Dale Seago
Black Belt
In the late and no doubt unlamented Tenjindo thread, I sort of got into it with Ralph Severe. "Flame wars" are not something I normally involve myself in, and I've comfortably ignored Ralph as harmless for years because I've understood him to be speaking from the perspective of someone outside the Bujinkan. Plenty of people outside the organization slam the Bujinkan, its Soke, its instructors, and its methods, and I don't much care as they're not part of my world.
In the Tenjindo thread, however, Ralph started off by seeming to imply he is a legitimate Bujinkan instructor who had no real knowledge of another instructor nearby who's senior to him (though a 6MB file of his e-budo posts compiled and archived by a judan in Michigan shows that this is not the case). That sort of rubbed me the wrong way, and things went downhill from there. I want to apologize to everyone for that, especially to the moderators: I appreciate the difficulties of their position, as I've been doing the same job myself for several years over at Sword Forum International.
Since that thread was locked, I've gone ahead and done the obvious thing I should have done earlier, and checked with Japan. The Bujinkan Hombu Administrator asked Hatsumi sensei at Sunday's training if Ralph Severe is currently a member, and Hatsumi immediately replied "No". Had the question been asked about any number of other people, Soke might have had to look up the instructor's file -- however, he knows very well who Ralph Severe is; and as a 15th dan Australian instructor who's been living in Japan the last few years recently commented, "The Japanese do have an idea of what kind of person he is but it is not their backyard. I have never heard his name mentioned in a positive way by any Japanese Shihan or by Soke."
Since Hatsumi sensei says Ralph Severe is a non-member, I can get back to ignoring him.
In the Tenjindo thread, however, Ralph started off by seeming to imply he is a legitimate Bujinkan instructor who had no real knowledge of another instructor nearby who's senior to him (though a 6MB file of his e-budo posts compiled and archived by a judan in Michigan shows that this is not the case). That sort of rubbed me the wrong way, and things went downhill from there. I want to apologize to everyone for that, especially to the moderators: I appreciate the difficulties of their position, as I've been doing the same job myself for several years over at Sword Forum International.
Since that thread was locked, I've gone ahead and done the obvious thing I should have done earlier, and checked with Japan. The Bujinkan Hombu Administrator asked Hatsumi sensei at Sunday's training if Ralph Severe is currently a member, and Hatsumi immediately replied "No". Had the question been asked about any number of other people, Soke might have had to look up the instructor's file -- however, he knows very well who Ralph Severe is; and as a 15th dan Australian instructor who's been living in Japan the last few years recently commented, "The Japanese do have an idea of what kind of person he is but it is not their backyard. I have never heard his name mentioned in a positive way by any Japanese Shihan or by Soke."
Since Hatsumi sensei says Ralph Severe is a non-member, I can get back to ignoring him.