Kokoro No Budo August Newsletter Out Now

Welcome to our brand new website!!

We hope you take the time to look and navigate around the menus; there is the Main Menu and if you scroll to the bottom of the Home Page, in the footer you will see some Quick Links.
This website is a little different to most, here we are blending traditions of old with new technology features and models.

I will give you a quick summary of whats on offer:

• There is background information about the origins of Agoge which I think you will find interesting.

• a section dedicated to our Monthly Newsletter called Kokoro No Budo - it is a once a month publication and it will only be available from this website. We will not be publishing it anywhere else, so if you would like to be in the know, subscribe using the form located at the bottom of the Home Page. Once you subscribe, you will receive a  Special Offer available only to our Subscribers.

On the Top Menu there are a variety of Shops;

• The Ninja Shop is for all things Budo and Martial Arts, Clothing and Accessories. 

• Shop.com - Agoge Group is a Partner Store of Shop.com - which is one of the Worlds Top e-Commerce Shopping Websites. All Shop.com registered customers will earn cashbacks and Reward Points on all qualified purchases.* Cashbacks/rewards are only available from the Agoge Group's Shop.com Partner Store website. There is something for everyone with around 700 stores and millions of products to choose from.

• Seacret Shop - has unique natural products for the whole family containing precious minerals from the Dead Sea and Sevenpoint2 Shop which has the Best Plant Based Alkaline Nutrition including Recovery with Hydrofx - which is the Worlds first ingestable Molecular Hydrogen in a tablet - which gives you energy and aids cellular recovery - essential for every sportsperson.

We will be introducing new products to the store each day as the website develops so please be sure to check in regularly. There are also articles for those who are curious and interested to learn more about Budo and the Japanese way of life. We welcome your suggestions and hope you like our first offering.


Here is a little bit about our traditions:-

As some of you know, I am an avid student of traditional Martial Arts. This was in the past and is now in the present, passed from teacher to student. The knowledge has been referred to as isshin denshin.


Knowledge is passed from Teacher's heart to the Student's heart. We can call this a true transmission of unity. The relationship between Teacher and Student is a deep one. I have found through my years of living and travelling to Japan, that this relationship should not be taken for granted or lightly by Western Students.


As a student of the Martial Arts I look and see, listen and hear and more importantly let my body and heart receive what my teacher is sharing with me. This can be a painful lesson both emotionally and physically.


So there are two core Study Groups I belong to; 1. Bujinkan Dojo which is a new entity but as we all know holds the core traditions that are passed to us in the form of 9 Schools and Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu - 600 Year old Sword School. Recently I have had talks with fellow Instructors in Australia and Japan and we touched on the subject that Japanese culture is moving in a direction where traditions are being put aside or forgotten so what I am about to say is not new, it has been said before; the bottom line is that the role of the Bujinkan Dojo, its many Shibu and Shihan;s worldwide is to preserve the essence of the tradition through the practice of Martial Arts and cultural understanding.


Here as well the Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu is a cultural treasure. Over the weekend, I was studying with my teacher, Paul Shihan, he mentioned the traditions within the Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu 'as with your Bujinkan studies, we are drawing from the past to understand the present and look into the future. If the public's perception of traditional Budo is that it is not needed; in essence, we are slowly destroying tradition and that is is not important anymore'. We have been given a cultural asset to pass on to future generations. Just imagine if this were to stop? 'I am aware of some authors rejuvenating old schools through studying scrolls and having permissions from family members. This holds great merit and to a degree I will support this. But to lose what we have now with the Bujinkan and the Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu would be a terrible loss for all.


For all students of traditional Budo who train with myself, I would encourage you to learn from the past, so that we can have a strong direction and develop good hearts for the future. Darren Sensei in Japan, who I train with frequently when I travel to Japan, says 'there are no shortcuts and that the larger and more traditional forms of our arts must be practiced regularly.'


To my students and to all who have some interest in the martial arts, I would encourage you to take another look deeply into the benefits of traditional Martial Arts such as Bujinkan Dojo and the Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu.


The Dojo is a place where you will experience many hardships both physically, emotionally and spiritually you will be confronted with. It is a mirror of yourself; you will often not like what you can see and be frustrated with what you can't do. It doesn't get any more honest than that.


The correct manner to deal with such exposures is through the heart from Teacher to Student. Call it a spiritual purification or polishing of the heart. This is a balance between physical, emotional and spiritual training, so keep going, don't give up even when you feel you can't do it or get distracted by the daily routine of life.


Yours in Budo,





Dojo Cho Andrew Netes
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