Turn Warm-Ups Into the Secret Weapon for Student Success and Retention.
Discover how the first 10-15 minutes of class can transform skills, engagement, and loyalty in your dojo. Get your free guide today!
Warm-ups shouldn’t just be an afterthought—they’re your chance to lay the foundation for everything else in class.
With just a few simple tweaks, your warm-ups can:
Prime your students for real-world adaptability.
Reinforce skills from the lineage material.
Keep them excited and coming back for more.
This free guide will show you how to make warm-ups the most impactful part of your class—without adding extra time or losing focus on tradition.
Still curious? Want to learn more? Skeptical? Go here to learn more. Or, see that skeptical hippo? Click on him instead. It’s more fun to click the hippo. So just do it.
We know what you’re thinking:
‘Warm-ups? Really?’
Yes, really.
Because here’s the thing: Most instructors treat warm-ups like a throwaway routine. But what if you could use those first 10 minutes to unlock your students’ potential?
(BTW, we say 10 minutes, but you could make it 15, or more - 30 minutes! and you’ll be massively increasing skill acquisition in your students with these practices.)
With the right methods, warm-ups can do more than loosen muscles—they can enhance skill development, boost engagement, and even connect back to the scrolls and traditions you’re already teaching.
We’ve been there. We love the lineage material, too, and this guide is all about helping you combine it with proven coaching methods that work.
“Do not follow the ancient masters, seek what they sought.”
— Kūkai
Ecological Dynamics - Shu-Ha-Ri
and You
Ecological Dynamics and the supporting systems are proven scientific frameworks on skill acquisition - followed by a mindset that leaves behind it a trail of games, warmups, and elegant language use.
Functionally, you’ll learn to use language, games, and warm-ups that directly enhance the martial art you’re already teaching. We’re expanding your toolkit with new approaches. Our goal is to complement and enrich your existing practice.
EcoD
Constraints-Led Approach (CLA): Use of specific boundaries to guide learners in discovering adaptable movement solutions for unpredictable scenarios.
External Cueing: Focuses the learner’s attention outwardly, improving adaptability and performance.
Differential Learning: Promotes diverse practice scenarios to encourage exploration, adaptability, and problem-solving, ensuring skills transfer effectively to real situations.
Shu-Ha-Ri
守 Shu: This is about preserving, keeping, guarding, reproducing the important parts of “what” our teachers taught.
破 Ha: When we want to have students explore and learn “how” and “why” about the details of the Kihon and Kata.
離 Ri: This is about releasing, transcending, letting go - exploring the Degrees of Freedom inherent in our martial arts.
Working with You and Your Group
You have
options.
We can ease you in meticulously or we can help you to go full immersion. Either way, you’ll be learning the same information - it’s the order that you chose to practice that varies. Get your free PDFs when you enter your email to start the info gathering and ease-in process. And when you’re ready, let’s team up more directly.
Community
Join our email list to get regular updates on coaching strategies.
Sure, we’ll share info on social media and YouTube - follow us there. But the bulk of info we share will be direct to our contacts. Plus, you’ll have first access to our upcoming community platform.
One-On-One
School owners and their coaches can work with us one-on-one or in small groups online and in-person.
Let’s chat about your school goals and your coaching needs. Have questions about why linear didactic teaching yields such mixed result? We should talk.
Seminars
Extended learning for your coaching team or whole school.
Our multi-hour and multi-day seminars are all fully customized. You’ll learn quickly that cut and paste classes are not the way to go, and we make the time and effort to lead by example.
Welcome to Open Budo
We’re a martial arts consulting team connected to contemporary coaching mindsets and rooted in old school Japanese Martial arts.
Why “Open Budo”? What’s in a name?
The name "Open" is inspired by the principles of open source in software and education. In our coaching approach, we remove gate-keeper-like barriers like “secret teachings” and exclusive “advanced techniques” often seen in traditional martial arts. Gatekeepers can hinder the access of knowledge seekers, but at Open Budo, we believe in democratizing learning. Just as open source software allows for customization, the frameworks we teach can (and should) be adapted in real-time to suit your environment and needs. This flexibility is key to effective coaching and personal growth.
Experience Ecological Dynamics (EcoD):
Turn your dojo or club into a laboratory for growth and development. Learn:
Constraints Led Approach (CLA)
Differential Learning
New Coaching Language Frameworks
Mindset Shift While Teaching Traditional Lineage Material
This new coaching mindset leads to a perspective shift so impactful that you may never revert to old ways of understanding skill acquisition.
Discover more
about us
Come learn all about our roots, our journey, our methods, and what fuels our passion. Let's unlock your potential and grow together, thriving in the art of martial arts coaching.
Get Involved
Join our community and learn how to integrate a coaching mindset that will exponentially increase skill acquisition.