I was just wondering what people could tell me about this art. Who has taught it? What sources are there to access? I have learned a few techniques from this section during the all too few times I have been able to train in Japan this year. None of them come from training with Soke. There is no Quest tape that I can use as a reference. In a few cases, I was not able to get the name of the kata. But I would like to find out who has more experience than I and how to get more information. My teacher does not know and was not there when I got the training in Japan. He can't help me with my search. I will just train in what I was shown, but it would be nice to have some additional information. What the heck do people know about this?
Just checked some training notes i have.. 'The Shindenfudo Ryu is broken into two halves, Jutaijutsu, and Dakentaijutsu. The beginnings of the Jutaijutsu, is solely Jutaijutsu, but as you move further through the Kata, Dakentaijutsu starts to creep in. So when the end of the Jutaijutsu Okuden is reached, Dakentaijutsu is primary, and Jutaijutsu is secondary. The Dakentaijutsu is the oppersite to the Jutaijutsu, with more Jutaijutsu at the end, and less Dakentaijutsu.' Now i do not have extensive knowledge/training in this area so i have no idea how much weight to put into the above statement. If you want to drop me a 'pm' please do.
This is an interesting question, and one to which I don’t know the answer, and in truth, not many people seem to. Or at least, if they do, it has not been talked about online. To start with, there seems to be three schools called Shinden Fudo Ryu in this equation. Shinden Fudo Ryu Dakentaijutsu Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu Hatsumi Sensei is Soke of Shinden Fudo Ryu Dakentaijutsu and this is the SFR he lists whenever he lists the nine schools. However, we also have a Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu in the Bujinkan, yet this is never listed, isn’t the subject of a Quest video and isn’t publicly taught (and doesn't seem to be listed in the 1978 Bugei Ryuha Daijiten, although I don't really know this, I am basing the comment of what someone else wrote on the net. I don't own a copy of this book.) However, many of the shihan have been taught this SF Jutaijutsu and were in turn taught it by Hatsumi Sensei. So where does it come from? One guess is that Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu is really the same as Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu, to all intents and purposes. Hatsumi Sensei studied Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu with Ueno Takashi Sensei before he met Takamatsu Sensei, and holds a menkyo kaiden license from Ueno in this art. He also holds menkyo kaiden in Bokuden Ryu and Asayama Ichiden Ryu, as far as I know (but as always could be wrong!) and on one or two occasions I’ve seen what look to me like some kata I recognize from Asayama Ichiden Ryu from a book I have taught at Ayase, so occasionally, material from before Soke met Takamatsu Sensei makes it into Bujinkan circles. However Soke doesn’t label it or talk about it, basically I would guess because he holds Takamatsu Sensei in such high regard that he thinks the stuff he did before is not as valuable. At the end of the day, movement is just movement and no ryuha owns body movement, it just borrows it. Anyway, back to Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu – I think that this is simply what Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu is called in the Bujinkan. There is a lot of similarity between the names of the techniques in SFR Jutaijutsu in the Bujinkan and the listing of kata printed in the Ueno Takashi Memorial booklet, which has a section on Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu – enough to make you think there is probably a connection. There is no similarity between the kata names or structure of SFR Dakentaijutsu and the Jutaijutsu, so it’s probably safe to assume these are totally different schools. As if there wasn’t enough to worry about! Please notice how many times I used the word guess in this post – because I’m guessing. In other words, I could be wrong and have no particular insight into this subject that the next guy doesn’t have. Probably the best question to ask now might be: has anyone asked Soke or any of the shihan about this?
The Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu material is definitely taught within the Bujinkan Dojo. You could always consider buying this DVD of the school, taught by Manaka sensei whilst still part of the Bujinkan Dojo. http://www.hanako.co.uk/Shop/SFR.htm For those in the United Kingdom, I believe that David Heald is teaching a seminar on the subject of Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu and Hojojutsu in July 2006 at the dojo of Stephen Boulton in Chester. If anyone wants a flyer for that particular seminar, PM me your email address and I'll forward one to you.
I guess what I mean is that it hasn't been the subject of a theme for the year, hasn't been videoed and isn't written about - the material is taught, but it's not elevated to the same degree as the other ryuha, or at least it hasn't been to date. Any of the old timers care to say whether it was taught much in the past?
From what i understand and have been told throughout the years by various instructors, Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu is later thatn the Dakentaijutsu, and may even be from a different schools. I'm sure I read or heard somewhere that the Jutaijutsu originally came from Musashi Ryu. I think people tend to think that Jutaijutsu is grappling and Dakentaijutsu is striking, and this is something I would tell a beginner if he asked about the terms. However it is in fact much more complicated tham that. I believe I am right in stating that the term Jutaijutsu is later than the term Dakentaijutsu hense why Takagi Yoshin Ryu was once called Dakentaijutsu and then became Jutaijutsu. This may be true with the Shinden Fudo Ryu too, although i do not think that the Jutaijutsu is a latter version of the Dakentaijutsu version, nor that there was one school teaching daken and Jutai at the same time. I feel that te term Fudo Ryu is a very common name for a school and so there may have been more than one Shinden Fudo Ryu, or that indeed the school was called something else prior to Takamatsu and he just changed the name to fit in with what he was teaching at the time, i.e the Takagi, Kukishin and Fudo together as one school. After all in the Kukishinden Zensho it is only mentioned as Fudo Ryu. Something else that might be important here is that the word Shinden is included in four of the schools taught by Hatsumi Sensei, so could be a term just applied at the beginning or as part of the ryu. So I think we can get carried away with names too much. Its a little like how what we term Kukishinden ryu is actually to us in other schools what we would term Takagi Yoshin Ryu, and of course Takamatsu called the Dakentaijutsu Karate. Now from what i have seen of Shinden Fudo Ryu it seems to use a lot of ways of taking an enemy off balance and even letting the opponent put him self in a position where he is at a disadvantage through balance. I remember Mr Hayes teaching some moves in 1996 from this school where in one just moving your body an inch once he had grabbed you and was attempting to throw another punch would cause him extreme pain, and another where the attacker literally broke their own arm. I also believe i'm right in saying that the Chuden level is concerned with a lot of fast take downs against throwing techniques or grab such as Kocho dori, a kind of very fast ganseki nage. Also some of the moves seem similar to Takagi Yoshin Ryu and some even have the same names. Now before you all jump on me, this is just a few thoughts about things i have heard, read and the small amount of training I have done in this school and could be completely wrong. Gary Arthur
One thing that I have heard is that the stories of Soke learning the art from Ueno is wrong. They are both from Takamatsu sensei and Soke originally learned them from Ueno, who in turn learned them from Takamatsu sensei. The book that has the Ueno version as a seperate style and lineage is mistaken. And after seeing both of them teach the same thing, that may be why he left to train with Takamatsu sensei.
I thought the 3 schools were the Dakentaijutsu, Jutaijutsu and the iaijutsu (spelling??) Does the Taijutsu not encompass what we do as a living art such as bringing in gyokko ryu koshijutsu and is not specific to one school such as shinden fudo?
When I say the three schools in question are those listed above, I mean those are the ones connected to the Bujinkan and are the ones the mixup seems to concern . The 1978 edition of the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten lists another ryu with this name - Shindenfudo Ryu Ken, Bo, Naginata, Iai, Kaiyo, Ju, Kama kusari - but to the best of my knowledge this one is not connected at all with what we do and probably just happens to have the same name (although again, I don't know for sure.) Regarding the second half of your question, it's important to draw a distinction between the use of the term taijutsu as a generic term, meaning body method, and the use of the term as a formal identifier of the speciality of a particular school. You can use this term to talk about the taijutsu of karate or the taijutsu of aikido perfectly correctly (and in fact, practitioners of those arts sometimes do.) It's both a general term and a specific term at the same time.
There are three different SFR 1. SFR dakentaijutsu - Takamatsu Sensei gave to Hatsumi Sensei 2. SFR taijutsu (same as SFR jutaijutsu) - Takamatsu Sensei gave to Ueno Takashi Sensei 3. SFR Kenpo (the one that Alex Meehan mentioned above) - Mabuni Kenwa gave to Ueno Takashi Sensei
I don’t completely agree with this. I talked to someone in Japan this year – but this sort of thing shouldn’t go on the internet. There is no need to collect information and histories from the net. Most of what I see is wrong anyway and just helps the spread of misinformation. I know some old Shihan teach the SFR Jutaijutsu but at least two of the very senior Japanese Shihan have never studied it with Hatsumi-sensei. The rest is fairly sensitive I think and should be restricted to kuden. If you want to know ask one of the senior Japanese Shihan, if he knows you well enough he may answer.
George Kohler is a very recognized member of the Genbukan and I trust what he says. Because his information comes from Tanemura soke and not Hatsumi, maybe this is why you're information differs.
Well the problem with a thread like this is that there is next to nothing official that can be referred to. It may be that this is the end of the road for this thread, if there are sensitivities regarding the information in question. From my experience, I know there is a huge gap between what is taken to be ‘correct’ on the internet regarding stuff like this and what the reality of it is, because the people talking about it online, including me, usually don’t actually have any insight into the facts or authority to comment on them authoritatively. Hence we have the problem above, where Duncan alludes to the fact that someone he has talked to, who is much closer to the source than anyone here, told him that there are some factual inaccuracies in the assumptions generally being made. What are those assumptions? We won’t know until we ask one of the Japanese shihan who knows us well enough to have a conversation with us about this (or until I bag Duncan a beer in Japan at some point!) It’s slightly frustrating, in that it would be nice to surf on over to www.ryuha-uncovered.com and get the full story instantly, but that site doesn’t exist and there is no reason for Hatsumi Sensei to make this public, unless he wants to. It's also possible that it's not secret in any way, and that Soke has talked about it in his classes or over tea with people, but they may not feel that they have the right to post about it online - and I applaud Duncan for his post in this light. (This next bit really isn’t intended to be divisive in any way, so please stop before hitting the button marked ‘angry reply’.) There is no point in going into any argument between both camps, but it’s obvious that Mr Tanemura has a specific view on some of this material that differs from Hatsumi Soke’s view of things. While I respect George Kohler’s postings a lot, inevitably his take on things is going to be heavily informed by things Mr Tanemura has told him and hence Bujinkan people should politely take it on board but not necessarily think that this is how the Bujinkan would look on it. Mr Tanemura has been a lot more forthcoming with material of this kind, but of course, it’s going to be biased towards his take on things. I have no idea if that is in fact the case here, but I thought it was a general point worth making. Again, this is not an attack in any way, merely an observation. In the interests of balance, I’d imagine Genbukan students would probably want to exercise similar caution in taking on board things Bujinkan students say, as it’s possible that these might differ from things your teacher might tell you.
Hi Everyone, Sorry for responding so late. I just came back from vacation and also recuperating from the drinking at the 1st Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment "Ranger Ball" in Savannah, Georgia. I'm also having to catch up with work. You know the saying, "Go on vacation for a week and it takes a month to catch up with work." Anyway... I'm guessing that this is based on the note that I wrote about SFR taijutsu and SFR jutaijutsu being the same. Just to make it clear, the information that I posted earlier did not come from Tanemura Sensei. I am assuming, but based on facts from several sources. Sources: 1. Bugei Ryuha Daijiten 2. Ueno Takashi 20th anniversary memorial Embu Taikai pamphlet 3. John Lindsey Bujinkan SFR jutaijutsu training (early 90's). 4. Photo of Hatsumi Sensei's SFR taijutsu kaiden from Ueno Takashi in the Hiden Magazine. We all know that Hatsumi Sensei was a student of Ueno Takashi and received menkyo kaiden in SFR taijutsu. This is base on the fact that Hatsumi Sensei did show one of his menjo of SFR taijutsu(4). In 1969 Watatani Kiyoshi listed the lineage of SFR taijutsu which lists Ueno Takashi as the lineage holder of this school in his book (1). During the early 90's "kata rush", I learned some of the kata of SFR jutaijutsu and also received a listing of kata names (romaji and kanji). I learned these from John Lindsey who had just returned from Japan, and was still in the Bujinkan at that time (3). After purchasing the Ueno Takashi 20th anniversary memorial Embu Taikai pamphlet (the translation and the original pamphlet) from Buyubooks, I noticed that the SFR taijutsu kata listed (2) were the same as the kata of SFR jutaijutsu (3). I believe it was a Bujinkan member, Jason Jennings, and his wife who translated the pamphlet. Now, what I don't know is if Takamatsu Sensei taught the same school to Hatsumi Sensei but change the name (i.e. from taijutsu to jutaijutsu) like he did with Takagi Yoshin-ryu jujutsu and Takagi Yoshin-ryu jutaijutsu. I hope this clarifies my earlier post.
How much of this thread is covered (technique wise) in the 1998 Shiden Fudo Ryu Happo Biken Daikomyosai DVD ?
