Thank you for taking the time to investigate Ryusui-ryu.

In response to your comment 'Surely by taking this approach you are training students to 'think' they have skills to be able to take care of themselves but in actual fact they don’t know 'how to' use them'

This is not the idea at all. Ryusui-ryu is not teaching people to kill others. It is not teaching people to fight in cage fights. However if the spectrum of practical techniques was 1-10 with 10 being cage fighting and 1 being non contact. You would find Ryusui_ryu at about 7. We teach a practical Martial Art which uses a random training system that’s Safe due to the nature of speed that a student trains at as they move up the ranks with experience. The senior levels would train with pads for full contact and at accelerated speeds. I would like to stress that it’s a non competitive Art so the ego is left at the door of the dojo. I can assure you that the softness and sensitivity of Aikido combined with the power and accuracy of Shito-ryu and Goju-ryu Karate styles in which adds to our technique is in fact very practical at close quarters.

The term 'Play fighting' is used because as we train we show respect for our partners. If we find an advantage when training we perform a technique or strike but not as so to injure our partner. So because we train to be sensitive to our partner we can feel if they can't move with the technique or strike and therefore do not force it on. Part of our training involves counter moves and covers so when we are engaged in training the purpose is not to stop or get stuck. A strike comes in we move or allow the force to move us if it connects 'Like flowing water' we do not stop we go around an obstacle.
We also incorporate this training using the jo.

I do have some videos but they are not ready for release just yet. When I finish them I shall post some links!

This page explains a little about what we use in our technique.. http://www.ryusui-ryu.org/content/view/1/29