"Make your practice a friend in the morning, and your discipline a pillow at night." Training: 組打/組討 The term kumiuchi, or “grappling and striking” has long existed in the Japanese martial tradition. Early forms of warrior hand-to-hand combat involved both clinch-fighting and striking along the lines of sumō, as well as striking using hands, kicks and stomps, and the hafts and ends of weapons, both in everyday clothing heifuku kumi-uchi and grappling in armor, or yoroi kumi-uchi . Watatani Kiyoshi, an authority on Japanese martial arts called kumi-uchi “the backbone of jūjutsu .” We use kumi-uchi to refer to basic training in grappling. It can be likened to a combination of sumō and the style known today as “combat jiujitsu,” which involves open-hand striking on the ground. It is done wearing keikogi (or a "gi") or without one ("no gi"), and t raining weapons can be included. The intent is to develop a practical foundation for hand-to-hand combat, and...
This list will continue to expand... Popular Sources on Classical Martial Arts Of course the works of Ellis Amdur, who heads a line of Araki-ryu. Check out Kogen Budo for more of his and others' writing on classical martial traditions in practice. Good reads for a general introduction to the study of classical traditions would be Diane Skoss' Koryu Books series. These bring the work of a number of current martial researchers and some scholars together in one place. Scholarly Research Scholarship on Japanese warrior culture has expanded considerably over the years, with many new insights developed, some of it made available to the non-specialist reader. More often than not these days, my reading list is more academic work than "martial arts research." Accessible versions of some doctoral theses are out there and in some cases more focussed on overall martial culture, even specific schools, than in general historical work. To start, I woul...