By Yossi Sheriff

Many veteran practitioners already know our multi – personal work method: maintaining the last item on The AKBAN Code is too much for a single person – cooperation is needed. Cooperation among people is not some simple dance. It entails some heavy arguing and disagreement. I wanted to explain why this aspect should be documented, why arguing is necessary.

By Yossi Sheriff

There was once a naqshabandi who wrote on the mosque wall: "The idiot-teacher's corner".

He requested his students to watch people as they entered and responded to the inscription.

"A passer-by responding to the writing in a certain way is ripe for studies. Another who responds differently will not be able to sustain more than a brief period of studying", said this sage to some of his students, and asked them to be attentive.

By Yossi Sheriff

We have a saying: “don’t give steaks to babies”, this article is a thick steak. To a beginner who might read it, it would be unintelligible. “What is this all about?” he or she may ask, and we would reply “well, this is about something in the distant future. Now finish off your apple, you’ll eat this food many years from now – don’t worry”.

By Yossi Sheriff

Budo Ninjutsu is doing with the body, doing physical work.

Although Martial art helps us develop and maintain strength, power, speed, physical and mental health and ultimately becoming fierce warriors, most of these fade in time.
We can only hope for "something” to accumulate over time. This sediment presents itself to us under the Japanese mantle: Do.

By Yossi Sheriff
Recent years has seen the number and spread of video and surveillance cameras on the rise.
We can safely assume that the number is going to grow. The current terrorist fright that effected the western hemisphere since the September eleven attack, has given a green light to the explosion of surveillance and surveillance cameras. The state sanctioned videoing, and the fact that many cellular phones have video cameras, leads to a level of transparency unheard of: in youtube alone, 523,000 videos tagged with the word "street", 15000 tagged with the word "neighbor", 97,400 tagged with the word "violence".
What we do can become visible and recorded. Exposed Recorded Action (ERA) will be a feature of modern life.

By Yossi Sheriff 

The defense and attack positions in the Budo Ninjutsu are an internal state of mind that we project using the body. Like many things in our school, the meaning, the importance, are hidden behind tough physical work.

By Yossi Sheriff

The AKBAN way of doing martial art is intricately connected with training outside. Martial arts training, whether it is Ninjutsu or other Koryu from other parts of the world, took place outside. This background was so clear and obvious that it was not spoken of, just as we do not speak about going and opening a tap to take a shower. But there was a time, not long ago in the lifespan of our species that the Dojo was the outside, not a mattress in a training hall.

By Yossi Sheriff

More then twenty years ago one of my teachers told me: "Sheriff, don't reveal everything to your students". Such a Japanese thing to say, the proper thing to say would probably be: "tailor your teaching to the student". Maybe this is what he meant, maybe I misunderstood.

I've been thinking about it recently, mainly in the context of my knowledge in martial arts, knowledge that is starting to unfold in our martial arts encyclopedia, the AKBAN-wiki. I thought: "would that teacher be happy with our project?" that's a big question – I'm not sure – probably not. I know that most of the instructors in AKBAN had doubts about opening up our vast databases. They probably thought about the old Sufi proverb adopted by countless esoteric doctrines: "Knowledge revealed is power lost".

By Yossi Sheriff

What is beautiful and what is not? Many years ago, in Greece, a man wrote that beauty derives from something that is perfect. From then on it was made clear that a thing of beauty is that of elegance, symmetry, sometimes something new, sometimes a thing that does not decay, eternal.

Many words have been written since Plato equated beauty with perfection, words that tried to define what fits ideal beauty and what does not. Thus flows a great river of western thought, a current which still propels us today, putting us in the new car, inside clean-cut sky scrapers, admiring tight skin and symmetrical facial features of a young model.

By Yossi Sheriff

“(Yigal) Amir returned towards the gray transport vehicle and secretly released the safety-catch. He went back to sit on the concrete flower pot and noticed two guards by these service vehicles, as well as many police officers, attendants and drivers. No-one noticed his presence, since he was blended into the background and appeared as authorized personnel. He continued looking towards the stairs and noticed several ministers walk down.