Despite the fact that it may be unbecoming of me as a noob poster to bring this guy up again, I can't help but bang my head into the wall at the "research" being done here. :bang: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrcwLu3urBg"]YouTube - Evidence for Togakure Ninjutsu Part 4[/ame] Apparently Cummins and his band of Wikipedia researchers have finally "uncovered" the "fraudulent" history of Togakure ryu, Hatsumi, and Takamatsu... I know youtube has always been the bottom of the barrel, but the intense logical fallacies of ALL the people supporting Antony's claims here is beyond anything I can even understand... :bang:
Let me offer an insight. You may have noticed in the past that I have referred to Antony Cummins in two ways. Antony Cummins Antony Cummins™ Antony Cummins™ is in effect a character used by Antony Cummins. He knows that his claims are either outright nonsense or deliberately worded for "outrage value" and that his character of Antony Cummins™ has a certain amount of notoriety. The character of Antony Cummins™ even bounces round on camera, using larger than life body language and jumping on his mom's dining room table. It's all calculated. He is using the notoriety to get people watching his videos, purely as a tool to generate interest/sales for his book.
I think that's what bothers me so much about the guy - that and the fact that people posting on his vids don't seem to see it. It's repugnant to me when someone deliberately throws strawmen, red herrings, and other fallacies into a "study" and calls it objective. I had gotten into it a bit with Greg Park concerning his brand of crazy and I honestly think his and Antony's (tm) personalities are nearly exactly alike.
Yes, I'd agree that Greg Park and Antony Cummins share many similarities. They both create on-screen characters emphasising certain elements in order to capitalise on the backlash against those elements. If either of them stopped making such wild claims, they'd sink back into the mire and be nobody once again. It's their only way of staying in the public eye.
Even a "native speaker" can get it wrong. Ask a modern Japanese who doesn't specialize in classical Japanese culture or bujutsu what a yagura is. Some might be able to answer while others will be like, "HUH?" Mr. Cummins in his youtube video, mentions contextual and historical accuracy, but what about geographical and cultural accuracy? In the Sengoku & Edo periods, every domain had it's own "hogen" or dialect. It was not like today, where you can go anywhere in Japan and you'll be understood, because you can speak the Japanese taught by the Japanese ministry of education. A good example of this is Kansai-ben. Some of it sounds nothing like the Tokyo Japanese most of us are aquainted with in text books. However, after a few years of learning the language, you can go to Osaka or Hyogo, and you'll be able to understand 70% of what is said sometimes! You try that with Okayama-ben and see how far you go. (Now imagine that there's no translations or kaisetsu for these terms and you were in a wee drinking hole in Okayama listening to this.) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hg_tsbyIN8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hg_tsbyIN8[/ame] Heihō (or sometimes Hyohō) uses the characters 兵 (Hei - Soldier) and 法 (hō - in this context, it means method) in densho from various bugei ryūha, this is written a lot. (Oh dear I just mentioned bugei! 武 = martial 芸 = craft ) Straying off topic a little, but one of the earliest influences of the use of this term in feudal Japan was the Sonshi heihō (The art of war by Sun Tzu) so it's definately referring to methods of soldiery. Also it should be mentioned that Yagyū Munenori's Heihō Kadensho was a manual on Shinkage-ryū swordsmanship and tactics. Heihō doesn't just refer to physical martial disciplines such as kenjutsu, sōjutsu etc, it's a more comprehensive term that also refers to the more strategical disciplines, such as chikujojutsu, etc. But this is really common knowledge. Mr. Cummins seems to want to redefine the term Heihō. He and his team must first figure out what it really means.
@MysteryTagger "that's rich from Manga" Oh yes, Manga is very much a character too in this sense but then I don't use said character to generate book sales, website hits or anything else for that matter. LERN2BRAIN
Try Budou or Koryu. Native Japanese speakers are no more an expert than anyone else on the planet. Just because they can speak Japanese doesn't mean they can understand complex technical terms that only a very small minority understand and deal with. I always find it funny how some people try to use their Japanese wife or girlfriend to lend credibility to their argument when discussing Japanese martial arts.
And that seems to be his whole shtick. My girlfriend is native Japanese and she doesn't know anything about (or care anything about) budo. I've also lived in Japan and most Japanese I've met barely know anything more than jr. high school judo and kendo when it comes to "martial arts." There's this huge fallacy that Japanese people because they're Japanese automatically know all the details of their history, martial culture, etc. Almost as if a Japanese person who doesn't study Japanese history knows more about it than a non-Japanese that has a doctorate in it. That's ridiculous. My girlfriend has watched a Hatsumi DVD with me before and she can barely understand what he's talking about because she has no background in martial arts.
Seen that firsthand. My first training trip to Japan was on Uncle Sam's nickel, in January of '87; there was a 20-year-old half-Japanese ROTC cadet serving with me in the 353rd PSYOP BN, Midori H. (later went on to get her intelligence-branch commission and become a famous dominatrix, and if anyone wonders the answer is yes but it wasn't fraternization because we weren't in the same command chain). . .She'd been born and raised in Japan, so our battalion commander thought she'd be perfect as a translator because of that. She couldn't get him to grok that in trying to give briefings -- which is what he made her do -- she would be handicapped by the facts that (a) she would be speaking adolescent-level Japanese, having left the country at age 14, and (b) she had ZERO understanding of Japanese military organization and terminology. It was a grueling experience which still brings up negative stuff for her today.** For my part I'm still ****ed at the commander, who -- particularly as a PSYOP officer -- should have known better. (** EDIT: Judging from her recent request, after I asked her for input, that I not post any of the pics on FB that I have of her from that mission of her giving a briefing, etc.)
Marvelmeetsmanga posted Completely agree, in fact its a ridiculous as a Japanese person believing every English person can read medieval English, can translate saxon Runes and knows the details of the hundred years war and the war of the Roses and how to use a ******* sword against another knight. Garth
The method used by Anthony Cummins to do research is actually not really research. All he is doing is dismissing the evidence by simply stating 'The evidence is not there'. Now I'm not going to go down the line to claim that...'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' because I believe thats a false argument that can be used to prop up any claim from Egyptian pyramids being built by little green men from out of space to the loch ness Monster living in a flat in Glasgow. But surely research has to be a bit better than..."Look theres no evidence therefore the Takamatsu claim is false", argument. Now I have myself been critical of some of the claims made in the past especially when it concerns the Amatsu Tatara, but this research I did was not simply stating that "We have no evidence therefore it is false". What I did was compare the claims with Babylonian king lists, distances travelled by sea at the time, the claim of the name Caldia and the name Mimo O which is a Korean name and not a Babylonian one, thus suggesting that King Mimo O came from Korea and not Babylon and thats the idea of Babylonian origin is based on a misunderstanding and an acceptence of a pseudo historical text. If of course we are looking at claims without primary evidence then we might also look at the claims for Socrates, Alexander the great (No primary evidence, no written evidence till 400 years latter) The Celts in Britain (Not one scrap of evidence, in fact possibly an invention in the 18th century) Jesus Christ ( no primary evidence) etc etc. Now of course its good to get at the truth, but history doesnt always work like this, and sometimes history takes time to produce the evidence (e.g Troy based on Homers Illiad, nkw being supported by archaeology), and if your going to do research you are better employed finding evidence rather than saying "Theres no evidence therefore its false", lets write a book about it and make some money and establish myself as a scholar' In fact I remember Martin Falks saying that when I met him in 2006, in that it was first good to come up with claims about the Da Vinci Code (and make lost of money) and then after those books have made the money, produce a range of books that dispute the Da Vinci code (and make lots of money) To be honest I think Mr Cummins would be better employed actually doing some research on the origins of the system (Ninjutsu) and making youtube clips about what he had found out in regard to the history of Daisuke Nishina etc, and the lineage, rather than claiming "I can't find any evidence and therefore the claims of the X Kans are false" Just my opinion. Garth
When Mr.Cummins makes a "claim" why is it that he is attacked rather than people giving counter arguments ? He seems to be polite and respectful so why all the animosity? If he is wrong ,just prove him wrong.Surely that would be the best way to discredit him.If that's the intention.
George that's a reasonable question and it deserves a reasonable answer. In the past there have been many discussions here on MAP and I assume other forums where Antony Cummins' claims have been reasoned out, debated and generally pulled to pieces via valid arguments and counterpoints. Antony Cummins chose at every single opportunity to avoid every single counter-argument and proof and instead continue in his chosen path. I honestly urge you to go back and read a few of those threads. We tried, we really tried. When it became apparent that he had already made up his mind and didn't want to be bothered by little things such as facts, the majority of us simply gave up trying to reason with him and we now treat him like the clown he is. ADDITIONAL - George, don't forget that Antony Cummins = "Ninpei" (look at my signature below).
Magna,thanks for that.I have looked back and to be brutally honest I cant tell who is right and what is what(my fault for not being well enough read).However I did see where he said that about you,and from what I have seen that is clearly not true .So it seems he may be less respectful than I thought.
The barking of puppy dogs is water off a Manga's back George so don't worry about things Antony Cummins says about me Antony is sadly blinkered in the path of his own delusions and there's nothing anyone can do to change that. I mean people attack you at times for various reasons but whilst I don't agree with everything you say or do (or wear j/k), I do also recognise someone who is at least open to ideas and opinions and who is willing to re-evaluate on occasion and who can certainly make a valid counter-argument in return when the mood takes you. Sadly in Antony's case, he just closes his eyes and pretends that our arguments don't exist and that plagiarism doesn't count if you don't want it to count.
Having just watched the complete set (1-4 of the "Evidence for Togakure Ryu" set) I can admit to being thoroughly sick.. This man (Cummins) makes so many idiotic mistakes I want to kill him..From start to finish, the series constructs the image of a man with more thoughts floating around his head than he can cope with at once..And when he speaks it all seems to pop out at random junctures.. Starting with his disbelief in Togakure ryu because the lineage lists men with family names that are places in Japanese (Jesus..Do I even need to point out how redundant this is?) all the way through to his claim that "ryu" means a school that teaches all the arts ("like, spear, and maybe wrestling..Everything"), and that because Togakure Ryu uses the appellation "Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu" that it CAN'T be right since a "Ryu" would be ALL weapons..Watching this makes me want to die.. He's a moron..I've said it before..I'll say it again...He's a complete moron..And no, that's not an insult, it's a statement of fact..He knows NOTHING.. To put my post in perspective, I don't believe that much about the Togakure Ryu lineage makes sense, but then, I can actually phrase why I think that into a coherent sentence..(If I cared enough)...Anthony can't manage to even do that and remain clear... I can see what he's trying to do..Kind of..But his failings are so severe that it makes me angry just to hear his idiotic protestations..If he wants to do this right he needs about ten years of serious and aimed research into Japan, Japanese customs, and culture and then about the same time spent in a school re-learning how to argue a case...Because what happens without that is just painful.. He's an idiot..He knows nothing of the subject, and what he does know is so mixed up that it becomes un-clear while he's speaking.. I'm sorry..I'm bored at work, and need some sleep, and I'm probably a little easy to vex..But this whole series makes me want to hit him repeatedly with my copy of the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten until some of it sinks in... That's all..
No...I haven't read his version of a rather useless translation, so I made the mistake of holding the sword in the wrong place and rolling in the other direction..Silly of me eh? He's a twit.
