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over
people and 100’s of companies
have played The Samurai Game.
One of the most intense, engaging and powerful simulations available anywhere, The Samurai Game is particularly useful for leaders and teams cultivating awareness, resourcefulness and decisiveness in situations marked by uncertainty, chaos and unforeseeable challenges.
Time Magazine dubbed George Leonard “The Grandfather” of the human potential movement. An award-winning editor for Look Magazine, a jazz musician, and an Aikido sensei, George was dedicated to helping people everywhere to live more vivid and purposeful lives, in service to others.
WWII Combat Pilot, Journalist and Author
George Leonard flew as a fighter-bomber pilot in WWII against Japanese, and then as an air-intelligence officer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, he become a journalist, eventually becoming an award winning editor at Look Magazine where he covered the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, meeting Martin Luther King, Jr. and at one point sharing office space with Robert (Bobbie) Kennedy.
He went on to author 12 books and become Esquire Magazine’s most prolific contributor. His books include: “Mastery”, “The Ultimate Athlete”, “The Silent Pulse”, “Education and Ecstasy”, “The Transformation”, “The Way of Aikido”, “Walking on the Edge of the World” among others.
Introduced to Aikido
In the 1970s, George began his study and practice of Aikido, a Japanese martial art that was relatively new to the United States. Aikido was founded by Morihei Ueshiba, who was considered one of Japan’s greatest martial artists, and in 1968 he was proclaimed a Sacred National Treasure by the Japanese government.
Deeply inspired by the philosophy and practice of Aikido, George earned his black belt and then co-founded the Aikido of Tamalpais dojo in Mill Valley, California, with Richard Strozzi-Heckler and Wendy Palmer. Eventually, he attained the rank of 5th degree black belt.
As a social philosopher, educator, speaker, and Aikido instructor, George traveled extensively, teaching and lecturing on human potential and educational reform and promoting the art of Aikido as a means of personal and professional development and creating alternative responses to conflict.
Leonard developed Leonard Energy Training (LET), which made the key principles of Aikido available to non-martial artists, and later co-founded Integral Transformative Practice with Michael Murphy, author and co-founder of Esalen Institute.
Invents The Samurai Game
The Game was inspired by George’s experience flying combat missions in the Asia Pacific theater during World War II, and his discovery and immersion in Aikido, meditation and related mind-body disciplines.
He first got the idea for The Samurai Game while walking from his home to the Aikido dojo to teach class one evening. Arriving at the dojo, he led the students in the first iteration of the Game. The next week, his Aikido students reported how impactful their experience of the Game had been the previous week, and asked to play it again. George began refining the Game and soon was leading it for other groups and personal development centers, such as Esalen Institute.
The Samurai Game
goes international
George retained Lance Giroux to serve him and the Leonard Family Trust worldwide as the Game’s sole facilitator training and certification representative. Lance codified facilitator training and began introducing the Game to schools, universities, and other organizations.
Over the next 10 years, Lance traveled extensively, through the USA, Mexico, Europe, Eastern Europe, SE Asia, Egypt, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia to lead the game and train and certify new facilitators. Lance also trained in Aikido, achieving the rank of black belt.
The Leonard Family Trust
In 2010, George passed away, followed by his wife, Annie, in 2011, leaving the Game’s ownership rights to The Leonard Family Trust.
In 2011, Grayson James (Aikido instructor and international leadership consultant) joined Lance Giroux to represent The Leonard Family Trust and continue to train and certify facilitators around the world. Together, Lance and Grayson trained and certified over 80 facilitators.
Lance Giroux retired from training and certifying Facilitators in 2020, and now focuses on teaching Aikido at his home dojo, Aikido of Konocti, in Lake County, California.
Honoring the Legacy,
Guiding the Future
In 2025, Samurai Game Associates, led by Grayson James, acquired all rights to The Samurai Game from the Leonard Family Trust.
Samurai Game Associates continues to introduce The Samurai Game to new individuals and organizations around the world and is developing new programs that build upon the powerful learning experiences offered by The Samurai Game for leaders and their organizations.
People participate for many reasons. Most commonly, individuals and teams participate to deepen their awareness, personal effectiveness, and leadership performance.
The Samurai Game presents a series of unpredictable and fascinating scenarios that reflect the pressures and challenges of the fast-paced business climate, complex organizational dynamics and politics, competition, and everyday family and personal life.
These scenarios create dilemmas that enable participants to observe themselves and their habitual reactions, inviting them to reflect on fundamental questions, such as…
People often repeatedly participate in The Samurai Game® experience. And each time, the experience is unique and profound.
The purpose of The Samurai Game is to enable participants to experience themselves and their habitual reactions to circumstances more clearly so that they have greater choice and impact in their personal and professional lives.
The Samurai Game:
Participants in The Samurai Game cross a psychological lin mies and engage with their teammates and opponents in symbolic battles that eventually determine the simulation’s finale.
These battles call upon participants to exercise resourcefulness, decisiveness, dignity, integrity, respect and personal commitment.
The pace is fast and unpredictable, and the outcomes are highly uncertain. No two productions of the simulation are ever quite the same, making each learning experience unique!
While involving no significant physical contact, The Samurai Game demands much in the way of centeredness and teamwork. Participants are encouraged to summon forth their “warrior” spirit with courage and determination.
The Samurai Game is typically facilitated in a two-day format, although it may also be offered in shorter or longer formats.
After the “battles” portion of the Game comes the debrief session, which is a critical part of The Samurai Game experience. This is where participants integrate their experiences and learnings.
Participants routinely report that the greatest impact of the Samurai Game begins during and following the debriefing period.
Most corporate groups and learning institutions (including colleges & universities) integrate extended debrief periods after the simulation ends for reflection and integration. This lets folks get the most out of the Samurai Game experience.
The Samurai Game may at times be offered in a one-day format (generally 9 to 10 hours), however, this does not allow for as much learning, practice, and integration of the full experience. It may also be offered in a 3-day format in some cases.
Some training organizations include the simulation as part of a larger seminar experience, while many corporate teams integrate The Samurai Game into their off-site leadership or management development programs and retreats.
The Samurai Game can be played with as few as 16 people and as many as 80 at a time. For groups larger than 80, we break the group into two or more smaller groups at certain parts of the program, with a certified Samurai Game Facilitator leading each group.
This allows each participant to experience the Game fully and safely.
There is very little physical contact between participants in The Samurai Game.
The physical contact you may experience would not be strenuous or harmful in any way and would not involve the use of force (it would be similar to a handshake).
The Samurai Game can ONLY be led by authorized individuals who have been trained and certified by the Game’s founder, George Leonard, or Samurai Game Associates, LLC, which owns The Samurai Game and all rights related to it.
Please make sure that anybody who offers to lead The Samurai Game for you or your group is on this list of certified Samurai Game facilitators.
Anybody who is not on this list is NOT authorized to lead the Game and would be doing so illegally and in violation of international law. Equally importantly, they would not have been trained and approved to safely and effectively lead The Samurai Game (no matter by what other names they may be calling the Game).
This is a common concern. The simple answer is that Yes, the presence of “the boss” can influence some people’s experience in The Samurai Game. For precisely this reason, we have strategies for helping to minimize this potential interference and ensure that the boss or leader(s) role in the Game is at a similar level to the other participants. This provides opportunities for everyone else to participate freely and autonomously, and for those who may not be leaders in the team or organization to assume and express their leadership in The Samurai Game. Your certified Samurai Game Facilitator can tell more about how this works.
The Samurai Game is NOT an Assessment Tool. We strongly discourage leaders and teams from using The Samurai Game as a tool for assessing individual performance. Using The Samurai Game as an assessment tool runs counter to the intent of The Samurai Game, and would likely hinder individuals’ reflection, risk-taking, and practicing of new, non-habitual behaviors. In other words, it could inhibit the powerful individual learning that is at the heart of The Samurai Game.
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