CANE SELF DEFENCE with MATS HJELM was filmed at TANRENKAI 5 Workshop in September 2026 in Stockholm.
After two films — one based on Hatsumi Sensei’s Stick Fighting techniques for Self Defence, and one based on the traditional hanbo of Kukishin-ryu — it is time to let those two worlds meet on the floor. And to do it in memory of Ed Martin, who carried that very tool as if it were a part of him.
I remember him from 1997. I was about 32. He was already carrying the cane then, with his wide smile and his many stories.
Five years later I invited him for the first time, to Kaigousuru in Stockholm. It mattered to me. Not because a new chapter was supposed to begin, but because I could see, up close, how he carried age and limited movement — what all of us meet sooner or later — and still kept teaching, laughing, and taking up space. Between 2002 and 2007 he came five times to the taikai I arranged myself. 2007 was the last time I held Kaigousuru, but not the last time we met.
Ed Martin died on 13 July 2017.
Now that I have reached about the same age he was when I first saw him, I want to pass on the cane self-defence I learned from him in those years. Timing, natural movement, and a tool you can actually carry with you. The same thing he gave to so many others.
This Video Highlights Include:
Walking with the Cane, Te-Hodoki, Yoru Na, Kamae to Te no Uchi, The Cane, Kote Uchi Ashi Ori, Kubi Dori, Osoto-Nage, Tsuke-Iri, Musha-Dori, Kosshi-Ori, Bo-Hodoki, Ashirau.