Kembudo-Kai Kempoka
Senior Master
I started training in Moriyama-Ryu Bujutsu, a family-based system with breakaway add-ons from the TSKSR, many moons before Mr. Hayes started espousing the glories of TR in the pages of of Black Belt magazine. Now, granted, I was young and under the throes of an ongoing medically induced melancholy to control my ADHD, so my retention of the oral history is fuzzy at best. At the time, there were very few published works on ninjutsu in English, and only a handful of folks teaching much of anything (I/my family had finagled an invite for me to train based on some friendships we made with a Japanese folk-medicine community in Hawaii). Before Hayes ever published any of his books with the crab-like kamae in apparently unrelated circumstances, the only books I owned mentioning Hatsumi-sensei was a Japanese Stick-Fighting book, written by a brit, and given to me by a brit who was a senior student at the dojo; and one on Ninjutsu with pics of Hatsumi and family members in rustic huts with powders and ladders made of hair ropes. In the stick-fighting book, Hatsumi (much younger then in the ninjutsu book and with a 1950's-ish buzz cut) demo'd varieties of stick-fighting techs, presumably associated with the TSKSR (but I think, even then...and I haven't had the book in my posession for almost 25 years...there were photos of him with his ninjutsu instructors; but again, that's through the lens of memories dimmed by time and meds).
Additionally, this same Brit lived and studied in Japan with several of Hatsumi's "classmates", and even one of his instructors (Kempo, with Sato Kimbei). What was most noticeable to me after the ninjutsu explosion of the late seventies/early eighties, was that the TSKSR and Chinese Kempo guys, Sato Kimbei lineage (Not Parker/Chow/Mitose), did not move anything like the TR/BJK practitioners. Most notably, a lot of the BJK guys seemed to move and posture more like recalling traditional folk dance, then response potential positioning: I mention this because I read in a different thread by BJK pract's that so many of the indies claiming non-BJK roots still moved like they came from Taka roots.
Since then, I've visited TSKSR satellites and breakaways in Belgium & France, and still noted a different feel of movement than demonstarted by BJK-pract's.
So here is my question: What is the relationship btw the Ninjutsu in Tenshin Shoden, and Bujinkan; what role did Hatsumi play in either a) introducing the information to the TSKS or b) gleaning from them, and how does that background of his factor into the formation of the Bujinkan? Are there close ties between the 2 Kai in Japan, or is their relationship a less-than-optimal one? What is the BJK view of the TSKS, and/or the TSKS view of BJK? Cousins? Competitors? Frauds? If they are cousions, when did Hatsumi either join or leave, and why? If they are stylistically related, why don't they look more alike when they move? At some point in time, Hatsumi must have been a senior in the TSKS tradition, or he wouldn't have been selected for co-authorship and photo shoots in a jojutsu book that heavily cites the influence of the TSKS. Wha' happened?
Hoping to learn and understand more from those who know,
Dave
Additionally, this same Brit lived and studied in Japan with several of Hatsumi's "classmates", and even one of his instructors (Kempo, with Sato Kimbei). What was most noticeable to me after the ninjutsu explosion of the late seventies/early eighties, was that the TSKSR and Chinese Kempo guys, Sato Kimbei lineage (Not Parker/Chow/Mitose), did not move anything like the TR/BJK practitioners. Most notably, a lot of the BJK guys seemed to move and posture more like recalling traditional folk dance, then response potential positioning: I mention this because I read in a different thread by BJK pract's that so many of the indies claiming non-BJK roots still moved like they came from Taka roots.
Since then, I've visited TSKSR satellites and breakaways in Belgium & France, and still noted a different feel of movement than demonstarted by BJK-pract's.
So here is my question: What is the relationship btw the Ninjutsu in Tenshin Shoden, and Bujinkan; what role did Hatsumi play in either a) introducing the information to the TSKS or b) gleaning from them, and how does that background of his factor into the formation of the Bujinkan? Are there close ties between the 2 Kai in Japan, or is their relationship a less-than-optimal one? What is the BJK view of the TSKS, and/or the TSKS view of BJK? Cousins? Competitors? Frauds? If they are cousions, when did Hatsumi either join or leave, and why? If they are stylistically related, why don't they look more alike when they move? At some point in time, Hatsumi must have been a senior in the TSKS tradition, or he wouldn't have been selected for co-authorship and photo shoots in a jojutsu book that heavily cites the influence of the TSKS. Wha' happened?
Hoping to learn and understand more from those who know,
Dave