Rob Williams is the grandmaster of the Hoshinjutsu Budo Ryu. He is a personal student and senior instructor in Hoshinjutsu for the late Dr. Glenn J. Morris, founder of the Hoshinjutsu system. Williams was personally trained and certified by Dr. Morris to teach and award rank in Hoshin Tao Chi Kung and is the creator of the Hoshin Healing and Massage system. An author, philosopher, healer, lecturer and veteran martial artist, Williams is a guide to hundreds of practitioners as he oversees and pushes forth the evolution of the Hoshin system.
Williams holds master level rank in all areas of Hoshin combat and esoteric training under Glenn Morris. With over three decades of martial arts training under his belt, Williams has put Hoshinjutsu to the test in the field and it WORKS. He has trained both military and law enforcement with great success. Under Williams and his senior instructors, Hoshin continues to grow as an extremely effective martial art and valuable tool for personal transformation.
Hoshin has evolved from the once eclectic art to a solid system of strategy and methodology. At the request of Dr. Morris, Rob Williams has worked for nearly 20 years to improve the core technique’s effectiveness and has implemented a set of foundational principles which make the system much more easily assimilated. Here is an article by Rob-sensei which clarifies his work:
Many years ago Glenn asked me to clean up the Hoshin system so that the principles were organized and easier to deliver to students. Even though Glenn didn’t live to see the result of that work, I proudly continue my assignment advance our system. Those who have been training with me for many years have watched this process. Thank you for helping me “dissect” our techniques. Those who have been training with me since Glenn passed are the forefront of my work, my expression of the art I promised Doc I would continue to improve. Glenn called Hoshin the “thinking persons martial art” and would say “When we find something that is smarter than what we are doing, we test it, and if it works we incorporate it into the system.” After studying Hoshinjutsu movements and dynamics so that I could improve the system for Doc, I believe I have harnessed the key principles that are shared by all the systems that influenced the eclectic martial art we call Hoshinjutsu.
“At the highest level, all martial arts look subtle because the movements become ingrained, then integrated, then refined.” This is a concept Glenn-sensei would talk about, but he would only give a taste of it to keep us training and mastering ourselves. The godai enables a person to understand the maximum use of intent, energy and motion based on our true emotions in any given situation. Hoshinjutsu techniques are awesome, nasty and highly effective. We should however refine these techniques so they work the best with the least excessive movement.
At their highest level, if based on esoteric anatomy and physiology, all martial arts are similar. The human body isn’t going to change in our lifetime, so finding the spot where you are perfectly balanced and haven’t moved too much but just enough… this is what i practice every time i train. The “techniques” of Hoshinjutsu are just ways to apply principles. Glenn just showed the technique, then explained the particular area being affected. He didn’t teach the dynamics of Hoshinjutsu, he just moved that way naturally. Glenn wanted us to explore and find the elemental dynamics for ourselves. The godai model of movement is sound, it’s what makes any given technique work its best. I would discuss the dynamics of Hoshin techniques with Dr. Morris and he always agreed with my findings. I was asked by Doc to re shoot the ryu videos so I could explain the dynamics and leverage principles of Hoshin. Our ryu belt videos are just that. At the dan ranks, a student begins to exhibit the integration of the Hoshin principles and understanding of how to control the dynamics in any given motion. As black belts advance they work on continually refining their movements so that wasted motion is minimized. This is the stream of thinking coming from the Hombu.