Note: Below Program description is for Residential Program only. Anyone is wecome at Ligo Dojo anytime.

(Interested in applying for the BKH residential program? Be sure to read all links above, including "how to apply" link. The following letter is a copy of one of five documents that will accompany your application if you send off for one.)

Letter From Program Director - Updated March, 2007

Dear Residential Progarm Applicant:

Thank you for you interest in Budo Karate House's three-year residential program. There are currently two residents in the dormitory. Robert Schnoes (22, Illinois) has been in the program for 560 days, and Paul Kaminski (22, Connecticut) for almost 200. If they can stay focused on their goal, they will become the first two BKH graduates once they complete 1000 days of interrupted training.

Schnoes fought in Japan tournaments twice in his first year here, and traveled to a training seminar once in South Africa, before breaking his foot in a training accident and missing the next two tournaments we traveled to in Japan and Korea. He traveled with us both of those times, brining his total number of overseas trips to 5, but he was unable to fight until two weeks ago when he fought in his first tough-man competition since breaking his foot (not knowing what hit him, his bigger opponent cried after 1 minute and quit after two), and he will be fighting in his first overseas karate tournament in three weeks in Hungary. You will find that one of the things that the BKH program does best is taking guys who are not tough fighters and making them tough. Schnoes was in terrible shape when he got here a year and a half ago, but this training will make you strong!! The important point to pay VERY CLOSE attention to is that whether or not it makes you strong depends on your ability to endure the training and adapt to the lifestyle. Schnoes was in terrible shape - having devoted most of his energy before coming here to beer, poker and video games - BUT he was apparently of the personality that has thus far been able to keep fighting forward even when his life here hurts and he misses his family/friends. We can make you very strong, but whether we will or not depends on you.

Kaminski fought in his first tournament in November in Japan. He's fought in three tough-man competitions already, winning one so far, and he will be fighting alongside Schnoes in Hungary next month. Both guys are slotted to fight in Japan in April, finances permitting, and again in Japan in November.

Whereas we have had in our five-year history as many as 7 residents in the dormitory at one time, I have allowed the program to change gradually into the smaller group that it has been now since Schnoes has been here in order to concentrate my energy on a smaller group of guys that I believe have what it takes to graduate. In the beginning, I was all about trying to make the program as big as possible, but I learned the hard way that a lot of bad apples apply to the BKH program (because of the notion that it's FREE) and a dormitory full of bad apples makes it very, very hard for the few good ones here to make it. As a result we've shifted into low gear and will concentrate on a few, because things are going so well for that few. We do hope to add members to the dormitory population but we will be very quick to turn down applicants who we believe will pollute the dormitory atmosphere with bad attitude.

The program is a 1000-day program and no one will be admitted for any shorter amount of time. There is no legal obligation to you completing the program (there are no bars on the dormitory windows) but you will not be admitted without giving your word of honor to complete the program, and if you carelessly break your word you will be treated accordingly. Guys without moral fiber have come here before thinking they'd just try it out and see if they like it, and then two days or two weeks later, they quit when they find out it's harder than they thought. We very much DO NOT appreciate such treatment of our hospitality and if you try to fool the system and come here just for a few days or a few weeks it will inconvenience us, but you will be the biggest loser having shown yourself to lack both strength and moral fiber.

This program is not about creating tough guys and if when you get here you expect to find a teacher with WWF or UFC "tough guy" attitude, you will be disappointed. Several years ago we traveled to a full-contact tournament in Massachusetts and no one paid attention to the six of us as we entered the room. It was the guys from Canada and New York that came in with shaved heads and tattoos and goatees that every one noticed as they walked in trying to show everyone how tough they were. We won all three divisions that day (light, middle, and heavy), and even took 1st and 2nd place in the B-category tournament, but that was because the five BKH fighters had been training ten-times harder than those guys with attitude. Attitude doesn't win a fight and if you come here with attitude and insist on holding on to it, you won't last. The strongest guy is the guy who can walk into the room and no one notices until there's a fight he can't avoid and then he doesn't leave a single opponent standing.

The program is free to you in that even your required entry deposit of $300 will be refunded to you when you leave (provided you leave in an honorable way). Residents do work very hard while in the program (currently I work alongside my students 4 days per week between morning training and evening training) in order to support the program's activities, including all the overseas travel. I personally have never received a salary from BKH's nonprofit activities and, not only that, I was able to write-off nearly $40,000 in 2005 for money that I spent out of my own pocket to support the program that until now has received no outside funding. Accordingly, it's very important for you to understand that, even though you will work while you're here to a minimal extent (right now the three of us are installing satellite dishes 4 days/week because the money is good), your work does NOT cover your expenses - I DO! - and in that sense you must be extra careful in your life here not act like you take that support for granted because if you're disrespectful of me or my sponsorship, I will throw you out. If you opt to come here, you should be aware that I tend to feel stolen from when guys come here, take the promise they made to the program lightly, and quit prematurely because the money to support their training comes, to a large extent, out of my pocket and out of that of my wife's.

Your $300 entry deposit will be returned to you upon graduation, or even if you quit prematurely provided you fulfill the following three stipulations. (That means the program costs you literally nothing except the $20 you paid for an application.) They are: 1. that you are gainfully employed supporting the program at the time that you quit 2. that I determine that you've been here for long enough to know what the program is about and are quitting because it's clear to everyone you're not strong enough (and have not come here like some have before, taking the promise that you made lightly) and 3. as long as you offer to continue to work for a two-week notice period with a positive attitude to make up for the hardship that you cause us by breaking your word to complete the program. This means that if you quit before you're working here, or if you walk away without giving two-week notice, or if I do not believe that you've been here long enough to really determine that you're not strong enough, I will retain the right to put you out on the street with your luggage and not return your deposit. Additionally if you've got a bad attitude or break the rules I will always maintain the right to throw you out without your deposit. If you come here, however, in good faith to complete the program and become like Schnoes and Kaminski you have nothing to worry about. I merely make this clear to dissuade guys from coming here to take advantage as some others have done in the past.

All applicants will be able to evaluate themselves to determine if they're eligible to enter the program. You will find an attached "self-evaluation for admittance form." If you can answer truthfully, "yes," to all the questions and if you're certain that you understand the promise that you're making by coming, you can consider yourself admitted to the program. (You will only need contact us to arrange the timing of your entry.) If you can NOT answer all the questions affirmatively, however, all is not necessarily lost. You may still be admitted, but you will be required to complete the included application and mail it in so that we might decide whether or not to admit you. All applicants who answer "yes" to all the questions, will still be required to complete the application form and bring it with them. All applicants are cautioned to be honest, we have our ways of finding out if applicants have been untruthful in their applications and we will throw you out in a heartbeat if you lie and answer "yes" to a question for which you should have provided a "no" answer.

The BKH dormitory program is a 3-year program and no applicant will be admitted for any shorter amount of time. BKH's mission is to create competent karate fighter/instructors (in order to spread Mas Oyama's budo karate) and we will not compromise what it takes to achieve this mission even if it means graduating one student out of twenty. We are a not-for-profit organization and we do not profit financially at all by keeping members here. If you want to learn full-contact karate as practiced overseas where karate is light-years ahead of anything you've ever seen in this country, this is the place for you. If you want a cool karate summer camp, please forget it and don't waste our time.

And don't waste your own. Those who quit here after just a matter of days leave ashamed and embarrassed. They leave having had their "karate kid or Hollywood karate dreams" dispelled. Guys come here saying they've been practicing karate for 5 years and they have such and such a belt. They get here, realize that what they've being doing for those 5 years was little more than dancing, and they quit when they realize training for real fighting karate hurts. I.e. guys leave here saying, "Now I know that what I've been doing for the past 5 years was fake. I realize now that I was living a fantasy. But now that I see what real karate is, I realize that it's not for me. It's too hard. Maybe I'll go into the army . . . but I'm done with karate." Thus far the only guys who have endured life here for long periods of time are guys who have no prior martial arts experience upon arrival. Experiencing karate in America tends to ruin karate students once they begin the real thing.

Nobody here will try to break any applicant. Every new resident in the dormitory is pushed only to the level that his body can handle. No one does any full-contact fighting in their first week or even in their first ten weeks. So why do people so regularly fail to complete their 3-year goal? A couple reasons: First, their bodies can handle the training here but their heads can not. Face it, it's not comfortable to wake up every morning at 6:00 and run a four-mile course as fast as you can, and try to beat your time again the next day (we've had guys come here who could barely run a single mile who were running four after six weeks or so), day after day. Young men think it's gonna' be cool to have someone wake you up at 6:00 and make you run and do karate exercises because of how strong it's going to make them and it does, perhaps, feel "cool" up until their first training. But then they start to realize that it's going to be day after day for three years and with very little chance for vacation and they start to panic, because of course there is no gain without a little pain, and that daily discomfort of exhaustion, sore muscles, bruises, homesickness, etc. never really goes away and residents have to learn how to face that fact for three years. Remember we are not about teaching "you" a skill; we are about making a new, stronger you and that takes a lot of hard work on your part.

Second, is because of the rest of the program outside of training. Guys come here thinking only about the training and NO ONE WHO HAS QUIT LEFT BECAUSE THE TRAINING WAS IMPOSSIBLE. Remember that everyone is trained based on their own personal physical ability when they arrive. I.e. someone 40 pounds overweight is not going to be expected to run as fast as a 130-pound former cross-country runner. Instead, most people who have quit broke because of the downtime and the fact that the downtime consists almost ONLY of the following: eating, sleeping, doing chores around the dormitory (cooking, cleaning, etc.), working part-time hours to support the program, writing a daily journal entry and maybe reading and writing letters home whenever there's any free time. But that's about it. There's no games, TV, movies, pizza, girlfriends, chances to show off, etc. It's all karate and there's a reason for this monotony:

You can not hope to become strong by surrounding yourself with soft things and soft ways. To create a fighter from the average American personality, it's necessary to change your entire life, not just to exercise several hours per day. Consequently we have very strict rules here for everything from how to eat, to how to speak with each other, the condition in which to keep our living space, etc. BKH is not a cool hotel in which to live how you want while you do a couple hours of karate training per day. The BKH program is 24 hour per day intensity and many young American men simply aren't tough enough to handle it. It is survival of the fittest here and the ones that make it will be well on their way to becoming truly great.

Stay here for three years and you will be truly strong and truly great at karate. That's guaranteed. But that's also the key: You must stay here for three years. Any less and you will have thrown that time away. Graduate from this program and you will find that you've acquired a ticket to success in life whether it be in a future in karate, or working or going to college, or whatever career you choose. But please also understand that to come here and fail means that you will carry that failure forward into your life and that notion of what you could have achieved if you'd just stuck it out will always be with you. Guys who quit don't only leave here with nothing, they leave with that baggage to carry along with them through life as well. You have to decide if you're willing to risk your ego to see if you can make it through this program. If you get here and find out that you can't make it, you'll have realized what you really are, you'll leave your ego here in pieces, and - that's not necessarily a bad thing - but it hurts and you'll carry that forward into your life. Particularly those of you who think you are something when it comes to martial arts might want to consider not coming. At least now you have that belief. If you come here and fail, that's boat's gonna' be sunk.

From the beginning, it has been our assumption that only 1 from 10 students would be able to complete the program and that it might take as long as five years for the program to produce its first graduate. That depends on you. BKH is a career-track program designed to train karate teachers and you do have an excellent opportunity if you participate now because you have the chance of being one of the first graduates and thus of eventually holding a very high position of seniority in what we hope will become a nationwide network of full-contact karate dojos during the next 20 years. (We anticipate that three quarters or more of BKH graduates will go on open their own schools in the future.) But again that depends on your determination to succeed in the face of what you will see may well be three of the hardest years of your life. We would sooner spend all of our resources creating one single competent karate fighter/instructor in a decade than a 100,000 member nationwide organization of dreamers.

Perhaps the best way to understand what dormitory life will be like in its first year is to imagine yourself leaving home to become an apprentice to distant uncle who will teach you a trade (in this case full-contact karate) at a very concentrated, professional level. You might choose to see me as a distant uncle because your joining the program will not be much unlike my welcoming you into my family as a nephew or younger brother. While the dormitory facilities are completely separate from the living space occupied by my wife and me, I (i.e. Budo Karate House) will take care of all residents' needs as if you were all less-privileged, younger members of my own family. This means that your living expenses (including room, board, medical care, and other needs that will arise) will be provided for to the best of our ability. It does NOT, however, mean that you will be in any way treated like a child. Your hand will not be held through the hard times, a professional distance will be maintained between instructor and student and, in that sense, you will be expected to conduct yourself as an independent adult.

There will at no time be any legal obligation for you to remain in the program for even one day beyond your decision to quit and there are never any bars or locks on the dormitory or dojo, i.e. nothing's ever going to stop you from just walking away. This means that no BKH attorney is ever going to chase you down if you leave before completing three years of training. No applicant, however, will be admitted to the program who can not express 1) a verbal promise, on his honor, to complete 3 years in the dormitory to the best of their ability (a promise that should help them to struggle forward when the going gets tough) and 2) an openness to the idea of pursuing a career in karate instruction in the future beyond the program. Likewise, and of course, we will not assume any obligation to keep you in the program for even one day beyond figuring out that you're not right for it. I've only ever thrown one person out (for having an ungrateful attitude) but I've made the lives of several so difficult that they could only get with the program or quit, because they weren't living up to expectations.

You will not find a program in the continental United States that will better prepare you for a life/career in martial arts competition and instruction. Accordingly, you must see the program as a professional school designed to make professionals of those who desire to dedicate their lives to karate. Additionally, you must understand that the hardship you will experience in an uninterrupted, three-year program dedicated to full-contact karate training will be extreme, and the pressure to "run away" will at times seem unbearable. Indeed, physically painful karate training will come to console you in the face of the harder challenges of overcoming periods of exhaustion, fear, boredom, homesickness, loneliness and isolation. Therefore while there is no legal obligation to your staying the program, you will not be admitted without making a moral commitment to trying to endure the full three years in the program to the absolute best of your ability in the face of any unforeseen hardship that may arise. Without completing at least that length of time of 100% dedication to karate training you can not possibly know if the life option is really not for you, as opposed to the other alternative that you were simply not strong enough to endure the hardships that are a necessary part of the training process.

**Make sure that you understand that we're not offering you comfort. You will have the necessities of life: food, shelter, and you will have karate training and opportunities to compete in full-contact competitions. Some people to date have quit because of "the conditions," for example, "I could have made it if there had been more variety in our meals," or "I wouldn't be quitting if I only had to work 3 hours a day instead of 5", BUT you absolutely MUST understand that one of the things we are promising you is HARDSHIP and although you'll never be asked to endure any hardship that your instructor didn't endure in his training experience in Japan, you must understand that the "conditions" of your life here will not be negotiable. You'll have food to eat, and shelter, and training, but remember that it's the self-sacrifice that makes you strong. If you want a warm, comfortable substitute for your current life because it isn't warm and comfortable, you're coming to the wrong place. Student: "Sensei, I'm going to quit unless I can take two days off instead of one." Sensei: "Bye, been nice knowing you." This dialogue will apply to every such situation that a student demands to have some condition of his life here changed. (However, students will always be encouraged to voice their concerns if they feel like some condition could be improved BUT the point to remember is that the program director will make the decision and make it based on his own experiences training overseas and on his belief as to what will keep the program elite. I.e you will find your instructor very strict, but open-minded.)

Understand also that while in the program my word, as program director, and Budo Karate House policy will be law. If you break dormitory rules, you can be expelled at any time. Likewise, if we decide at any time, for any reason, that you should not remain the program (serious personality conflicts with other residents, for example, or a disrespectful attitude), you will be asked to leave.

The program will be free of cost to you in that you will not be expected to come up with advance tuition or dormitory expenses. (You will be required to fulfill some simple advance requirements such as coming with a decent pair of running shoes, standard clothing, emergency return travel deposit, etc.) However, part of your time and energy while in the program will be dedicated to activities that will help support Budo Karate House financially. You should expect to spend 30hrs/week for the duration of the program engaged in income generating activities arranged by Budo Karate House. In the future your primary income-generating activity will be teaching karate to junior members, dojo students, perhaps young people in the community, etc. In the mean time, however, Budo Karate House will secure mostly manual labor for you to do and you will be expected to perform this work to the best of your ability, remembering that you are being sponsored by the program director and that to behave badly on the job or to do poor work is essentially the same as being disrespectful to your sponsor and he may throw you out at any time.

The type of training (quality and intensity) that you will experience in the Budo Karate House program is unparalleled in the United States. The significant parts of my training happened during two years in a similar dormitory program in Tokyo under the daily, personal supervision of Mas Oyama (1923-1994), creator of Japan's most respected (and feared) full-contact system of budo karate, during an additional two years in Korea, and an additional two years in Hungary, training for and fighting in full-contact tournaments in Eastern Europe. These training methods simply do not exist in the Unites States. I, myself, am not a champion, but every tournament I have participated in has been an overseas world-class tournament composed of competitors from nations where full-contact karate has developed far ahead of anything ever practiced in America. I have trained with world-class champions and, having experienced for long periods of time the same training methods, I am in a unique position in this country to share them with you.

The style of full-contact karate promoted by Budo Karate House consists of actual full-contact competition in which there are no weight classes; no gloves, pads or body armor worn; and no kicks and punches pulled. Only punches (i.e. not kicks) to the head, kicks to the groin, and grappling are left out of tournament competition in order to prevent what would otherwise be very short, very bloody fights. Of course there is no point system. The winner is the one who is able to knock out his opponent, injure him out of competition, or otherwise break his will to continue through physical blows. Obviously, this is a fairly high-risk activity. Consequently, about 75% percent of your training in the Budo Karate House program will be dedicated to preparing your body to receive such full-contact blows without injury. Indeed after one year in the program you will have reinforced your body to where you can fight with your peers without having to fear injuries beyond the occasional freak accident. Ribs get broken occasionally in competition, as do fingers and noses, but 99 times out of 100 such injuries occur because the fighter was not adequately prepared. In the Budo Karate House program you will be adequately prepared before being thrown into dangerous full-contact situations.

**Because America's only full-contact martial art is the UFC and because the UFC is receiving such intense media coverage of late, please pay special attention to the following note:

BKH is NOT a program designed to prepare your for UFC style fighting. The full-contact, stand-up/knock-down style of fighting that we will teach you here could certainly be used to great, great advantage by any fighter desiring to win UFC competitions. UFC fights are very often won on the floor. If a UFC fighter trained for three years at BKH it is very likely that he would be among the best of the UFC's stand-up fighters, i.e. possessing an increased ability to knock his opponent out-cold before his opponent were able to wrestle him down to the mat. Consequently, if you were to graduate from BKH after three years, and if you wanted then to go on to learn ground fighting techniques, and if you learned them well, BKH could in fact be seen as a stepping stone to becoming a champion UFC fighter. However, since you are only, just now, contemplating applying to the BKH program, you must be aware that we will train you for and take you to the strongest stand-up/knock-down competitions in the world but we will neither train you for or take you to UFC-style ground style fights.

America's Ultimate Fighting Championship is fairly "ultimate" in the US because we don't have any other full-contact martial arts systems (even kickboxing in the US is way behind internationally), however, all you have to do is witness a handful of the world's best full-contact competitions and you will find that the UFC isn't quite that "ultimate" beyond America's boarders. This past year, we had admitted a resident to the BKH program who had UFC stars in his eyes. Having been to and fought in as many Kyokushin karate tournaments as I have in Europe and Asia, I couldn't help but believe that he was a little naïve to not be able to see past the UFC; he couldn't shut up about it and he wound up being a negative influence in the dormitory. There are some really tough guys fighting in America's UFC, no question. But if you come here you MUST come here with the intention of mastering full-contact stand-up ONLY style fighting, and mastering that style fighting only for three years. Of course if you can't shake your UFC dreams, I would support you to pursue that style after your graduate. However, if you come here and can't shut up about UFC, you will be in the wrong place, I will take it personally as a threat to our achieving our goals, and you may be asked to leave.

Aditionally you must be cautioned, that our intention through teaching full-contact karate is ultimately to improve the character of our students. If you train hard, and bleed, sweat and cry for karate, you ought to be able to make yourself into a better human being at the same time you make yourself into a better fighter. One of my personal concerns about America's recent UFC trend, is that I don't see in it any promotion of martial arts' inherent tendencies to make people into better people. So many young people aspire to be tough, but all they see from UFC on TV is a tough-guy, "I'm gonna' kick your ass" kind of mentality. If you come to BKH, I'll give you perhaps the best chance you'll ever have of becoming one of the world's strongest full-contact fighters. However, if all you dream about is becoming "a tough guy" so you can get a prettier girl friend and "kick other peoples' asses", then you should be cautioned that you might not make it here. If you want to became a great full-contact fighter (with a great chance to knock-out the average UFC fighter before he grabs you), and if you want to become a better human being at the same time, then you've found the best possible place you could have found. If your thinking is "I'm gonna be a champion and I'll screw whoever I have to screw to become one", please stay away from BKH. If on the other hand, your thinking is, "I'm gonna become a champion and a better person at the same time, I realize I can't do it on my own, and I'm therefore willing to give a little in order to see my dreams come true," then perhaps the BKH program is right for you.

Have no doubt that in the Budo Karate House program you will suffer some, and the level of your suffering will be nothing to scoff at. That hardship, however, will be paced in such a way that it will never be exceedingly dangerous. "No pain - no gain" is very true. You will hurt. But if you can endure the program, you will be so powerful you won't even recognize yourself by the time you're through.

You can feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I will not, however, entertain any questions until I have your completed application form in hand. You have been given enough information to know if you want to proceed with the self-approval application process or not. If you can not make that decision without asking questions, the only way is to send your questions in with your completed application.

I do look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Nathan Ligo
Director, Budo Karate House

(A hint that will help you with the application! The application booklet is as much a test as it is a questionnaire. That means we will be looking not only at the specific answers that you provide but also at the way that you respond to the application as a whole. Your willingness to complete the more demanding parts of the application demonstrates your desire to actually participate in the BKH program. If you're not willing to fill out the application, the program is not for you.)

P.S. A FINAL WARNING:

Do not apply to this program if you believe it to be some kind of "magic pill" to karate prowess and physical toughness! You can't learn full-contact fighting by playing karate games on Nintendo and fantasizing about sneaking around in the dark wearing a ninja outfit. Karate training means sweat and bruises, and lots and lots of heart. Here, in the BKH program, karate training means changing your diet, training when you're told to train, not quitting until you're told to quit, sleeping when you're told to sleep, cooking when you're told to cook, cleaning the toilet when you're told to do so, etc. You will trade your freedom and many of the comforts that most young American males take for granted in exchange for the training experience of a lifetime. The program is hard and ONE FROM TEN WILL GRADUATE. Read the pages at www.budokaratehouse.com and BELIEVE THAT DESCRIPTION!!! Three out of our first class to arrive here apparently thought it was an advertising scheme to make people think BHK would make them harder than the dojo down the street. This is NOT karate as practiced anywhere in America except for a very few pockets of strength in perhaps three major US cities. This is full-contact Japanese karate and becoming proficient at it requires personal sacrifice! If you think you've got what it takes, come give it a shot. But be sure you understand what you're getting yourself into.

We strongly recommend that you read the below newspaper article: