Palace Hand Palace Hand, a 450 year old martial art from Okinawa, Japan, is specialized for self-protection rather than sport. It is quite different from mainstream styles and is fluid, fast and sensible. Skills do rely upon physical strength to defeat an opponent.
Classes include:
extensive striking skills a wide range of throws submission restraints, joint locks weapon disarms defense while seated multiple attacker defense weapons of opportunity
Many 'traditional' styles have impractical training methods. Palace Hand, however, is focused on function rather than form, self protection rather than sport. Practice is through hands-on practical application rather than through the use of forms.
It also differs from sport martial arts like MMA or Brazilian ju-jitsu which teach fighting skills, not self-defense skills ('fighting' and 'self-defense' are terms defines by law). For more on this read this page.
While offering a wide range of skills Palace Hand is not an ungainly collection of techniques. All movements are based upon a few basic principles. It is not about learning a hundred techniques for a hundred situations, it is about learning a few principles that can be used a hundred different ways.
I was introduced to this style on Okinawa island in the home of 84 year old Toma sensei in 2002. After twenty-four years in the martial arts, I had never seen a style like this one.
We made many visits to Okinawa to learn this method. We also brought our Okinawan instructors to Rhode Island several times to review our practice and insure that we were teaching correctly. The photos on this web site you are from our visits to Okinawa and our classes here in Rhode Island.
If you are looking for a martial art that is noncompetitive, practical, historical and fun we'd love to include you in our classes!
Master Toma outside his home. I took this photo the day he first introduced me to Palace Hand. The sign behind him now hangs in our school.
