Judging the Bujinkan from outside

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by Dunc, Aug 16, 2016.

  1. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Following on from another thread

    Many folk posting on this forum don't train in the Buj. They, understandably, form their opinion of the art from YouTube, previous experience at XYZ dojo, the quirky conversations on MAP and so on

    Unfortunately the Buj suffers from being associated with the wanna be ninjers with all their back flipping and poking people in the eye. Whilst mostly these folk have nothing to do with the Buj, we tend to get lumped into the same mental category because of the Nword

    The Buj content on YouTube is either demos from the Japanese (which has its much discussed issues) or westerners who, for a variety of reasons haven't invested the time & focus to make the art work

    So I'd like to put myself up as a respresentative of the average, sincerely training dojo outside of Japan. I'm not a well known person in the org and I train in the same way as the silent majority in the art. Hopefully I can be seen as a more accurate benchmark than those used for most of the discussion here

    I've put up many clips of training in my class (no editing, just clips of the drills), they are all here - https://vimeo.com/user6962939
    (edit: please ignore the 1st clip as it's quite long winded - apologies)

    I visited the MAP meet and took a session. Several of my club also attended and even sparred with a few folk

    So if you don't train in the xkans please have a look at the content here, if you met us at the MAP meet please share your perspective

    I'm totally OK with receiving blunt criticism (it'll make me better) and I promise to do my best to share my understanding of the art as long as the contributors are scincere in their desire to assess the validity of the art
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2016
  2. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    Hey Dunc,

    Firstly, thanks for your always open debate and for putting both yourself and your material out there and holding yourself up as an example of the average practitioner of your art. I have only watched a few of your videos but I dont have any interest in nit picking through them as a non-practitioner, as they are representative of a specific modality of training which a) doesnt interest me b) the issues around which have been discussed countless times anyway c) can be found in myriad classical systems from both Japanese and other cultures and d) doesnt really speak to my specific questions about the BJK anyway.

    I do have some honest inquiries if that is ok? All of these are asked as someone who is interested in martial arts broadly and out of intellectual curiosity regarding what I see as the flaws and behaviours within the organisation.

    It is fair to say I have bias:

    1) I have a negative opinion of the BJK as an organisation and of Hatsumi himself. I think he has established a cult of personality around a classical martial arts system for personal gain.

    2) I lean towards a specific training modality in my own practice which I believe is the most effective and inherently truthful way to practice a martial art (or any discipline) and feel that without the checks and measures priovided there, a lot of nonsense is fostered, can go unquestioned and can florish.

    3) I have trained very, very briefly in the Bujinkan and tasted a session of the Genbukan and was left cold by both.


    With those biases out in the open I want to emphasis that I dont necessarily see zero value in the base material of the BJK ie the 9 schools. I think there value is simply hard to get at due to issues with Hatsumi's conduct, the way the org is run and the training methodology of the majority of BJK practitioners. I think there value would be a lot more accessible and less obfuscated in something like a classical koryu structure of teaching and learning for example.



    With that out there, these are my questions:


    1) What are the issues with the demos and recorded teachings as you see them?

    2) What do you think of the demonstrations of Hatsumi sensie at taikai etc and what place do they have within the structure of the org and the transmission of the art?

    3) What do you think of uke behaviour within said demos?

    My opinion is that these demonstrations seem more like an exertion of Hatsumi's status and an indulgence of his freedom to essentially get away with anything under the conditions of follower adulation and reverence than they are of martial technique or earnest attempts to transmit something of value that service peoples understanding of the arts they claim to study. Although I have no idea why he has arived at that point... could be something akin to the chi masters that buy into their own artifice, deliberate fraud, simply not caring, senility, ego and a love of adulation or that his methods of training and teaching have drifted so far from reality/his source material that they no longer resemble functional representations of the concepts he is attempting to impart. What are your thoughts on that?

    4) what do you think of the saki test and have you taken it?
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2016
  3. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Hi

    Would it be OK to take these questions to a different thread?

    I'll start a new one to address them as best I can. I'd like to keep this thread on topic if that's OK

    Thanks
     
  4. gapjumper

    gapjumper Intentionally left blank

    Where did this thread end up, or did it just end?
     
  5. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    This is a nice thread, and thank you Dunc for putting yourself out there. As someone who teaches structurally similar material I would say that I normally teach this kind of stuff either with 7Oz mma gloves on and the feeder really trying to hit the receiver and with increasing resistance to the throw, or from an attached free handfighting or wrestling format. I also have 40mm mats.
    As with most arts it's not the system per se but the training methodology that is the issue with most Ninjitsu schools, and it's the mode of training that leads to the other problems.
     
  6. Fudo-shin

    Fudo-shin Valued Member

    Hey some nice videos. I have a question and I not being critical, so sorry if it sounds that way, but I noticed on your Koto Ryu, Ogyaku video, for some reason you are leaning forward instead of keeping your spine straight or even back as I have learned from the Japanese, when he is attempting the throw, pushing your hips forward similar to koshi kudaki, as well you dont clear the grabbing hand before the fudo ken at the end.

    Other than that, cheers for putting yourself out there and I enjoyed your videos.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2016
  7. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    I should really be pushing my hips forward more than I do on the clip

    Probably wearing a t-shirt makes the escape too easy so I'm a bit sloppy there
     
  8. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    To be blunt, based on a lot of the forum discussion here, I would be hard-pressed to ever join or recommend someone to train at a Ninjutsu/Taijutsu school. The biggest issues that I have are that I see the rank and quality control issues as just being 'way too much' for me to handle as a student. I need a bit more regulation around ranks and quality control. I can understand why it is as it is (some posters here are very good at explaining it), but for me, personally, I wouldn't be able to deal with it. The amount of posturing and in-fighting also does not reflect well on the practitioners... just looking at how Ninjutsu is the one forum that needs such heavy-handed rules to ensure any level of discussion is pretty telling.

    Beyond that, I still haven't really ever seen a video on the internet where the art 'looks good' though. Although, to be fair, I was able to do a short intro seminar with GM Stephen Hayes where I was able to work with some of his students and even work with him a bit. In person, it seems pretty good, with a lot of similarities to what I do (Combat Hapkido). Trained correctly, I think the art itself would be fine.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2016
  9. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    I agree with you about most of that, however I don't think you'll get much love for evoking Hayes as a representation of ninpo/taijutsu/takematsuden/ninjitusu/whatever.

    I also think Hayes's stuff is just typical garbage from what I've seen on his Quest videos, seminars and grading footage whether viewed as ninjitusu or not.
     
  10. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    New thread was entitled Demos in the Buj.
     
  11. gapjumper

    gapjumper Intentionally left blank

    To my eyes it is usually people from outside the arts who cause so much trouble here.

    Most who study the arts in any depth appear to agree with each other.

    If you watch how every thread gets derailed, you may even see the same names appear ;)



    It could be my imagination though :dunno:
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2016
  12. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    If memory serves , back in the day there was just as much in fighting as there was external trouble making.
    An awful lot of the internal trouble makers left/got banned around the time the zero tolerance policy came in.
     
  13. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Yeah - if you want a structured hierarchy, ranking, quality control and so on then the buj isn't for you

    I'd suggest that this forum, and the internet in general, does not represent the way that the average member thinks or acts
    Most of the posters here are not buj people and in my experience the majority of buj MAPpers are sane, balanced folk

    Did you have a look at my clips or is this a comment on the general standard that one sees on youtube?
    I'd love to hear specific points where I could improve on

    The point of this thread is to ask people not to judge the buj based on MAP threads or youtube etc, but instead to use the content I've shared as a reasonable yardstick for the average buj dojo
     
  14. Please reality

    Please reality Back to basics

    I'd add on the Ogyaku video that as a training exercise, it makes sense to wait a bit more before trying to do the technique. He isn't really in a good throwing position, and has to take an extra step the first time it is demonstrated. Wearing a jacket would help because he neither has a good grip on your right arm, nor does your defending it really come into play in this clip. When you take your first step, you should be more behind him and dropping more because a good judoka or person skilled at throwing could change to uchimata or another throw after you avoided his original one(especially if he has your right arm in a good grip from the beginning). Just my 2 yen.
     
  15. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    I know Mr Hayes may not have the best reputation out there, but that is what I am getting at... from a just casual experience with him, I can see that the core ideas of the art are fine. My hesitation about the art comes more from a lot of the videos out there and from the forum experience here at MAP for the most part.

    I agree. Hence my comments from the "personally" sense. I imagine some people love this idea although in my opinion this is something that leads to the concerns about rank inflation and a lack of quality control.


    Well... yes and no. On the one hand, I agree... it is merely a limited representation of the population.

    On the other hand, we just don't see the same level of issues with the other forums as we do in the Ninjutsu one. That MAP needs special rules and 'no tolerance' moderating in just ONE section speaks volumes. And MAP is a pretty big site where a lot of people come.

    Right now it's a comment on the general Youtube videos, pretty much all of the videos on the "Good Ninja Videos" mega-thread and, of course, the ones on the bad Ninja videos thread.

    In all fairness, I haven't watched yours. I probably will and then might offer some feedback. Should the feedback be here or on the "Demo videos" thread?

    Well, to be fair, I looked at the title "Judging the Bujinkan From the Outside" and your plea for 'blunt criticism" and figured I'd contribute.

    If you really want to hear about how 'outsiders' judge the Bujinkan, you may wish to open the conversation up to something beyond just criticism of your own videos. Yes, your videos may represent an 'average, sincerely training dojo outside of Japan', but if you want an outsider's perspective you have to expect people to look beyond just your videos to other more well known people, videos, and interactions online and in person by other members of the Bujinkan.
     
  16. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Hi

    Thanks for this - I think you make very valid points & blunt criticism is generally helpful

    My plea was for people to judge the bujinkan based on the activities at my dojo rather than the non-representative samples that are usually used

    Hope that makes sense?
     
  17. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    To be fair , Ninja baiting/bashing seems to be a popular sport on the interwebs.
     
  18. TwirlinMerlin

    TwirlinMerlin Valued Member

    I found the videos interesting. Is there many hand strikes in the Bujinkan? I'd be curious to see some video on striking?
    There was a ninjutsu class at a school I used to attend for shotokan. I remember doing some light sparring with a few of them and they we're heavy into rapid combos using finger tips and knife hands. It wasn't Bujinkan though but it was my only experience with ninjas so I have nothing else to go on. What kinds of strikes do you teach?
     
  19. kevin g

    kevin g Valued Member

    Pretty much anything you can think of: flat punch, vertical punch, "uppercut" punch, knife hand, striking with the palm or striking with the palm and then raking the face, using the thumb bone in grappling, using the (reinforced) thumb like a spear point, using the extended knuckles in a punch, using all the fingertips together, using the back of the fist, even using the pinky finger (sort of like a fish hook).

    I find some more effective than others, as I think most people would.
     
  20. TwirlinMerlin

    TwirlinMerlin Valued Member

    Cool. I like some open hand palm strikes and knife hand. With my current instructor I've been working on them and I've become a fan. I have found that my over-sized ogre mitts land pretty hard when I start flailing my arms around lol.
    What kind of stance do you guys like to use for striking?
     

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