Right lets see how many non Ninja hits we get on this thread Ok the question below was asked in the intro thread. So I thought it may be a good idea to start a thread covering it. It seems a common misconception with people who are not familiar with the organisation that there is no ground fighting but then I suppose we should ask what do they consider ground fighting? Are they looking at a engagement on the floor where they can work to a position of dominance or are they looking to escape to a safer situation i.e. stand up and bug out. Do they expect to be working round someone’s guard al la BJJ or is it a matter of wham bam thank you mam put em down and make sure they stay there. Nowadays I think when most people mention groundwork then BJJ and MMA comes to mind as this is the more popular image but when they don’t see what they consider ground fighting it raises questions for them. So would the X-Kan folks mind sharing their ideas and experiences of this area of work?
I had this conversation at the weekend with one of my students, he said flatly it would not work, what my view to him was that we are given more tools in the box to work with, shin tearing, gouges etc that would not be allowed in ju jutsu, Thats why ours is the art of surviving.
Tools yep we've got em Although I will say IMO tearing, gouges and such although not allowed in competition are still available to people from arts like BJJ to use in self defence situation if needed. I'm thinking more of how we use our art when it hits the deck i.e. some of the Shiden Fudo Ryu stuff or even how some of our concepts translate to use on the floor i.e. use of Kamae to control space or even lead the opponent. What about the various Ryu in the Bujinkan?
We started off learning the techniques via Shinden Fudo ryu. Starting off in fudo za and in response from an attack. In the beginning it was from a set attack from a kneeling m sitting or standing attacker, ie they punch/kick you counter with tech then you "roll" (that being both parties putting up a fight/resisting and etc) with, like i said before, priority being to get up and either continue the fight on your feet (with hopefully them still being on the ground) or run away ,being aware of what's around you. This progressed to random attacks , still in fudo za, from any direction. No "submission" type techs were really taught so far. We have then since been trying to incorparate them into general training. I.e you perform a nage tech, it doesn't go 100% smoothly, you end up on the ground with uke/partner ,you use what we've learnt try to get up and etc.
We were doing this last night from the uke punching or also cutting with a sword, using feet for stiking and rolling away.
I've heard this arguement time and time again over the years, hopefully this thread will not turn out the same as the rest i've read, please lets leave the sporting element out Yes, there is groundwork in the Bujinkan. For example once a technique has been applied and the uke is heading towards the ground in whatever painfull and creative way you see fit, you would then prevent them from responded from the ground. This can be done through a variety of methods, muso dori, musha dori, Hon gyaku, omote gyaku, ura gyaku and of course various choke techniques, the list really is endless and of course all the wrist locks can be applied as ankle locks as well. Its all about application. Now i'm sure there are some instructors that do not focus on this strongly but its there if you want it. A few years ago it was an area i did no feel comfortable but now i'm as happy on the ground as i am standing up, this was simply through application and playing.
I think you should not be happy on the ground. You should be trying your best to get to your feet asap. That seems to be the way Bujinkan ground fighting is taught as far as I can see. You are on the ground, but don't want to be there. The other guy may be standing and may even have a weapon. There may even be a few others in the area ready to kick you in the kidneys while you are tied up with the first guy. So rather than spend a lot of time training to get to the ground and staying there, you need to work on getting on your feet at the first chance. Also, in my observation, if someone has about 10 kilos more mass than you then unless you are the best groundfighter in the world and the other guy is the worst, my money is on the heavier guy. Unlike sports, you can't limit what you teach to only big guys. Best to teach the small guys only enough to get on their feet asap than try to teach them to go head to head with a heavier guy. Big guys win at competitions. I am not big. I am not as big as some of the creeps out there who might try to attack me. There is no way I am going to train in a way that pits their strength against my weakness. For someone who is already bigger than most buildings, they might want to try to force a ground fight. But I deal with a different reality.
'I think you should not be happy on the ground. You should be trying your best to get to your feet asap.' I think you missed what i meant or i need to explain it further. I meant the ground is not unfamiliar to me now, it used to be. But it is nice to be able to do something from the ground if you need to and certainly thats not my first choice of outcomes but it is an outcome that will surprise my alot less than it did in the past. and would not want the situation of me being on the ground and the attacker standing over me but again there are methods of dealing with that as well. I try to be as comfortable as possible in all situations as the one situation you have not played out may well be the situation you are faced with. Its a case of find my comfort zone then go outside it to expand me learning. Nothing worse than getting somewhere and not know what to do. But i do take your point but my post was a general one and really how much of an idiot would one be to go to the ground with multiple attackers!
For years I never practiced any ground work except where it concerened rolling and ne waza. I never actually saw much need for it because i thought "If i'm ever off balance I will get up to my feet" But then a couple of things happened to me where i was on my back fighting with someone else coming down on top of me and attempting to hurt me and in those occasions I really did not know what to do. You see in ninjutsu we train to be well rounded martial artists. i.e. we train to do throws, locks, strikes, weapons etc. This means that we protect our Suki (weak points), but have the abaility to attack others suki (weak points). "By pass what he defends, hit him where he does not expect you" Sonshi So for example if I am in a fight with a Judo player who wants to try to throw me to the ground I have throw counters i.e Koshi Kudaki, Hineri Kaiten, Shiho nagare etc. Similarly if I am up against a boxer I have kicks and once I close the gap some grappling skills. In other words I am attacking my enemies Suki (Weak points) whilst protecting my own. Now there may be a time where i want to go into ground work as a way of defeating my attacker. If one looks at the Gracie brothers, or from at least what i have seen, against the kicker i.e tae kwon do, karate guy, they wait their time, keep their distance and then take those legs out and its usaully all over. Quite simply the Gracies have attacked the opponents weak points i.e the area where they are weak in training. Now an army may be likened to water. For just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strengths and strikes weakness Sonshi Similarly i might be up against the BJJ guys, and they have got me to the floor. I need to know a few of their tricks so that i can survive there on the floor, otherwise its all over for me. And believe me when your on the floor with these guys attempting to just roll away will not do it. This is their arena, and its your weak point. So common sense dictates that like I want to know how to defeat the Judo man, Boxer etc by studying his technique, I also need to understand something about ground fighting. And the only way to do that is to actually get down on the ground and do it. Hell I might even learn a few tricks to screw up the BBJ guys. And if you don't think that these BJJ guys don't know what your weakness is. These BJJ guys read too and they might just know that Ninjutsu does not have ground work, and they will know you do ninjutsu the moment you take up that classical ichimonji. Finally i might actually have to know a few ground techniques if I have someone on the floor, and I need to be able to control them. Maybe they are a patient, or criminal and I need to bring them under control because I am a nurse or police officer. And sure I know some will say that we can use Musha Dori, and Oni Kudaki etc, but you need to train these on the ground. Find out how to use Ninjutsu whilst on the ground. Really, if you don't practice ground work do so, dont listen to the guys who say that they have ukemi and therefore can get back to their feet before they hit the ground. Just do it. In my classes we do the ground fighting almost on a weekley basis and I feel i have taken a huge step forward as a martial artist. I know that if I ever have to defend against a student of Ninjutsu, I will need an extra staregy to win as they will probably know what i may do, but if I use ground fighting, well theres an area many ninjutsu practitioners are not skilled in, so i have as Sonshi states attacked weakness and I may have a chance to win. Gary Arthur www.toshindo.co.uk
Er isn’t one of the points of what we do not to give the other guy something to work with? I'm sorry but I doubt very much if anyone is going to fall back into a classical Ichimonji No Kamae and start giving away what they do, it goes against some of our basics concepts, just as we are taught to “grab with out grabbing” yes we could be in Kamae but I would hope it’s going to be in such a way that they don’t know it. Aren't we going to be looking to use it in a way so as to control the space and timing of the situation and possibly even the emotional or psychological aspects of the confrontation? Looking at it in the way you’ve described it is, to me anyway I could be wrong, a very shallow view of Kamae and it's purpose. The following is something I wrote in a thread comparing and contrasting Systema and Bujinkan Taijutsu: Dale’s reply to my post puts it far better than I So building on this and reading the article about Nagato Sensei can we not apply Kamae for use with ground work?
Posted by Spooky FBI I was being a simplistic here, but the moment you do anything that looks vaguely like ichimonji i.e one hand in front of the other, or jumonji with you hands crossed albeit loosely, I and many others are gonna know that you practice ninjutsu. Now of course if we are very skilled we can hide our physical kamae, but i'm talking about all practitioners here. Also remember there may be other things that give away your art from an attacker such as your rolling, footwork, defence i.e Jodan Uke etc. And i'm not even including the fact that they might be wearing T Shirts, coats, jackets, badges wtc with their martial art written on it. Gary Arthur www.toshindo.co.uk Gary Arthur www.toshindo.co.uk
Does this look like a big guy to you? The whole point of bringing a fight down to the ground is that it's much easier to neutralize an opponents size and strength on the ground, if you know how to apply proper leverage and positioning. The nerdy 140lb guy at our BJJ academy was routinely tapping out new guys who weighed 200+lbs after only about 3 months of training. Not to mention that most BJJ tournaments have an open weight division, where there are no weight classes and it's certainly not always the heavyweights who win. Also, once you're on the ground, it's a lot harder than most people think to "just stand up", especially if your opponent used to wrestle (not too uncommon) or knows some form of groundfighting like BJJ/Sambo/Judo/etc and knows how to hold you down. You don't need to be an expert groundfighter, but I think it's important to learn and train the proper escapes just in case you do find yourself on the ground. I think this is especially true for women since it's very likely that the attacker will try to get them to the ground.
"You could also say that kamae is a way of shaping the interactive space between yourself and someone else." If you want to use that definition, then of course, apply kamae to ground work, but I don't think it will look like ichimonji or hira. In terms of positioning, it will probably look exactly like the groundwork you see in other groundfighting systems. After reading the Nagato article it sounded like he was just doing something the MMA/BJJ world calls the open guard
Ground fighting is a fine and technical sport used in the controlled enviroment of an octagon/dojo etc. I'm not one who looks for trouble or has been involved in any street fights but I've seen a few. You don't have a ref, you don't have gloves, no rules and you don't have a nice flat and smooth surface to fight on. How many people can honestly say they've stayed around long enough to watch a street fight go to the ground? It never happens (unless the individuals involved are drunk) in whcih case it's not worth watching anyway. Don't get me wrong, I have a great respect for the individuals willing enough and fit enough to take the fight to the ground and roll around for 15 - 20 mins. But in a realistic street fight, it's the last thing I would aim for. That's where Ninjutsu seperates itself from the rest of the pack, no rules and do what ever it is necessary to win 'cause afterall, there are no rules in the street but I would rather mame/wind an apponent and leg it before taking it to the ground. You have to be very confident and practice like a pro to be a good technical figher down there. Or batman, of course.
You seem to have missed the idea that we train to get up, not engage in staying on the ground. And the idea of taking a lot of time on the chance that you might meet a trained martial artist is a bit silly. I worry more about a sucker punch than a guy with martial arts training under my belt. And I can't follow your idea of levearage being greater on the ground. There is just less to work with. You give up a great amount of ability to avoid and such. Helio Gracie was a great grappler after decades of work, but he did not want to get in the ring with the heavier Gene LeBelll
On the ground: say you're against a stronger opponent he on his back, you're on him in full mount, and he has you in a arm triangle (I thinks thats what it's called) choke. Then, you try to break the hold, so you put your hands together like you're going to pray with your forearms to against ground; press your elbow in his neck at the same time trying to push your head against the hold.
Royce (~170lbs) submitting the Sumo wrestler Akebono (~485 lbs): Nogueira (~230lbs) submitting Bob Sapp (~350lbs and the scariest wall of muscle you will ever meet): If you know how to position your body correctly, you can apply sweeps, submissions, or stand up, using very little strength regardless of the size of your opponent. Now obviously the guys above are very experienced, but I routinely see guys with only a couple months of experience tap out much larger guys. Either trust me or go visit a BJJ class and ask to roll with the smallest guy there and see what happens. And I perfectly understand that you train to get up, not to engage in staying on the ground. That's why I said "I think it's important to learn and train the proper escapes just in case you do find yourself on the ground" because this can be a lot harder than most people think.
So, the two examples you give are of experts at ground fighting against folks that know nothing? Better yet, you are on your feet and do the same thing. Even more leverage. When you are on the ground with your back touching, you lose leverage and can't avoid blows as well. All told, I would rather spend more time on deploying my weapon than the mount. If someone takes me to the ground, I have the advantage in that case. I do study what to do if my feet fail me and I end up on my butt. But that is not a prefered situation. I do not train to go to the ground with another person.
