Young people who grew up in the age of the internet will find it difficult to grasp just how hard it used to be to track down information about rare martial arts.
Case in point: hisardut.
I first heard about the Israeli self-defense system in 1990 while attending college on the East Coast. I was part of a small group of die-hards who kept their eyes and ears open for leads on events that featured styles that were new to us. A campus flyer indicated that a hisardut seminar would take place within driving distance of the college.
None of us made it to the clinic, but the name hisardut became lodged in my brain — I’m not sure why. Jump ahead 28 years. While browsing the web, I happened across a hisardut academy just 40 miles from my home. When I learned that it was run by an eminently qualified instructor, I made arrangements to connect.