I have and have seen the new DVD from Quest on Kakushi Buki (Hidden weapons) and have promised to give a review of it.
This is a strange tape in terms of what the target audience is supposed to be. For people outside of the Bujinkan it will be more of an introduction to the concepts rather than specific instruction. For those who have the basics down it will be kind of an inspiration for exploration.
I will give you an example of what I talk about. In the beggining of the tape Hiroshi Nagase demonstrates the manner of throwing stick shuriken. He does not lecture or explain what he is doing. I have had lots of instruction from Nagase on the weapon and I know he did not cover even a tenth of what he could have and still remained in the basics.
But later on in the tape Hatsumi takes a quick look at the stick shuriken and gives insights into why we hold shuriken the way we do and things you can do from it.
In short, you see a demonstration of shurikenjutsu and get some higher level insights. But if you do not know the basics you are not going to be getting them from this.
Hatsumi also sits down and displays various types of weapons and talks about them. Anyone who has spent time with his books and around him will not see much new or surprising. But the non-Bujinkan member will probably find it interesting.
This pattern also goes on for the kusari fundo, shuko, senban shuriken and a few other things. The last part of the tape shows a session from this years tai kai where Hatsumi demonstrates various weapons on poor, unsuspecting students. Again, no basics. You are expected to know these things if you want to train with the boss. But the newbie to Bujinkan does get a good chance to see the thought process behind hidden weapons and the potential for their use. It is a joy to see Hatsumi move.
So, as I said, this is a tape that will serve as an introduction but not instruction for people without Bujinkan experience. For those in the Bujinkan it will serve as a way of getting a slightly deeper insight into the aspects of hidden weapons, but assumes you have trained with someone like Nagase on the weapon being discussed. I like it, but would not reccomend it to someone thinking of getting it for a reference library or trying to learn on their own.
This is a strange tape in terms of what the target audience is supposed to be. For people outside of the Bujinkan it will be more of an introduction to the concepts rather than specific instruction. For those who have the basics down it will be kind of an inspiration for exploration.
I will give you an example of what I talk about. In the beggining of the tape Hiroshi Nagase demonstrates the manner of throwing stick shuriken. He does not lecture or explain what he is doing. I have had lots of instruction from Nagase on the weapon and I know he did not cover even a tenth of what he could have and still remained in the basics.
But later on in the tape Hatsumi takes a quick look at the stick shuriken and gives insights into why we hold shuriken the way we do and things you can do from it.
In short, you see a demonstration of shurikenjutsu and get some higher level insights. But if you do not know the basics you are not going to be getting them from this.
Hatsumi also sits down and displays various types of weapons and talks about them. Anyone who has spent time with his books and around him will not see much new or surprising. But the non-Bujinkan member will probably find it interesting.
This pattern also goes on for the kusari fundo, shuko, senban shuriken and a few other things. The last part of the tape shows a session from this years tai kai where Hatsumi demonstrates various weapons on poor, unsuspecting students. Again, no basics. You are expected to know these things if you want to train with the boss. But the newbie to Bujinkan does get a good chance to see the thought process behind hidden weapons and the potential for their use. It is a joy to see Hatsumi move.
So, as I said, this is a tape that will serve as an introduction but not instruction for people without Bujinkan experience. For those in the Bujinkan it will serve as a way of getting a slightly deeper insight into the aspects of hidden weapons, but assumes you have trained with someone like Nagase on the weapon being discussed. I like it, but would not reccomend it to someone thinking of getting it for a reference library or trying to learn on their own.
The video is good just for seeing Sensei doing this stuff and his talking about hidden weapons. I enjoyed it.
