Gilbert & Mesa Karate Students STICK with Kobudo

Whether training with Okinawan bo or kuwa (hoe) at the Hombu dojo,
 Arizona, adult and family karate students learn to use many traditional
(and some modern) kobudo and samurai weapons with their karate.

Karate and martial arts are more than kicking and punching. They are dynamic arts with a variety of disciplines. One discipline is known as bo or bojutsu and has been around for centuries and practiced in a martial arts school in the East Valley of Phoenix at the border of Chandler with Gilbert and Mesa, Arizona. Students in traditional Okinawa karate schools typically learn bo and other kobudo weapons. But only at a few schools can they also learn other Okinawa and Japanese martial arts, such as samurai weapons and modern weapons along with Shorin-Ryu karate training. At the Seiyo no Shorin-Ryu karate schools, students have the opportunity to learn many of these arts.

Imagine a stick. Imagine a 6-foot-long stick (6 shaku in length) with an Oriental carrying the stick across his shoulders and at each end is a suspended bucket. Now imagine that Oriental walking along a rice paddy dike when he is accosted by a tax collector from the Satsuma Samurai clan!

Can he defend himself? Does he have any weapons? If he has been training in Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Karate, he has weapons that include his hands, his transporting stick, referred to as a bo, and even the buckets. Training in Okinawan martial arts teaches use all of these as weapons including many other weapons in an ancient art known as kobudo.

To learn this traditional martial art in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale, there is a traditional martial arts school in the East Valley of Phoenix that offer traditional martial arts weapons training and was located at the border of Gilbert with Mesa. The Seiyo no Shorin-Ryu Hombu dojo closed because of the loss of nearly 60% of its students due to the pandemic and masking by the CDC and Governor Ducey. With the loss of so many members, the organization could no longer meet the leasing requirements and closed its doors on March 1, 2021. However, they continue to train at non-commercial locations in Gilbert and Mesa, Arizona. For information, please contact Soke Hausel at sokeshodai@yahoo.com

Training in kobudo includes a variety of farming, fishing and merchant tools and implements used by the Okinawan
people in the past. One of the more common is that of the bo (6-foot staff). In our classes at the Arizona Hombu
and all Seiyo no Shorin-Ryu Karate Kobudo Kai schools, the students learn kobudo along with karate.  Much of the
 training involves basics, applications and forms. In this photo, students at the Arizona Hombu dojo are training in 
one of several kata (forms).

Sensei Paula and other members of the Arizona Hombu dojo in Mesa train with bo during kata (forms). Above
photo shows two of our outstanding members - Amira and Suzette training with bo bunkai (applications).

Arizona Karate Instructors (Sensei) train with Bo kata 'Sho no Kun' prior to practicing bunkai
(applications) for the kata (form). Sensei Victoria with Sensei Ryan and O'Sensei Bill
at the Arizona Hombu dojo in Mesa, Arizona.