Ellis Amdur
Ellis Amdur (born March 27, 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a writer, an American practitioner of martial arts and a crisis intervention trainer. He has published a number of books on martial arts, on crisis intervention, hostage negotiation, and fiction. Career. Amdur began his study of martial arts in 1968, learning karate and traditional Chinese arts. He started training in aikido in 1973, and after moving to New York, lived in Terry Dobson and Ken Nisson’s Bond Street Dojo. He also started training daily at Yamada Yoshimitsu's New York Aikikai school of aikido. After gaining a  degree in psychology, Amdur traveled to Japan in 1976 to further his study of the martial arts, and while there, entered the Tenshin Bukō-ryū and Araki-ryū, two traditional koryu. He is shihan (full instructor) in both these arts, one of only a few non-Japanese to attain teaching licenses in any koryu. He has also studied judo, Muay Thai and xingyiquan. In recent years, Amdur has continued his training in several areas: an in-depth study of 'internal strength' paradigms, as suited to use within traditional Japanese combative arts; Arrestling, a mixed martial art specifically for law enforcement , created by Don Gulla; Amdur's 'new-old' development, "Taikyoku Araki-ryu" in which, in collaboration with established groups of expert martial artists, one or more 'modules' of Araki-ryu are studied in depth, and applied to the environment where the particular group functions (competitive grappling and law enforcement being two examples). Based in Seattle, Amdur teaches courses for a variety of different venues, from law enforcement and corrections to mental health and families on crisis intervention. Works. Amdur is the author of several books on the martial arts ("Dueling With O-Sensei", "Hidden in Plain Sight", "Old School") as  well as thirteen profession-specific books on crisis intervention and mental health which are published under his own Edgework Publishing imprint. In addition, he has also published: