Tetsu Jin Ryu

Rubber Tanto

Rubber Tanto

Orange Belt
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Now, talking with a guy at a birthday party the other day. He claimed to have studied Ninjutsu as a youth. Interested, I queried him further and from what he could recall the instructor, teaching out of his garage in Box Hill, claimed to have studied Tetsu Jen Ryu.

Now, a self proclaimed grandmaster of google-searchjutsu, I failed to find anything on this, but, at my local library, I did find an entry in a book called "The Ninja Star" by some guy named Katsumi Toda that lists a Tetsu Jin Ryu Ninjutsu to have existed around 1865. Now I can't find much on Katsumi Toda either...so...

Can anyone tell me:

a) who Katsumi Toda is and if he is a reputable source (and why katsumi sounds so much like hatsumi??)
b) Tetsu Jin Ryu was a real ryu?
c) If so what happened to it?
d) it is plausible for someone to have menkyo kaiden in this art?
e) why the hell it interested me so much when I normally don't care about this stuff? LOL

Cheers,
Nick
 
I would've asked him if he's a Black Sabbath fan... :lol:
 
I'm sure Don will chime in soon. Until then...

a. No known info exists on this person. Therefore can't be considered as a reputable school.( don't know)
b. No known information exists for this ryu-ha in or outside of Japan.
c. It is more than likely this is made up.
d. No. (see previous 3 answers)
e. Don't know. Get an Xbox or Playstation. (LOL. Just kidding)

Have a great day everyone.
 
I have a book somewhere by Katsumi Toda. Think of it as ninja fantasy pulp fiction with very poor illustrations.
 
A non fictional ninja book written by a fictional ninja...a ninja student from a black sabbath album??? HUH? I get the feeling I have been had...

see...this is why I try not to get into this stuff!
yeesh!

I'm off to play San Andreas!
 
Rubber Tanto said:
A non fictional ninja book written by a fictional ninja...a ninja student from a black sabbath album??? HUH? I get the feeling I have been had...
Click to expand...
Well, Tetsu Jin could be translated as Iron Man (Person).
 
Bigshadow said:
I thought Jin meant spirit... So couldn't it mean Iron Spirit?
Click to expand...

Shin means "spirit". It sometimes becomes jin when combined with other words, such as in the case of bujin.

Jin by itself means "humanity" or "mankind". This is the word used in tenchijin.

Laterz.
 
It can mean both depending on the kanji being used.

Jin = man, spirit or will
 
Rubber Tanto said:
A non fictional ninja book written by a fictional ninja...a ninja student from a black sabbath album??? HUH? I get the feeling I have been had...
Click to expand...

I think that maybe your friend was had. He might just be honest with you and have been fooled by a fraud as a youth. There was, and still are, a lot of them running around.

Tell me, does this friend claim that the guy was Asian? Or that he can't give you anything that might let you find the teacher for various excuses?

I have seen a lot of frauds and a lot of people defending frauds because they believed what they were told. The difference between the two is that the guys that were deceived always give up their teacher- who turns out to be the fraud. The fraud always give some excuse as to why he can't.
 
Don Roley said:
I think that maybe your friend was had. He might just be honest with you and have been fooled by a fraud as a youth. There was, and still are, a lot of them running around.

Tell me, does this friend claim that the guy was Asian? Or that he can't give you anything that might let you find the teacher for various excuses?

I have seen a lot of frauds and a lot of people defending frauds because they believed what they were told. The difference between the two is that the guys that were deceived always give up their teacher- who turns out to be the fraud. The fraud always give some excuse as to why he can't.
Click to expand...

Is there no place for secrecy anymore then? At what point in history did things stop being secret, and I assume it will never be secret again? Does someone claiming secrecy automatically become a fraud?

I understand its difficult to validate things, but I often shirk when I hear someone immediately slap a label of fraud on people... Perhaps investigation will bear things out as being a fraud...
 
I for one would love to find another lineage in the shinobi arts. Probably there is some out there.
However, most people claiming that they are turn out to be frauds. That is the sad thing.
If there are other lineages out there hopefully one day they will emerge and be validated.

Right now we know Budo Taijutus has ninjutsu within it. (no doubts)
We also know that Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu teaches some
Shinobi jutsu (or anti shinobi techniques) at their higher levels.
After that everyone else making claims has not proven enough to
be considered legit.
 
mrhnau said:
Is there no place for secrecy anymore then? At what point in history did things stop being secret, and I assume it will never be secret again? Does someone claiming secrecy automatically become a fraud?

I understand its difficult to validate things, but I often shirk when I hear someone immediately slap a label of fraud on people... Perhaps investigation will bear things out as being a fraud...
Click to expand...

Think of it like you would someone making claims about military service.

There may be some secrets. But those charged with keeping secrets are not going to let you know about them. If they tell you something, they can prove it. If they tell you they were a secret assassin for Delta Force, but can't even prove they were in the military at all, then something is wrong.

And you have to wonder why something would have to be kept a secret. There are aspects of some Japanese martial arts that are only revealed to a select few. But why would someone have to keep the existence of an entire style secret? I can imagine something being under my radar. But I have never heard a decent excuse as to why an art in the 20th or 21st century has to keep its very exiistence secret. All the excuses I hear sound like a bad comic book.

Bottom line, if someone can talk to you about their martial arts experience they can prove that they had that experience. That means they can prove that they had a teacher and went to training. I have been telling people to just look at the head teacher's proof of his own personal training if they have any questions for years now. You don't need to know anything about Japanese culture to realize that someone who was made an instructor of an art should have some sort of proof given to him by his teacher.
 
I dunno, one of my favorite excuses is: "You've never heard of our school because it's been kept a secret for hundreds of years, but you can check out our website at www.kogakiddy.com." :p
 
Don Roley said:
I think that maybe your friend was had. He might just be honest with you and have been fooled by a fraud as a youth. There was, and still are, a lot of them running around.

Tell me, does this friend claim that the guy was Asian? Or that he can't give you anything that might let you find the teacher for various excuses?

I have seen a lot of frauds and a lot of people defending frauds because they believed what they were told. The difference between the two is that the guys that were deceived always give up their teacher- who turns out to be the fraud. The fraud always give some excuse as to why he can't.
Click to expand...

Hey Don.
No the person in question was not a friend. I just got to talking with this guy because his wife commented and how big my shoulders were and I said I did martial arts for a long time and he said yeah me too and yadda yadda yadda he then said he first did ninjutsu!

I straight away thought he meant Kevin Hawthorn (and many know my view on that gem) but he said no it was out of a garage in in a suburb here in Melbourne.

When he said Tetsu jen ryu it caught my interest because Kevin Hawthorne was calling his stuff Kyushin Ryu Ninjutsu so I thought there was a difference. He couldn't tell me much.

At first I was interested to see if there ever was a testu Jin ryu system and I found it in the katsumi toda book "NINJA STAR: ART OF SHURIKEN JUTSU" as seen here so then I just became curious to see if it was a real style.
 
It still sounds like he was fooled. Most people that claim to have had fictional teachers say they trained in ancient temples rather than out of someone's garage. They are the ones to teach out of their garage to gullible folks. Don't be too quick to write him off. But then again, you probably may never see him again anyways.
 
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