Bujinkan & Toshindo Clip critique (Split from Video thread)

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by garth, Dec 5, 2006.

  1. sleiman

    sleiman Valued Member

    Lot's of seeds in a watermelon sometimes makes people forget about the watermelon.
     
  2. seattletcj

    seattletcj Valued Member

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYnUr70Ad3Q"]Guy SMASH watermelon with his HEAD! - YouTube[/ame]

    Saru,

    Man, I hate to go through this...but maybe I was not clear. Thanks for pointing it out.

    CCS' point :

    My statement :
    Bens post:
    I never said (or insinuated) the reason you should go to Japan was to get rank.
    I was postulating that, based on CCS' statement if someone were to come to "understand" or "accept" rank regardless of anything objective then it must be because they were happy getting ranked higher. People that show up often to Japan get ranked, right? Rank is subjective and not based on any standard or objective attributes necessarily, right?

    Maybe I was going out on a limb to think people enjoy being higher up the ladder.....and this could be the reason for acceptance/understanding of a lack of standards. Perhaps I'm being too bold or outspoken. Just opinion though, take it for what it is.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2006
  3. CandyCaneShinai

    CandyCaneShinai Valued Member

    Seattle, you are a smart guy and clearly you are trying to understand something that is important to you. In that, we are the same.

    Here is a quote that might help: "Soke teaches it soft, I teach it hard. You need them both. Some people don't understand that. Hard doesn't mean violent or stiff. Do you understand?" - Nagato Sensei

    In my opinion, actual ability and numerical rank/belt color are not necessarily the same. However, we need both.

    Do you like those 3-d puzzles were you have to look at the picture with a different focus in order to make out the hidden image? This is, in a way, like one of those puzzles. The guys who have high ranks who dont and wont work to deserve them don't even know there is a puzzle.

    You have to develop the eyes to see real budo in people. A guy can have 16th dan and a black belt made from human skin, it won't matter if you have your budo eyes. You'll see him like he was a naked baby.

    Soke drew a painting for me last sunday that said something along the lines of "powerful sight."
    Indeed.
    Look for the watermelon.
     
  4. sleiman

    sleiman Valued Member

    Watermelon skin is not the whole watermelon.
     
  5. xen

    xen insanity by design

    my view is that a grading structure, generally, should act to serve two functions.

    first and foremost, it is a way to provide an organisation with some cohesive structure which facillitates the flow information.

    if there was no grade system at all, then what would differentiate between competance and incompetance?

    without some external metric which guides the flow of accurate teaching, how does one differentiate between those who have something of value to share within a system, and those who don't?

    until we have develop the eyes to see, we need a sign which helps show us where to look.

    secondly, a grade or rank is a symbol of the trust an organisation has placed in an individual, it indicates the level of personal responsibility an individual has accepted.

    for example, if a system grades people against a formal syllabus, then when an individual accepts a grade, they are making the statement that they accept that other people within that system have the right to expect them to be capable of displaying themselves and transmitting to others, the content of the syllabus up to and including the level of their rank.

    as an example of the importance of this...

    if you want to learn to drive a car, you are putting a tremendous amount of faith (and money) in the hands of the person you employ to train you to handle a vehicle safely. If they fail in their task, you (and other road users) risk grave danger.

    why should MA's instruction be immune to the same standards?

    if a high ranked dan grade is instructing a class in the use of edged weapons (for example), then it is their rank which instills confidence and trust in the class and the subsequent skills the individuals will aquire.

    to me, this matter of competance is no less 'safety-critical' than learning to drive or learning any other skill which carries the risk of harm to self or others.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2006
  6. sleiman

    sleiman Valued Member

    Watermelons aren't hamburgers.
     
  7. saru1968

    saru1968 New Member


    and should not be sold as such.

    :D
     
  8. Keikai

    Keikai Banned Banned

    Actually if there were there would be less fat americans!! :eek:
     
  9. Victoria

    Victoria Pretzel In Training

    What's with the watermelons?? :confused: I'm getting twitchy...
     
  10. Bongo Bill

    Bongo Bill Valued Member

    Very interesting Xen....

    Both of your reasons are, of course, valid and sensible however they are based on the fact that a recognisable metric is in place based on people with more knowledge or ability (lets call them better teachers) being of higher grade then others who may not be of the same level.

    If this is the case then non-practitioners would have no problem seeing who has more worth as a teacher (in the general sense).

    IMO the Bujinkan is far too large and unwieldy to have this type of system in place. Grade is not used as a metric for skill or teaching ability. As of yet nobody from the Bujinkan has explained their perspective as to the actual purpose of the structure.

    If the metric is removed then, as a direct consequence, the grading structure should be as well as it appears not to satisfy the standard definition and does not seem to serve any real purpose.

    (I say the last statement in the sense of removing the numerous grading steps between a small number of important mileposts. By definition, these mile posts must have some sort of metric associated with them. However, the step from student to teacher should be clear for everyone to see.)
     
  11. sleiman

    sleiman Valued Member

    Counting the number of seeds in a watermelon doesn't tell you much about it's taste.
     
  12. saru1968

    saru1968 New Member

    but maybe it shows the time you've taken to examine and count the seeds in the watermelon.
     
  13. kouryuu

    kouryuu Kouryuu

    You`re getting there Gaz ;) :)
     
  14. stephenk

    stephenk Valued Member


    I don't know about everyone else, but now I'm confused.


    Oh, and why does everyone insist on everything being so black and white?

    I've been in very few (read: no) truly important situations in my life where there were clear understandable rules written on the wall for me to follow.

    Seems that at least one farmer understands that.
     
  15. ginshun

    ginshun Valued Member

    I don't know if I agree with this. There are larger arts out there that Bujinkan who seem to have tighter controls on rank. Where rank is supposed to be a measure of skill, and generally the higher ranked person is the more skilled.

    Perhaps nobody in the Buj claims that this is the case with that organization. Thats fine with me, it doesn't affect me one way or the other.

    Seems a bit silly to have rankings at all though unless they are in place to measure something.
     
  16. bencole

    bencole Valued Member

    Garth's got that right.... :rolleyes:

    An-shu Stephen K. Hayes has spent his entire adult life in the pursuit of perfection through the study of the Asian martial arts and spiritual traditions, living and traveling throughout North America, Japan, Europe, the Arctic, China, Tibet, Nepal, and India. He began his martial arts career in Ohio as a teenager in the 1960s. Awarded extremely rare honor of ju-dan 10th degree Black Belt by Bujinkan Dojo Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi of Chiba-ken, Japan, in 1993.

    Source: http://www.skhquest.com/articles/skhbio.asp


    I did. Let me repeat: "All other ranks reflect an improvement at a personal level beyond where you were before. When your teacher ranks you, it is because he feels that you have improved."

    Untrue. If it provides *YOU*, the person receiving the rank, official confirmation that your teacher feels that you have made sufficient progress (whatever it was) to deserve a new piece of paper for your wall, then it *DOES* serve a real purpose--to "rank" the individual officially relative to where the individual was before.

    But it *DOES* have value to that individual. (see above) You are arguing that because *MY* rank does not have value to others that I should not be willing to pay money for it, even if it holds value for me personally?

    I don't get it. (shake head)

    -ben
     
  17. kouryuu

    kouryuu Kouryuu

    Exactly right, when i give a grade to a student, i tell them that if they don't think they are worth it they have to prove it to themselves, if they do think they are worth it they have to prove it to me!
     
  18. seattletcj

    seattletcj Valued Member

    Ben,

    I agree with your general premise on rank. It sounds good. I especially like the
    the idea of no rank except student/teacher/master , or something similar.
    Thats how it is done in many MMA gyms.
    But the truth is...there are 25 or so ranks in the BJK.

    Assuming that we are not only learning a self help method, or a spiritual method, or methods for better living......but an art based on physical skill development, do you think it can be dangerous to be so incidental about standards ?

    Overconfidence in underdeveloped skill can be dangerous IMO, when talking about physical conflict.
     
  19. adouglasmhor

    adouglasmhor Not an Objectivist

    The second thing stops the first thing being a problem, thats good people skills not just good budo. IMHO.
     
  20. saru1968

    saru1968 New Member


    I could tell you some stories........:D
     

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