Japanese Martial Arts in Des Moines

I moved to Des Moines about 1 year ago. I had been part of Yamamizu Ryu for the last 14 years. I wanted to train Tai Chi and ultimately ended up getting everything I wanted. I not only wanted to learn Tai Chi but I found that the school also taught weapons, karate and Bujinkan.

After you have participated in a tradtional art with history like Shorin Ryu karate and Bujinkan, you find that its really hard to find anything else that compares in depth and tradition. Our school teaches these arts and shares the techniques that were handed down from teacher to student through time. These arts are battle tested. Your failure to execute techniques to survive cost you your life. You can find this more prevalent in the bujinkan arts before the time of gunpowder. Most scholars agree that chinese arts were brought to japan sometime around year 1000. The amalgamation of chinese arts, current samurai arts and the sparsely populated mountain areas would create a melting pot which would ultimately create the ninja arts. This was a time when your fighting arts were your sole method of protecting your life. Failure to execute a working technique would erase that method from history. Succesful training and techniques that worked became closely guared family secrets. As time went on this became less important and the teachings were opened to a broader audience. This is what we have today.

Its easy to discount ninjutsu as a martial art becuase of the 1980's when the arts were brought to western society in the form of hollywood movies with smoke bombs and 1 hit shuriken kills. Unfortunately this did the art no favors and part of the reason it was renamed to Bujinkan. It has only been recently that ninjutsu is starting reclaim its former namesake and valued as a martial art. For those who are willing to sift through the commercial martial arts systems of the last 80 years Bujinkan dojo's are a place of real history and tradition.

YMR Dojo of Des Moines strives to teach arts from Sohn Style Tai Chi, Shorin Ryu Karate to Bujinkan and Weapons. Were a comprehensive school that has something for everyone. We focus on health and lifestyle while emphasizing combat and technique. This is something I felt lacked in the Des Moines community despite the 20 some schools that exist. We are one of the only Japanese martial arts schools in the area.