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Monkey Turned Wolf

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HI RogueShooter06, I don’t think you are going to get any objective or factual information on the Bujinkan from these forums. Some of the information in the thread is skewed to personal bias and/or ignorance. If you are doing research on the authenticity of the Bujinkan then you will need to do a lot on the lineage of each school to satisfy yourself. The 9 schools of the Bujinkan are
  • Takagi Yoshin Ryu
  • Kukishinden Ryu
  • Gyokko Ryu
  • Koto Ryu
  • Togakure Ryu
  • Shinden Fudo Ryu
  • Gikan Ryu
  • Gyokushin Gyu
  • Kumogakure Ryu
Maasaki (formerly Youshiaki) Hatsumi became Soke of these 9 schools in 1972 when Takamatsu died.

As you mentioned there is some dispute over the lineage of these schools. Sean Askew, who spent a decade training with Hatsumi before leaving in 2001 to form his own school, wrote a book call Hidden Lineage of the Ninja Toda Clan which claims to have filled in the blanks in the lineage issues. You will have to read it for yourself and decide for yourself.

Hidden Lineage - The Ninja of the Toda Clan: Sean Askew: 9780578513423: Amazon.com: Books


On the issue of Stephen Hayes, he was 10 Dan in Togakure Ryu in 1993. Stephen Hayes was the person who brought ninjutsu to the US in the 1980’s. It was not under the umbrella of the Bujinkan but Togakure Ryu. Hayes was removed from the Bujinkan in 2006 and the reasons for that removal is still somewhat blurred. Some say he was expelled others say he left.


Then we have a man called Wayne L Roy, an Australian who brought Togakure Ryu to Australia. Wayne L Roy went to Japan in 1980’s and trained then came back to Australia and started the first Togakure Ryu school. Suffice to say a lot of **** when down with Roy and in 1999 Hatsumi started collecting votes from foreign Shihan to remove Roy from the (now called) Bujinkan. It was a requirement that all Shihan had personal experiences of Roys actions to be able to vote. Only 3 Shihan voted but despite that Roy is no longer a member of the Bujinkan

Chris Parker is a student of Wayne L Roy and is not a member of the Bujinkan but has his own school which teaches 6 of those 9 schools mentioned.

The other 2 “somewhat educated” posters, one is not a member of the Bujinkan and like never has been and the others credentials is dubious considering he apparently is a member but doesn’t seem to like it much.

I guess what I am saying RogueShooter06 is to do your own research and come to your own conclusions on this as you will not get any unbiased advice from these forums on the Bujinkan.
You realize you bookended your post of information with statements that information on these forums is useless, right?

Also you made biased assumptions on the experience of two members while complaining about bias.

I know nothing about what is/isn't correct here, but that is not a convincing way to make a point.
 

Nigel

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You realize you bookended your post of information with statements that information on these forums is useless, right?

Also you made biased assumptions on the experience of two members while complaining about bias.

I know nothing about what is/isn't correct here, but that is not a convincing way to make a point.
Nothing I have said is incorrect.

I am not complaining about bias, only pointing it out.. That’s why I said to Rogueshooter06 to form his own opinions.
 

BrendanF

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HI RogueShooter06, I don’t think you are going to get any objective or factual information on the Bujinkan from these forums. Some of the information in the thread is skewed to personal bias and/or ignorance.

How are you detecting/assessing this bias?

If you are doing research on the authenticity of the Bujinkan then you will need to do a lot on the lineage of each school to satisfy yourself. The 9 schools of the Bujinkan are
  • Takagi Yoshin Ryu
  • Kukishinden Ryu
  • Gyokko Ryu
  • Koto Ryu
  • Togakure Ryu
  • Shinden Fudo Ryu
  • Gikan Ryu
  • Gyokushin Gyu
  • Kumogakure Ryu

Does the Bujinkan teach these 9 schools? I thought the art was 'Budo Taijutsu'

Chris Parker is a student of Wayne L Roy and is not a member of the Bujinkan but has his own school which teaches 6 of those 9 schools mentioned.

The other 2 “somewhat educated” posters, one is not a member of the Bujinkan and like never has been and the others credentials is dubious considering he apparently is a member but doesn’t seem to like it much.

I guess what I am saying RogueShooter06 is to do your own research and come to your own conclusions on this as you will not get any unbiased advice from these forums on the Bujinkan.

Pretty sure I saw something.. oh right, here it is:

My school was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981, however we split from the Bujinkan in 2001, and the organisation as an entity was disbanded when my Chief Instructor retired at the end of 2016. I have trained at the Bujinkan Hombu, with classes held by a number of the senior Japanese instructors, Western instructors, and Hatsumi himself, but am not, technically speaking, a member of the Bujinkan itself (there's a whole other conversation as to whether or not there even is a Bujinkan anymore...).

Seems pretty straightforward and forthright.

It sounds from your posts Elninjo that you feel like the only source for 'unbiased' information would be from members of the Bujinkan? You do realise that is the opposite of 'objective'?

For what it's worth the real valuable information in this space comes from historians and koryu practitioners in Japan. The views they hold on the 'Takamatsuden' arts have been fairly clearly documented, despite the desperately parochial, biased efforts of Bujinkan students like Sean Askew and Kacem Zhoughari.
 
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Nigel

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Absolutely agree that we are all bias in some way. We all put our own slant on things and no matter how much we talk about it there will always be those that disagree, thats the way of things. The Bujinkan does teach all of those 9 school in varying degrees. Why do you say Sean Askew and Kacem Zhoughari are bias?
 

BrendanF

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Absolutely agree that we are all bias in some way. We all put our own slant on things and no matter how much we talk about it there will always be those that disagree, thats the way of things. The Bujinkan does teach all of those 9 school in varying degrees. Why do you say Sean Askew and Kacem Zhoughari are bias?

'In varying degrees'. It either does or does not. And it does not; it teaches Budo Taijutsu.

I say Sean Askew and Kacem Zhoughari are biased because they are Bujinkan students. Why would you think they are not?
 

Nigel

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just one more thing you quoted BrendanF

Chris Parker said:
My school was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981, however we split from the Bujinkan in 2001, and the organisation as an entity was disbanded when my Chief Instructor retired at the end of 2016. I have trained at the Bujinkan Hombu, with classes held by a number of the senior Japanese instructors, Western instructors, and Hatsumi himself, but am not, technically speaking, a member of the Bujinkan itself (there's a whole other conversation as to whether or not there even is a Bujinkan anymore...).

His school was not the original Bujinkan School in Australia. This is not true. His sensei's (Wayne L Roy) school may have been but not his.
 

Nigel

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'In varying degrees'. It either does or does not. And it does not; it teaches Budo Taijutsu.

I say Sean Askew and Kacem Zhoughari are biased because they are Bujinkan students. Why would you think they are not?
Why would you think I think they are not? Just enquiring why you think they are.
 

Nigel

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This is a quote from his website

The instructor at the Jukuren Dojo is Chris Parker. Mr. Parker has been the representative for Mr. Roy’s organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from his instructor in mid-2003.
I have no idea if you are a credible source. Why would I believe anything you say? I only point this out because you are saying nobody else should be believed. So why should you be?
already been there Flying Crane, not repeating myself
 

Nigel

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just one more thing you quoted BrendanF

Chris Parker said:
My school was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981, however we split from the Bujinkan in 2001, and the organisation as an entity was disbanded when my Chief Instructor retired at the end of 2016. I have trained at the Bujinkan Hombu, with classes held by a number of the senior Japanese instructors, Western instructors, and Hatsumi himself, but am not, technically speaking, a member of the Bujinkan itself (there's a whole other conversation as to whether or not there even is a Bujinkan anymore...).

His school was not the original Bujinkan School in Australia. This is not true. His sensei's (Wayne L Roy) school may have been but not his.
this is Chris Parkers website.

Instruction | Jukuren Dojo Budo Heiho

This is a quote from his website


The instructor at the Jukuren Dojo is Chris Parker. Mr. Parker has been the representative for Mr. Roy’s organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from his instructor in mid-2003.

On the one hand he says he his school.was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981 but stil from the Bujinkan in 2001

And on the other he says Mr Parker has been a representative ofrm Mr Roys organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from Wayne L Roy in Mid 2003………………………….crickets
 

Flying Crane

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This is a quote from his website

The instructor at the Jukuren Dojo is Chris Parker. Mr. Parker has been the representative for Mr. Roy’s organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from his instructor in mid-2003.

already been there Flying Crane, not repeating myself
Been where? I just categorically don’t believe you.
 

Monkey Turned Wolf

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this is Chris Parkers website.

Instruction | Jukuren Dojo Budo Heiho

This is a quote from his website


The instructor at the Jukuren Dojo is Chris Parker. Mr. Parker has been the representative for Mr. Roy’s organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from his instructor in mid-2003.

On the one hand he says he his school.was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981 but stil from the Bujinkan in 2001

And on the other he says Mr Parker has been a representative ofrm Mr Roys organization in Melbourne since taking over the school from Wayne L Roy in Mid 2003………………………….crickets
When people say "my school was X" that's pretty universal to mean the school that I train at/go to. Not every time someone uses "my school" does it mean they're claiming literal ownership of the school.
 

Dirty Dog

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just one more thing you quoted BrendanF

Chris Parker said:
My school was the original Bujinkan school in Australia, beginning in 1981, however we split from the Bujinkan in 2001, and the organisation as an entity was disbanded when my Chief Instructor retired at the end of 2016. I have trained at the Bujinkan Hombu, with classes held by a number of the senior Japanese instructors, Western instructors, and Hatsumi himself, but am not, technically speaking, a member of the Bujinkan itself (there's a whole other conversation as to whether or not there even is a Bujinkan anymore...).

His school was not the original Bujinkan School in Australia. This is not true. His sensei's (Wayne L Roy) school may have been but not his.
Coming up, I always referred to the schools I attended as "my school". My students have commonly done the same. I refer to the ER I work in as "my ER" or "my hospital", but I certainly don't own them.
And in this specific case, it seems that the school Chris refers to as "his" is both his in the sense that he runs it, and the original Bujinkan school Australia, when it was being run by Wayne L Roy and Chris trained there.
 

Flying Crane

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Coming up, I always referred to the schools I attended as "my school". My students have commonly done the same. I refer to the ER I work in as "my ER" or "my hospital", but I certainly don't own them.
And in this specific case, it seems that the school Chris refers to as "his" is both his in the sense that he runs it, and the original Bujinkan school Australia, when it was being run by Wayne L Roy and Chris trained there.
It’s sad that this apparently needs to be explained.
 

Nigel

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Coming up, I always referred to the schools I attended as "my school". My students have commonly done the same. I refer to the ER I work in as "my ER" or "my hospital", but I certainly don't own them.
And in this specific case, it seems that the school Chris refers to as "his" is both his in the sense that he runs it, and the original Bujinkan school Australia, when it was being run by Wayne L Roy and Chris trained there.

.
It was not Bujinkan when it first came to Australia, it was only Togakure Ryu. The point I am making is that someone who comes from the Wayne L Roy "clan" is likely to be bias against the Bujinkan. Chris would be well aware of this dynamic. Has he ever mentioned he was a student of Wayne L Roy? Wayne L Roys name in the Bujinkan is mud and someone who teaches 6 of the 9 schools of the Bujinkan himself, then criticized the Bujinkan for its "authenticity" tells a story
 

Tony Dismukes

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you will not get any unbiased advice from these forums on the Bujinkan.

Absolutely agree that we are all bias in some way.
You are completely correct here. You won’t get unbiased opinions on any subject on this forum or any other. That’s because all these posts are written by humans and not omniscient gods. Everything any of us says or does not say comes from our individual perspectives shaped by our individual experiences, personalities, and values.

Being biased does not mean that someone is wrong or lying or ignorant. It just means that when they process the available information they will have a tendency to focus on certain aspects of the story and be predisposed to draw certain kinds of conclusions and possibly make mistakes in one direction rather than another if they do get things wrong.

It’s useful to be able to identify your own biases and those of your sources, because it can help warn you of where to look for errors or omissions. (Both in your own thinking and in the sources you rely on.) It’s not generally helpful to dismiss sources out of hand just for being biased, because there are no unbiased sources to be had here or elsewhere.
I don’t think you are going to get any objective or factual information on the Bujinkan from these forums.
See my comments above regarding bias and objectivity. However if you think any of the specifics offered above are incorrect or non-factual, feel free to offer corrections. I should note that none of the information you’ve provided so far contradicts any of what we’ve written.
The other 2 “somewhat educated” posters, one is not a member of the Bujinkan and like never has been and the others credentials is dubious considering he apparently is a member but doesn’t seem to like it much.
I presume you are referring to Dunc and myself.

Dunc has been a member of the Bujinkan for over 30 years, teaches within the Bujinkan, has made numerous visits to Japan for training, and has written on more than one occasion on the value he finds in the training. I’m not sure where you would get the idea that he doesn’t like it much or that his credentials are dubious.

I trained in the Bujinkan for about 9 years before I drifted away into other arts for a variety of reasons. Since then I’ve occasionally trained a little bit with other Bujinkan practitioners and kept up with some of the news from the organization and checked out videos of Bujinkan instructors to see how the art has evolved (or not) since I left.

As far as my biases, I have opinions regarding the curriculum, training methodology, and culture of the Bujinkan based on my first hand experience training there and my subsequent training in other arts over the almost 3 decades since I left. I proffered a very small portion of those opinions in my original post.

As far as the history goes, I just summarized information I’ve gotten from a number of people (inside and outside of the Bujinkan) who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding Japanese history and traditional Japanese arts and the Takamatsuden arts in particular. I don’t pretend to have any first hand knowledge of the matter. I’m neither a time traveler nor a Japanese historian. I don’t even speak or read Japanese, so I’m not in a position to evaluate primary sources.
If you are doing research on the authenticity of the Bujinkan then you will need to do a lot on the lineage of each school to satisfy yourself.

I guess what I am saying RogueShooter06 is to do your own research and come to your own conclusions
And here we come to the problem I referred to above. How exactly is RogueShooter06 supposed to “do his own research?” He can find the info you listed above on Wikipedia. As far as establishing the historical bona fides of the individual lineages, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge. I’m still reading Askew’s book, but he states early on that none of the history of Togakure Ryu was ever written down before Takamatsu - that it was strictly a secret oral tradition before that. (I haven’t gotten to any mentions of the other 5 associated lineages, but I suspect the same will turn out be true of them as well.) How exactly is a non-Japanese, non-historian supposed to “do his own research” to determine the accuracy of this claimed secret oral tradition? This is why I stated in my original post that we will probably never know the full truth regarding the origins of those 6 of the arts contained within the Bujinkan.

(I’ll leave aside the debate about whether the individual arts are “taught” within the Bujinkan or if it’s all Hatsumi’s personal synthesis of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. I know that the individual techniques and katas from the individual arts have been shown. I believe that when Chris says that the individual arts aren’t taught, he means that they aren’t taught as separate arts with distinct body dynamics and tactical doctrines and training methodologies. We’ve had some discussions and debates in the past concerning our philosophies on how martial arts can be categorized and distinguished.)

BTW, I’m still planning on presenting a short book report with my impressions on Sean Askew’s book once I’m finished, in case anyone is considering checking it out for themself.
 
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Honest question why does Bujikan always get brought up? I know they sort of shot themselves in the foot with the ninja things and making that their main marketing in the ninja fad phase now that its reversed and become a joke. But if what they say is true, they only have like 2 schools claimed from ninjutsu.

(yes i know roughtly how classical japanese arts work with the structuring of many diffrent schools of thing together to make a "art/style", and ninjutsu if it existed would be done like that, hopefully that made sense, im struggling to explain and not using japanese)

Addendum: Basically the last thing i read on this ahd ninjutsu basically be like bushido, its a loos ename given for the ryu a Ninja/Samurai would attend in education to become such. And japanese classcialy martiala rts seem to have 1+ schools inside a art. So if it did exist, it would be done like that is what i was trying to explain, or in a similiar vein to that as thats how it was done (as far as i know) in japan. God that was really hard to explain without falling into the pitfall of accidnetally saying "i think they exist" or implying that, and undoing my actual view. The fact its japanese as well didnt help matters. Try saying its a school within a school.
 
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