it teaches, and how to train it honestly.

That's the future I see.

Not fighting over an ever-smaller piece of the same martial arts audience.

Not trying to recreate the boom years.

Not reshaping our arts to chase the next one.

But introducing them to people who may have never encountered them in the first place.

People who don't know or care about decades of organizational politics.

People who have never heard the term Takamatsu-den.

People who may not even think they're looking for "traditional martial arts."

They may simply be looking for serious martial arts.

And perhaps that's enough.

The goal isn't to reinvent our martial arts.

It's to understand them deeply, train them honestly, preserve what has been entrusted to us, and make sure the next generation receives something worthy of the effort that came before it.

No hype required.

09/03/2026

Earlier this week, we asked a simple question:
What does a Dan rank actually tell you?

The answer gets more interesting when we look at how Japanese martial arts actually developed.

Dan ranking existed before the Kodokan. Traditional Ryuha did not share a single universal licensing system. Terms such as Menkyo, Mokuroku, Shoden, Chuden, and Okuden could carry different meanings from one tradition to another. And Menkyo Kaiden, despite how the term is sometimes used today, did not automatically make someone the sole successor or head of a tradition. Nor did the absence of sole succession necessarily end a Menkyo Kaiden holder's transmission of the tradition. Multiple lines of transmission could continue, in some traditions developing into distinct branches.

This is why trying to convert a traditional license into a modern Dan rank misses the point. They answer different questions.

Rank tells us where someone stands within a grading system. Transmission tells us what was passed to them. Neither, by itself, tells us everything about mastery.

Our newest Kobukan Knowledge Base article looks at the history behind both systems, including the development of Dan-Kyu grading, how traditional licensing worked, what Menkyo Kaiden actually means, and why transmission, mastery, teaching authority, and succession should not be treated as interchangeable.

We also explain why Kobukan uses both approaches: Dan-Kyu to measure progressive development across our training environment, alongside Ryuha-specific study and transmission.

If you have ever wondered what a black belt, Dan rank, or Menkyo actually tells you, this is the deeper answer.

Read the full article:
https://kobukan.us/knowledge/history/menkyo-vs-dan-kyu/

Learn how Menkyo, Menkyo Kaiden, Kyu and Dan differ in Japanese martial arts, including their history, transmission, ranking and use in Kobukan.

09/01/2026

Someone can tell you they're a 1st Dan, 5th Dan, or 10th Dan (or even more).

But what does that number actually tell you?

Not as much as you might think.

A Dan rank has meaning within the system that awarded it. An organization or instructor determines the curriculum, standards, testing requirements, and ultimately what each rank represents.

You can keep adding numbers to a black belt. That doesn't necessarily tell us anything more about what was transmitted.

And that's where an important distinction in traditional Japanese martial arts often gets lost.

Kyu-Dan ranking and Menkyo are not simply modern and old versions of the same ranking system.

They serve different purposes.

Kyu-Dan provides a progressive way to measure a practitioner's skill and development within a training environment.

Menkyo concerns the transmission of knowledge within a tradition.

That means a high Dan rank can tell us where someone stands within a particular grading system, but the number alone doesn't tell us the depth of the traditional curriculum they received.

For that, we have to ask a different question:

What was actually transmitted?

This is particularly important when an instructor or organization claims to teach a traditional Ryuha. Rank tells us how that organization evaluates its practitioners. It does not, by itself, establish the depth of the underlying transmission on which its teaching is based.

Traditional licensing can help answer that question by documenting what was transmitted within a particular tradition.

Neither system, by itself, proves mastery.

And neither needs to replace the other.

The Kobukan uses both.

Kyu-Dan gives us a progressive way to measure a practitioner's development. Traditional Ryuha transmission documents and preserves the knowledge being passed from one generation to the next.

It's also why transferring an existing rank into Kobukan can be more complicated than it might seem.

Someone may come to us with a high Dan grade, an instructor title, or decades of experience. We respect that history, but we still have to understand what sits behind the credential.

What curriculum did they learn? What were the standards? What can they demonstrate? And, where traditional Ryuha are concerned, what was actually transmitted to them?

A number or title alone can't answer those questions.

In fact, rank can continue to measure development long after a body of knowledge has been transmitted.

But rank cannot create transmission that never occurred.

So when someone tells you their Dan rank, perhaps the number isn't the most important question.

Ask what it represents.

And if they teach a traditional Ryuha, ask what was actually transmitted.

Rank and transmission are related.

They are not the same thing.

08/31/2026

Some additional photos from training with our friends at Shadow Combatives & Self-Defense last Saturday.

3-hours of hard work and great training!

If you're in the DC/Virginia area, be sure to connect with them about training.

And, if you'd like to schedule a visit to train with the Kobukan US Shibu, or host us to come train with your group, reach out to start a discussion.