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About TAKESHIN SEIKEN BUDO
(Bamboo Spirit Combined Fist Martial Arts)
These studies are modified traditional and non-traditional studies which include non-projectile weaponry and empty hand techniques.
Takeshin Seiken Budo combines GOKEN (hard fist) and JUKEN (soft fist) and adds studies of self-defense from various ranges. Seiken Budo begins with standard Takeshin karate and Aiki (from a medial distance) and then investigates medial and minimal motion defenses from distances vs. a bo (six-foot staff) to a grappling attacker.
Shihan Annesi discovered that many students, even those who studied both Aiki and Karate did not always see the technical connections between the systems and seldom understood how they could fit together to create a very practical, relaxed, natural response to many different types of aggression.
"Students used to ask me which art I would use for self-defense, Aiki or Karate or would it be Judo? I was dumbfounded at how little they understood the arts which they supposedly studied. My response was, of course, that I would use none of them. Students would then suspect that there was some secret, higher art that I would employ and be quite confused when I said that there was no hidden art that I was keeping from them. I explained that I would simply react and that reaction would be based on my previous training. The answer is so obvious as to be unbelievable to some people. An art, after all, is a training method, not something you have to literally reproduce in order to be able to defend oneself."
But Shihan Annesi noticed that if he did not give examples of how the arts could blend or be modified, students took Aiki and Karate far too literally. He then started working on common concepts and principles that would express his own natural reactions based on a deep study of the two traditional arts. The result was Takeshin Seiken Budo, a non-traditional martial art based on very traditional techniques and principles, 90% of which come from Takeshin Aiki and Takeshin Karate.
Students study through 5 dan levels which begins with basic Aiki and Karate, then move to a mixture of both (that looks somewhat like Hapkido). They then shorten the range and learn to initiate attacks (this looks like modified Wing Chun and, in fact, is based on Joe Cowles's Wu Wei Gung-fu). Next, students use minimal motion to receive attacks and learn to draw them in. Finally grappling range is employed to deal with disadvantageous positions. Weaponry (and defenses to weaponry) including kashi-bo (yawara stick), tanto, bokken, jo, and bo is distributed throughout the rank requirements.
At BUSHIDO-KAI, Takeshin Seiken Budo is taught only to students of one of the other traditional arts, but it is also taught (sometimes in modified form) by instructors of a few BUSHIDO-KAI KENKYUKAI member schools.