Roots Still Cracking Rock - Ellis Amdur

Fifty years ago, Ellis Amdur undertook the difficult task of a full commitment to two Japanese martial traditions, each eighteen generations deep.

As one can see even from these two brief quotations, they are fundamentally different in character, even when expressing much the same principle. He felt the tremendous weight of responsibility that he do justice to what had been bequeathed to him, keeping them absolutely separate. As he put it, "When I am in my Araki-ryū dōjō, Bukō-ryū does not exist; when I am in my Bukō-ryū dōjō, Araki-ryū does not exist." And he follows, "In any live situation, be it training or something more serious, they mix together as they choose. It is as if I have two lives within me, and they figure out their own working relationship.".