The active struggle against barbarity and totalitarianism is not a quasi myth from the feudal period nor an abstract koan for contemplation - it is in our recent past and goes on in much of the world today. We who live in societies so civilised that the carrying of weapons is not a regular habit of most of the population live in one of history's outliers. One who practices a gendai school of Jujutsu should always keep the closeness of these struggles in mind. Each year, around this time, we are given cause to remember the Second World War. My thoughts always turn to my teacher's teacher, whom I trained with only occasionally but whom many of my contemporaries knew quite well and trained with quite a bit. This man, fresh in the memory of many people, had to use Jujutsu to survive in occupied Holland being part of the Dutch resistance. Rather than being somewhat ashamed that the majority of the Jujutsu schools I have prac...