Was Rokas wrong about bujinkan?

Urban Trekker

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That being said, Bujinkan is not a sport. The focus is not on competition but being the best that you can be, its not a competition.

The same can be said of all eastern TMA. But considering the fact that UFC and Bellator do not require sanctioning from TMA organizations, Bujinkan practitioners are as free to compete as are practitioners of other martial arts. The fact that it's not happening should raise questions.

Not sure what your point is but not competing in the UFC or Bellator doesn’t make the art invalid. Is that really what you are suggesting?

Yes. Remember: perception is reality. It could literally be the most effective martial art in the world, but if people don't see it being put to the test, then the perception is going to be that it can't hang with the other arts that are represented in the UFC and Bellator.
 
D

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Here's the big elephant in the room: if Bunjinkan/modern ninjutsu, whatever, has an unbroken lineage going to back to the 16th century, well, first off, I want to see some photographs of their dojos from the late 19th/early 20th century. Hell, I might be satisfied with one that was taken at any time before the release of You Only Live Twice. I'm sure they'll say that it was practiced in secret until then, which they know everyone will laugh off.

Okay, but that's not the big elephant that I'm talking about; it's this. If the lineage is unbroken and goes back to the 16th century, then how do they explain the immediate and widespread popularity of karate in Japan upon the annexation of Okinawa? Surely, if Japan already had this perfectly fine striking/hybrid art - which is arguably way "cooler" than karate - the Japanese would have no reason to take interest in karate, right?

God those photos of samurai are weird.

It doesnt have one, the wikipedia page i posted has citations for 3 issues where bujikan makes contracitory linege claims. Apart from the fact its fair to say nijustsu doesnt exist, the founder of bujikans experience in the styles he has done is questioned heavily.

im just going to say, no one would care if you sold your thing as "martially themed dance" its the fact "martiallly themed dance" is sold as actual fighting skills and to keep you alive and if you ever need to use them it can result in your death, this is very serious stuff.

Addendum: the last "ninjutsu" master, died, didnt name a successor and had his post as in charge of a ninja musuem, so definately economic and political reasons to keep it alive irrelivent of truth. that and i dont think they let people freely read the ninja scrolls or what ever its called.

i forget if he was in charge of a musuem itself, or a musuem awarded him the position at some point, something like that, there is some commercial intrest involved.


Also, japanese martial history is as varied as any countries, there are offical schools then there is just "fighting" people did. they have a word for fighting, if you didnt go to a school or do a specfic style say Jujutsu, you were just "fighting". Translation issues as well. (jujutsu is argubly a hybrid striking/grappiling pending specfic school of)
 

dunc

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God those photos of samurai are weird.

It doesnt have one, the wikipedia page i posted has citations for 3 issues where bujikan makes contracitory linege claims. Apart from the fact its fair to say nijustsu doesnt exist, the founder of bujikans experience in the styles he has done is questioned heavily.

Hi Rat
The lineages are documented and the connection to Iga has been researched - see my earlier post
I think that if you are to post authoritatively on subjects like this then you should do us the courtesy to read more broadly than wikipedia
The wiki page clearly needs updating...

im just going to say, no one would care if you sold your thing as "martially themed dance" its the fact "martiallly themed dance" is sold as actual fighting skills and to keep you alive and if you ever need to use them it can result in your death, this is very serious stuff.

The point about marketing any art or dojo as offering self defence applies to all arts. Including combat sports

Addendum: the last "ninjutsu" master, died, didnt name a successor and had his post as in charge of a ninja musuem, so definately economic and political reasons to keep it alive irrelivent of truth. that and i dont think they let people freely read the ninja scrolls or what ever its called.

i forget if he was in charge of a musuem itself, or a musuem awarded him the position at some point, something like that, there is some commercial intrest involved.

Several people have claimed to be the last ninja
Dunno why you would take the word of one of them when there is significantly more evidence to suggest that there are several lineages that include ninjutsu (including several very well documented ryuha)

Also, japanese martial history is as varied as any countries, there are offical schools then there is just "fighting" people did. they have a word for fighting, if you didnt go to a school or do a specfic style say Jujutsu, you were just "fighting". Translation issues as well. (jujutsu is argubly a hybrid striking/grappiling pending specfic school of)
Yes I agree with this - some schools were codified, others oral, some came into being because their founder trained with lots of different masters
 
D

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The lineages are documented and the connection to Iga has been researched - see my earlier post
I think that if you are to post authoritatively on subjects like this then you should do us the courtesy to read more broadly than wikipedia
The wiki page clearly needs updating...
Sources. Im not going to belive Bujikan pages, and the Wikiedpia article seems fair on it and listed the disputed claims as known with evidence.


The point about marketing any art or dojo as offering self defence applies to all arts. Including combat sports
Seeprate points, self defece is its own thing, but i never said others dont do this, the thread is about Bujikan and to a lesser degree its stated influences.


Several people have claimed to be the last ninja
Dunno why you would take the word of one of them when there is significantly more evidence to suggest that there are several lineages that include ninjutsu (including several very well documented ryuha)
There may be. but there is still no "ninjutsu", the sources backing it up ar edubious and there is greater economic intrest around it to have a monetary reason for keeping a lie.

The schools like say Kenjutsu etc arent really in dispute, they do exist, and case by case for the claimed linege if it can be tracked, back. Got pulled away had to cut this short.
 

Steve

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That being said, Bujinkan is not a sport. The focus is not on competition but being the best that you can be, its not a competition.
I really don't think you understand what sport is all about. It is entirely about being the best you can be.
 

drop bear

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Ok so we are really debating terms now? Not the effectiveness of the art (which is the topic of this thread)? Call it what you want.....it is what it is. How can any rational person think that ninjutsu in todays society is still people sneaking about wearing black masks and poisoning people. Come on! Really?

Is there anything to suggest the art is effective?
 

Steve

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If they offered to actually train for movie ninja skills, I'd be there.
That's just parkour. And the great thing about parkour is that you actually get to jump off of things, flip over things, and develop your expertise in unnecessary flourish. You won't be able to fly, but you will definitely learn the art of falling with style.
 

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Real ninja.

ninjahedge.jpg
 

dunc

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Sources. Im not going to belive Bujikan pages, and the Wikiedpia article seems fair on it and listed the disputed claims as known with evidence.

Hi

Sources for ninjutsu (books you can read &/or google):
General history of ninja etc - probably easiest to go to Stephan Turnbull in english language. He's a British historian who specialises in Japanese history. Not perfect and incomplete, but a good overview of the history
Other surviving lineages that include ninjutsu - best and most prominent example is the Katori Shinto Ryu (famous school with a very long history), also Kukishinden has a lot of the mystical elements within it (again famous school with a very long history)
History of the Bujinkan related arts - Dr Kacem Zoughari, Phd in Japanese studies and professor at the University of Tokyo (specialising in the history of Japanese martial arts)
Bujinkan connection from the past to today - Sean Askew (he has a book, but has also been sharing a lot of his findings openly on social media)
I'm no expert, just an interested hobbyist, but if you want to chat about any of these I'd be very happy to (maybe another thread)

The sources for the other schools in the Bujinkan (which make up the vast majority of the curriculum) are fairly easy to find online by just googling the school names and the Wikipedia page you refer to has the publications listed out there

Seeprate points, self defece is its own thing, but i never said others dont do this, the thread is about Bujikan and to a lesser degree its stated influences.

In my view the effectiveness of the art (any art) is a combination of the individual, the curriculum and the training methods
The curriculum provides excellent techniques for fighting (as well as some not-so-useful-nowadays techniques)
The training methods are very variable from one dojo to another - this is an unfortunate reality that, in my view, results in our inconsistent reputation amongst folks on here
One of the most senior teacher's in the UK, Peter King, has posted about this on his facebook page. He was a police officer in one of the most violent parts of London for 30 years and has a medal from the queen for taking a machete off someone
Back in the day a few Bujinkan folk did compete in MMA - one example is online here -
But they are few and far between and to be honest if you want to compete in MMA then you'll be more successful studying MMA than Bujinkan (very limited ground work in Bujinkan, gloves screw up a lot of the techniques etc etc)

There may be. but there is still no "ninjutsu", the sources backing it up ar edubious and there is greater economic intrest around it to have a monetary reason for keeping a lie.

The schools like say Kenjutsu etc arent really in dispute, they do exist, and case by case for the claimed linege if it can be tracked, back. Got pulled away had to cut this short.

Not sure what you mean schools like kenjutsu, but if you mean the more mainstream traditional schools, then I agree they are not really in dispute, but pointing out that they form the vast majority of the Bujinkan's curriculum
 
D

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In my view the effectiveness of the art (any art) is a combination of the individual, the curriculum and the training methods
The curriculum provides excellent techniques for fighting (as well as some not-so-useful-nowadays techniques)
The training methods are very variable from one dojo to another - this is an unfortunate reality that, in my view, results in our inconsistent reputation amongst folks on here
One of the most senior teacher's in the UK, Peter King, has posted about this on his facebook page. He was a police officer in one of the most violent parts of London for 30 years and has a medal from the queen for taking a machete off someone
Back in the day a few Bujinkan folk did compete in MMA - one example is online here - But they are few and far between and to be honest if you want to compete in MMA then you'll be more successful studying MMA than Bujinkan (very limited ground work in Bujinkan, gloves screw up a lot of the techniques etc etc)
Case and point bujikan had a ninja phase and used that to try and sell itself until ninjas got mocked to high hell and back. :p

Effectiveness is one thing, how you sell it is another. If you sell anything as a martial art there needs to be some, and at least good martial application. (which can be quntifiblae and objective)

Then you just lay down criteria and create something that meets your criteria. (marketings relation i will get to) the criteria can be wrong, thus the martial art is bad. but if it meets all its crtieria its not bad in a implimentation way, just it was made for things that dont happen.
I dont know the wording to distingish between something poorly designed or just wrongly implimented. For example, if you included hip throws for a boxing school, thats just wrong and pointless for boxing, yet the hip throws could be taught right and work.

Onto marketing, if you shove say self defence on it, you NEED to provide the education you say you do by shoving self defence on it. If you claim your art is for "street fighting" then it MUST work outside of comptetiton and sterile enviroements, and must be competitive to be called good. If you sold it more as "tradtionally techniques of the X" and there was no implied* it working well or being designed for modernity etc then i can get it. (although a punch is a punch, thats as far as i think HEMA and other historical arts work, if you get your hands on say a longsword your good to use it if you need to, and a punch is a punch)

*some people do try to sell these as modern martial arts that work, or imply they do, sort of in the realm of my bracketed point, i dont have a issue with the logic a punch is a punch, but some go over that. Without examples cant be specfic but i think that gets my point across. although the logic of learning to use what you have is also present, so if you plan on using a Katana, well Kendos a sport, so some other system may be for you. Thin line is all i can say, id need to break down a specfic system and keep it case by case.

the bulk of complaint is as i said, martially inspired dance is sold as a martial art, in other words something thats not fighting is sold as techniques FOR fighting (this is from reasonable people who understand the diffrent dimensions and some about hisotrical preservation etc)


You are going to suck in MMA unless you do MMA, nothing is MMA apart from MMA. Your going to suck if you are a sprinter and try to do distance running, or vice versa. But the fact is, the tradtional combat sports of Muay Thai, Boxing, Judo, MMA etc, seem to work pretty well outside of their respective sports, so that at least speaks to their training methods/content of the sports.

i dont think enough information is had to put the tradtional japanese training methods in comparision with the modern sport ones. although how the same arts did it back in the day is diffrent to how they do it now, as far as i recall pretty much all jujutsu schools did free sparring, and actually properly fought each other as routine. (i may start a thread on that)

Addendum: We also have to assess what the teacher has done and what he teaches you, like he could be fairly good at fighting, but not teach you half of what he actually knows that he picked up from say 4 diffrent styles. Like some people do other styles and dont teach the other ones they do yet still practise them, and that influences them and their ability(not yours). It would be like being a black belt in Judo, teach boxing and because you were able to pin somone means boxing is vaible in judo, no it means the person who has done judo is viable in judo.

Addressing the machete point, many constables have disarmed people, many have died doing it, and this is a very varied martial arts experience. Id need to see some footage to assess if it was luck, his ability or the persons inability. there are many biases that surround here, confirmation trhough survivour bias is a big one. ie this worked before so should work, while ignoring the opponent was just severaly undermatched, or screwed up many times. I dont think Bujikan would have addressed how to use a baton, taser or OC spray though, or how to restrain somone in the manner policy dictates, so that probbly came from his police training. (another complaint, these things exist yet martial arts skirt around them for legal reasons, lest they be accused of paramilitary training, at least one reason or not wanting the politics of weapons control brought up)

That sort of ties in with the above, but i sort of clinged to one general point instead of the specifics, and dont want to have to rewrite this or spend a hour, im dropping the ninjutsu argument though as its sort of besides the point, i have put enough across to show its disputed.



thats my thought process anyway, but if the teacher has done judo, and is good at it, it doesnt mean he is teaching you judo. Case and point i think one of my TKD teachers did Judo, so it would be used if he ever fought (pending retention) but he didnt teach judo, so he could whoop you in a grappling match potetionally but hes not teaching you to do it. That doesnt invalidate the complaints of lack of grappling in TKD or TKD is not built for it, or does it. It isnt and doesnt. See i am at least trying to be crticial here, you can say many things, this not being thought out isnt one of them.
 

dunc

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Hi
Long post - will try and reply later
Worth noting that The Bujinkan used to be called Bujinkan Ninpo Taijutsu
The name changed way back in the 90s (from memory) and probably in response to how many westerners were marketing the art
So I think Hatsumi was telling everyone to stop doing all that stupid Steven Hayes (made up) stuff that was so popular at the time
 

Tez3

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Hi
Long post - will try and reply later
Worth noting that The Bujinkan used to be called Bujinkan Ninpo Taijutsu
The name changed way back in the 90s (from memory) and probably in response to how many westerners were marketing the art
So I think Hatsumi was telling everyone to stop doing all that stupid Steven Hayes (made up) stuff that was so popular at the time

I know next to nothing about the subject so have been reading with interest and a lot of confusion. I get the impression that there's two different subjects being discussed here? A genuine art and a fantasy one and posters are confusing the two? I keep waiting for @Chris Parker ! I may have to say his name twice more though.......
 

Urban Trekker

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But they are few and far between and to be honest if you want to compete in MMA then you'll be more successful studying MMA than Bujinkan (very limited ground work in Bujinkan, gloves screw up a lot of the techniques etc etc)
This is right up there with "our techniques are too deadly for MMA."
 

Dirty Dog

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Yes, but you're saying this as if it's true for Bujinkan in a different or more profound way than for other arts.
It sort of does... gloves affect small joint manipulation much more than they do large joint. So any art that uses a lot of small joint manipulations will find it more difficult to compete than one that uses a lot of large joint manipulations.
I don't know what the Bujinkan teaches or stresses, just pointing out that specifics do matter.
 

dunc

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Yes, but you're saying this as if it's true for Bujinkan in a different or more profound way than for other arts.
No sorry if I gave that impression
My point was that if an art has a bunch of techniques & tactics etc that aren’t appropriate for MMA and doesn’t have much ground fighting then it’s not fit for that purpose
If you want to compete at MMA then do MMA as it’s pretty well evolved to optimise for that context, ruleset etc
 

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