MARTIAL ARTS

The following section, “Trezza-Ryu,” is a very brief description of my martial art, developed over the past 30 years. It is more or less a position paper on martial arts, as well as an explanation of some of the basic fundamentals of my philosophy, strategy, and tactics.

I believe it was Mark Twain who said that “the key to originality is hiding your sources.” Much of my martial art is a combination of training in different arts, study with different Masters, studying the written works of Masters, combat experience, and over 30 years of diligent training. It is the result of more than three decades of training and experience, along with the influences of my teachers, and years of study. Over these years I have combined the teachings primarily of Grand Master Bob Long, with my study of Miyamoto Musashi, Takada Shingen, Bruce Lee, Sun-Tzu, and many others. Because of how well some things have been explained (I simply could not find a way to say it better) some of what follows is taken verbatim both from Musashi, and from Lee’s “The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.” Some has been expanded upon, much is purely my own. Trezza-Ryu is a combination of my experience and the teachings of these masters. Some aspects of their writings I disagree with and those elements have been adjusted or expanded upon, as I deemed appropriate.

I have written those things that constantly come to mind, and are frequent repetitive issues with new students. These are guidelines, not a complete treatise on the subject. I have concentrated on martial arts since I was a boy, training in different skills and disciplines, and getting into all sorts of various states of mind. Other than Grand Masters Long and Siringano, what I have seen in my studies with different teachers and different styles is that some are pretentious talkers, and some perform fancy maneuvers that, even though they look good to people, there is no true heart or substance there at all. While it may seem that they are successfully training body and spirit for combat, they are actually the disease of martial arts. They are a sickness that is persistent and hard to get rid of, and the basis for the decay and abandonment of the Way, in favor of a commercialized, mass merchandized corruption of the art.

As I said, this is a brief description. Perhaps someday I’ll have the time and desire for a more detailed treatise. For now, basic principles will have to do.
The key to mastery is to make things simpler, not more complicated. Accordingly, I have tried to break down these principles to their lowest denominators. This is not a magic formula for victory in hand-to-hand combat.

Remember, what one man can do, another can do – and do it to you! Knowing and doing are not the same.

Ultimately, it is not the system, it is the man that counts. And that means his spirit, his will, his resolve, his focus, and his courage; then his “style.” Essentially, the key is to have no recognizable style - No pre-conceived notions. You must train to be prepared to deal with any situation as or before it occurs. Nothing will occur according to predetermined patterns or katas. Kata ruins good fighters. Thinking ruins good fighters. You must fight by “feel,” not by thought - from the strength of your heart, not your head. Yet, your mind is your greatest weapon. These are the Zen paradoxes that I have attempted to explain on the following pages.

But whatever you may hope to learn, never forget that,

you cannot learn martial arts from a book!!!

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