"Make your practice a friend in the morning,
and your discipline a pillow at night."
Our study focusses on Araki-ryū’s close combat catalogue ( torite and kogusoku ), in an innovative model that allows us to explore diverse practice methodologies. M ost of Araki-ryū’s close quarters kata ( pattern-practice) apply nearly “as is” in modern-day tactical and protection situations involving edged weapons. How they are trained is our primary concern. Close combat is violent, involving intense interactions of physical force and opposing will. Thus elements of opposition *must* be included in practice for it to properly prepare the practitioner for an actual encounter. The modern tactical training term for this is force-on-force (FoF). Practice that does not include FoF has been appropriately decried as “empty forms” and mere choreography for hundreds of years. However, force on force does not mean simply turning pattern training into “free fighting.” Instead a system of coherent and int...