Ellis Amdur


Ellis Amdur is a writer, an American practitioner of martial arts and as of 2024, retired 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. He continued training in aikido there at the World Aikido Headquarters, and also at the dojos of Kuwamori Yasunori and Kuroiwa Yoshio. He regards Kuroiwa as his most significant influence in aikido.
He entered the Tenshin Bukō-ryū Heihō and Araki-ryū, two traditional koryu in the mid-1970's. He is shihan 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: a 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.
Amdur developed and taught courses on tactical communication for law enforcement and corrections as well as social services and businesses.

Works

Amdur is the author of several books on the martial arts as well as nineteen profession-specific books on crisis intervention, crisis negotiation, hospice social work and the art of psychotherapy, which are published under his own Edgework Publishing imprint. In addition, he has also published four works of fiction: