The Shoshin Ryu dojo in Los Alamos, NM is affiliated with a national non-profit organization, Shoshin Ryu Association, which has dojos nationwide. The art itself is a comprehensive system of martial arts that emphasizes both the physical and the mental skills essential to street-wise self-defense as well as personal growth. Skills are taught in a non-competitive, supportive way, highlighting each practitioner’s evolution towards personal excellence. Shoshin Ryu maintains a focus on providing an unencumbered study of martial arts.

Throw Shoshin Ryu is oriented towards both bujutsu (a school emphasizing effective martial arts techniques) and budo (a school emphasizing personal character development). The written Japanese characters, or kanji, for bu roughly translate as martial, and translate more precisely as to restore harmony. The two individual parts of the kanji for bu mean “stop” and “spear.” Thus, the essence of bu is to stop the spear, to stop war, or to restore harmony. Bujutsu, or bugei, means “martial art” and emphasizes self-defense techniques. Budo means “martial way” with the focus on the practitioner’s personal development.

Shoshin Ryu embraces both bujutsu skills and budo skills because the combination of these skills work synergistically to enhance each other, as opposed to many modern styles that are either budo, bujutsu or modern budo (modern martial arts sport). Modern budo or sport-oriented styles require rules; rules that can limit effectiveness and reality. The combination of bujutsu and budo mindsets in Shoshin Ryu ensure that skills gained are realistic and street effective, not just nice-looking, while promoting harmony in life and minimizing conflict. The budo aspect helps Shoshin Ryu practitioners promote harmony and inner peace rather than merely being a fighter drawn to conflict or drama. Amongst other things, the mental techniques taught within Shoshin Ryu help develop focus, presence, courage, compassion, intuition and calmness which support spontaneous, natural action.

The techniques, or waza, of Shoshin Ryu employ both weapons and empty-hand techniques. The waza and motions trained emphasize natural efficiency and effectiveness.

The major components of Shoshin Ryu waza include the following:

The progress of the Shoshin Ryu practitioner leads to a skilled martial artist who continually strives for inner and outer perfection. The Shoshin Ryu practitioner is a warrior who willingly accepts life's challenges, obstacles and opportunities with equanimity.

Shoshin Ryu is…
Learning how not to hurt others,
how not to be hurt by others, and
how to be responsible for one’s own happiness and harmony.