Does Bujinkan take a lifetime to master?

When I started training in Bujinkan budo taijutsu (then designated as ‘ninpo taijutsu’), I was a fresh-faced young man with a thirst for knowledge. I didn’t read ninja comics and have designs on wearing stealthy clothing and dodging caltrops on my way through dingily-lit castle ramparts.

In my ignorance, I believed ‘ninjitsu’ to be the most effective fighting art in the world. At my secondary school, there was word of this ancient art being illegally taught by Westerners; it was supposed to be banned, due to its heavy emphasis on attack (90% attack, 10% defence).

I was invariably the smallest child in my class at every school I attended. I had no hope of fighting successfully against children who were far bulkier and much more robust than me. My grandfather had taught me the rudimentaries of Western boxing and I’d dabbled in a little karate, when in form two. However, I disliked the heavy emphasis on punching and felt that I would be overwhelmed by anyone who threw their weight at me and stifled my ability to throw punches from a safe distance. So, in an effort to improve my chances against those who saw me as an easy target, I joined a judo class and studied there for most of my secondary school years. It gave me a certain level of confidence, because I was able to physically test myself and survive against people much bigger and stronger than me. However, I realised that the strict rules and regulations within judo (which heavily restricted what types of attacks could be used against me and what responses I may use against them) were, in effect, restricting how far I could progress as an exponent of self defence. There were principles and skills within judo that were extremely valuable, but this wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be.

Then, I heard about ‘ninjitsu’ and stumbled upon a teacher of Bujinkan ninpo taijutsu. By now, I’d matriculated from secondary school, gone to university, done some travelling and wound-up still wanting the dream: to be proficient in self defence from a thinking man’s point of view.

What I was told from the very beginning was that Bujinkan taijutsu was the premier self defence skill set as taught by an expert in self defence, world-recognised authority in Japanese warrior techniques and master of nine ancient and battle-tested ninja and Samurai schools (Dr. Hatsumi Masaaki). I spent many hours before and after training asking questions and being told stories about Hatsumi, the Bujinkan, ninjas, ninpo philosophy and self defence in general. Having only ever trained in gendai arts, I was taken-in by the verbal emphasis on practicality and unorthodox means of ensuring survival that were espoused by my Bujinkan instructor and Dr. Hatsumi (based on some of his publications and what I’d been told by people who’d trained at Honbu).

To begin with, the training was very difficult for me. I was constantly berated for being too stiff and reliant on strength (what little of it I had). My years of boxing and playing judo were engrained in my mind and body and, although I could see the ‘sense’ of what my teacher was saying, I found it very difficult to give up my defence and ‘go with the technique’. I also struggled to accept that uke would do the same and allow himself to be taken down or compromised at all by a standing wrist lock or inferred strike. Eventually, however, I lost what my teacher called ‘ego’ and began to rationalise not only the training methodology of his dojo but also the path I was taking toward a perceived excellence in self defence.

As the years rolled by, I became entrenched in the dojo and chiefly responsible for teaching extra classes and indoctrinating new members with what the art was about. That isn’t to say there was brain-washing going on, but there was a clear message of how and why ninpo/budo taijutsu should be trained and it was simply not something that would be easily understood by anyone new to the Bujinkan. I saw so many young men and women come and go, as we endeavoured to mould them into relaxed, unhurried, inventive martial artists with that very particular way of moving and expressing themselves that comes from years of training in the Bujinkan. Every now and then, someone would show particular promise and my teacher would soon invest extra time and effort in them. It was never easy to tell who would stick at it, though. Sometimes the worst beginners flowered into being those who ‘got it’ best of all.

As time went by, I began to question the practicality of how we trained and my teacher’s new-found interest in the concepts of ‘internal energy’ and ‘sakki’ or ‘killer intent’. He began to conduct the sakki test on a regular basis. First, it was only done with me and a couple of other yondans. But, soon, he was using it as a training tool for everyone and as a means of demonstrating to prospective new students the inherent ‘high level’ abilities of the art and what could be achieved with diligent training.

By now, my career saw me travelling abroad to Australia and I soon found Mike Hammond to be the closest in style to my teacher in England. He was someone who had dealt with violence in his daily profession and I saw in him more practicality than I was seeing back in England at my dojo and at the dojos I had visited for seminars. This was a revelation to me. But, as I began to look further into what Mike was showing me and after I’d been to the 1998 Daikomyosai and trained at Honbu, I came back to England with more questions than I’d left with. The training in Japan was chiefly different to my dojo in England and yet, in some ways, it was closer. Mike’s training was much more realistic and concerned with actual scenarios, but my dojo in England had been far more technical and had given me a sound grounding in the Kihon Happo and Sanshin no Kata.

However, as my teacher began to reassess his methods of training, the hundreds of kata that I’d done with him were now being ignored in favour of ‘higher level’ training. I was told by my teacher to ‘drop what you’ve practiced’ and enter a state of ‘subconscious taijutsu’. I could see the rationale behind what he was saying. His point was that static kata and form were of no use in a real fight in their ‘raw sense’. He said that kata was there to teach principles and that only freedom from the restraints of habitual movements and predetermined responses to familiar scenarios was what would allow the truth behind the teachings of Dr. Hatsumi to be realised as actual self defence or ‘protection’, as he liked to call it.

There was logic in this, but I just didn’t see it being borne out in what he was now teaching in a physical sense. It was one thing to espouse practicality but quite another to almost completely depart from mechanical application of techniques and instead focus on theoretical responses to theoretical actions.

This new attitude toward training in Bujinkan taijutsu was the turning point for the dojo. Almost everyone left and soon it was down to just me and a handful of others to come to training. I lost the love for it. I would come to training for the sake of it and out of sympathy for my teacher, who had become a dear friend and who was totally convinced of how the Bujinkan was now meant to be trained. He’d been to Japan a few times and spent many hours with some of the most experienced students at Honbu. He went on about the ‘naturalness’ of movement and the ‘banpen fugyo’ concept and saw much value in emulating the elements of chi, sui, ka, fu and ku when performing the Joryaku, Geryaku and Churiaku no Maki kata of Gyokko Ryu koshijutsu (which he now did in very loose senses and often changed considerably). He became more and more critical of how others trained and left the Bujinkan to start his own school.

I had the advantage of spending half my time in Australia, so I wasn’t as closed to what was happening elsewhere as were the other long-serving members of my dojo. Soon, however, Mike Hammond left the Bujinkan and I stopped training with him. I decided it was time to look into what the Bujinkan really stood for and whether or not it was what I’d been told it was.

Over the previous few years, I’d had the chance to travel to America and through much of Europe and I dropped in on a few Bujinkan dojos. The training methodology was drastically different between some dojos and, the more I saw, the clearer it became to me that the one thing they all had in common was a desire to attain a degree of skill or proficiency that they said Dr. Hatsumi possessed. Now, after ten years of training in the Bujinkan at an average of four days a week and having been to Honbu and witnessed the Bujinkan founder demonstrating, I felt there was an important thing that I needed to reconcile in my mind before I could legitimise any further investment of my time and effort in Dr. Hatsumi’s art.

The one important thing that kept rearing in my mind was the concept of there being an art designed for and made necessary by combat that was so rich in technicality and possibilities that it took a life time of study to become truly proficient in. It was the idea that this was something that Dr. Hatsumi had either been taught by a man who knew it all (Takamatsu) or that he’d come to invent without testing it in actual battle that I found hardest of all to rationally explain. I’d experienced judo and could comfortably see where I was lacking and where I was strong. I had been knocked to the ground by superior boxing and felt just where the real fight lay in it. When I started Bujinkan taijutsu, I saw the obvious things such as locks, chokes and trips and loved the idea of being free to use them all whenever they were appropriate. But, coming from a gendai background and wanting to feel certain of my ability to use techniques against resistance, I inwardly struggled with the Bujinkan from the very beginning. It wasn’t the theories that Dr. Hatsumi spoke of or even the way in which every dojo seemed to differ that were hard to reconcile, but the lack of proof for what the training would lead to.

After ten years of solid training and a lot of good and bad times, I stopped practicing Bujinkan taijutsu. I purchased some Genbukan and Jinenkan DVDs and studied kata with a friend who had also left my dojo. We experimented with the techniques and eventually joined a ‘goshin-jutsu’ school that taught Takamatsu-den in a very technical way. The training was concerned only with mechanical effectiveness of the locks, throws, strikes and chokes within a strict kata setting. My friend and I did this for nearly six years and then we both decided to return to judo.

Having ‘been there and done that’, I am struck by the differences in training methodology within the Bujinkan and also the notion that something that is said to be a transmission of self defence/battlefield skills can take a lifetime to learn, even by people training most days of the week. Is this a fallacy that has come about because of the conditions under which the Bujinkan exists, ie: at a time when no battlefield action exists to confirm the art by means of actual trial and error and, because of this lack of an environment that the training is said to be preparatory for survival within, a strictly theoretical basis has formed over time and, by its very nature (theoretical), renders any certainty of the art’s efficacy unknowable other than by words (rather than deed)?

In my time in the Bujinkan and Takamatsu-den in general, I learned many valuable lessons and enjoyed many hours of pleasurable training. But, there are more questions than answers that have come as a result.

 

tl;dr

I think you can get damn good in 10 years. If you train correctly, a big if. Mastery, in any field, can be defined many ways and probably is different for different people.

 

tl;dr.

Hope you enjoy your Judo, mate.

-Daniel

 

Ha - that is funny.

Cross-posting FTW.

 

Hmmmmm..... where did it go - here it is:

It's like I am psychic or something...

-Daniel

 

...I read it all.

Here is a short run down for those that didn't.

1. Studied BBT 10 years, first teacher left to do his own thing, second teacher left to do his own thing, then Jason left to do his own thing.

2. Jason couldn't reconcile moving from basic BBT to advanced BBT and gave up.

3. Jason lost interest.

4. Started Judo in high school, realised Judo was lacking, did BBT, then went back to Judo after 16 years of training BBT.


I read the whole thing and I still don't get what you are trying to say Jason, please spell it out in... like a paragraph.


Now, to the question in the thread.

BBT can be taught in just a few hours, it's not rocket science.

The art of budo taijutsu takes a life time to learn.

You can teach a kid to pick up a crayon and draw a straight line, technically it's very simple. But to become an accomplished artist the child needs to draw many hundreds of lines throughout his life and shape them into new things. Everybody can draw lines on a piece of paper, only very few can take the same lines and bring them to life using ideas and concepts honed over a long period of time.

BBT turns combat into an art form and makes it beautiful. A trade painter can paint buildings but may not necessarily have the skill to paint a landscape, an artist enjoys painting landscapes but if pressed can paint a house.

BBTas a self defense method is very simple and takes mere hours to learn, BBT as an art form takes a life time to discover.

 

Jason, thanks for being so exhaustively explicit about where you're coming from.

BBT in its essence is very simple as there is a particular "sanshin" to pretty much everything we do:

1) Move whatever is being targeted off of the line of whatever force is being directed against it

2) Do something to affect the opponent's balance and structure so he can't use his possibly-superior strength, speed, etc.

3) Apply pain/destruction to whatever degree is necessary

(These things apply whether the situation involves striking/kicking, grappling, weapons, multiple attackers. . .they needn't be sequential as listed and CAN all be done concurrently.)

That's it. Really not rocket science.

On the other hand, you can literally keep learning more about how to do these things with greater ease and efficiency, less effort, and in increasingly complex situations for the rest of your life.

 

Jason,

Dale has quite concisely summed up a good portion of what I intended to reply with, but it's cool, I've got more.

Firstly, I'd like to echo Dale's sentiment. Thanks for taking the time, I'm sure it took a while. Try to understand just how many of these kinds of threads pop up on a regular basis. It's usually someone very much like yourself, though 99% have less than a year's worth of experience, who had a bad teacher. They always start out with a very obviously leading inquiry as Dan said to ultimately sell the reader on a conclusion. It's more a childish declaration to the internet than an honest request for discussion and to be fair, you did exactly that.

Where this thread is different is that it began with an offering, rather than "talk to me about BJK".

I never got the chance/inclination to respond in the other thread, so if nobody minds I'll take the opportunity here.

I think it's dishonest to advertise BJK as "self defense". To be clear I think it's not only fine, but appropriate for a teacher to relate a lesson to a self defense application, but I think it's their duty to make it reasonably clear that what they are learning/practicing is NOT goshinjutsu. Nearly every principle can be applied to self defense, but the lessons are not "self defense" lessons. and here's my definition...

The art is a set of exercises, designed to develop attributes that make up BJK methodology. The methodology I think Dale pretty adequately laid out. I hate to say "endpoint" but the maybe ('major definite path'?) is high level martial arts that focuses on controlling every facet of your opponent, specifically his mind.(prioperception/expectation/emotional comfort) The caveat, is that high level martial arts requires diligent study and practice of low level martial arts. You can't skip them, but too often I've seen people teaching Jin level budo to someone who hasn't quite gotten a hold on Kihon Omote Gyaku Kote, whilst telling them to throw away form.

To quote in advance something I'm sure Ace'll eventually say sometime; "There's a million paths to the mountain top, but you still gotta walk 'em."

BJK can be confusing, on purpose I should think.


What happened with the Australia dojo? Was there nowhere you could find similar training? A training group?

What I find so puzzling about all these stories of people having lackluster experiences, is that when they quit because the training isn't how they think it should be, they don't improve upon it. They say "I'm not part of Hatsumi's organization because they don't teach the old/real way/ranking/QC", but then they just go on practicing high without the low level, uke tori etc..

It's especially puzzling because the entire problem rests in people's unwillingness to take responsibility for their learning and growth. You think your teachers kind of off of it? Find a new one. Nobody spars at your dojo? Start a sparring group. Don't like the quality control? Improve it from where you sit.

The above wasn't necessarily directed at you Jason, just chasin' rabbits.

Thanks

 

That is a very succinct explanation about Bujinkan tactics/methodology.

I quite agree. Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu is an extremely frustrating art, because Soke's focus changes yearly (daily?) as he pursues new forms of expressing what Takamatsu-sensei taught him. And therein lies some of the downfall of the Bujinkan. Regardless of the level of practitioner, from 9th kyu to uber-dan, they want to do what Soke is doing. But the vast majority of us just don't have the skill sets to accomplish more than a very cheap imitation; just take a look at YouTube.

In order to get where Soke is now, we need to train like Soke did. That means going through the "hammer and tongs" phase. It doesn't mean stay there, but find out what the techniques are really like. Push the limits. I've had to use what I've learned in the Bujinkan in real life. This was before all the Juppo Sessho stuff was being taught. Back when the philosophy was, as my teacher back in the 80s told me, "if at first you don't succeed... hit 'em, hit 'em again." What has been bandied about this decade as alive training, resistance training, and pressure training.

When my senior student at the time (somewhat of an effeminate build and a generally non-aggressive guy in his late 20s) was ready for his shodan, I discussed it with my teacher, who said he would take care of it. After a training session at the 2002 TaiKai, for lack of a better word, he "jumped" my student; not with the intent to seriously injure him but enough to let him know he'd been in a fight. At first my student thought the shidoshi was playing with him, but that thought disappeared quickly as he began turning blue from a shime waza after several good body shots. My shidoshi pushed him hard until he started using tactics to force the shidoshi to attack with bad positioning and timing. Until he had figured out that he could survive an attack with sheer physical technique, and begin to use the strategies and tactics he had been taught.

My student found me not too long after this happened and told me what had happened. He said he never realized the purpose of some of the way we did training until then. He had never been a big fan of getting hit or hitting others during training, but after that day he became one of the biggest proponents.

It can be kinda tough sometimes for teachers to work on what they need to work on. Our students need to be working on kihon level stuff, learning how the techniques work on a more physical level. But for myself, I need to explore the finer points of balance, timing, and non-engaging. I also occasionally explore the Juppo Sessho concept. But I need bodies to do that with, which is where my students get confused. They think I'm teaching them, and talking to them, when I'm actually talking to myself while working on the stuff my teacher taught me.

My students get confused when I tell them not to spend time doing such and such; they respond, "But Soke said on such-and-such DVD that we need to ......" or "But last week you said ........" When I tell them that they aren't at a level to work on that stuff because they're still having trouble with their Kihon Happo, they get upset and try to work it in when I'm not looking or out of class. Then they try it a couple weeks later in training and screw it all up and get more frustrated. I've told them that when they get their basics down, they'll learn that stuff; but without solid basics they won't be able to do it anyway.

Alot of people in the Bujinkan want to be where Soke is now without spending the 40+ years that Soke spent to get there. Soke has said that he can teach you everything you need to know about the Bujinkan in under 10 years. It will take you alot longer than that to learn it, but he can teach it to you in that amount of time.

So to answer the question at the beginning of the thread,

the answer is to learn.... no, but to master..... absolutely.

 

That's why I've always believed that you shouldn't even try BBT unless you have at least a decade in another hard alive art like Judo, Kickboxing, Boxing.

 

...if Self Defense is your major reason to study. I think a decade's pushin it a bit though..

 

Deleted.

 

JO posted<<I purchased some Genbukan and Jinenkan DVDs and studied kata with a friend who had also left my dojo. We experimented with the techniques and eventually joined a ‘goshin-jutsu’ school that taught Takamatsu-den in a very technical way. The training was concerned only with mechanical effectiveness of the locks, throws, strikes and chokes within a strict kata setting. My friend and I did this for nearly six years and then we both decided to return to judo.>>

Jason,did you study the kata with Tanemura Soke or someone who was a personal student of his? The reason I ask is the videos are usually just for reference and there are big differences even from one Kan to the other. Even myself, I can watch something but if Sensei does not show me the kuden its not nearly as effective even if it looks similar it may not be the same. Why did you not pursue another organization to test before going back to Judo?

 

You say that and get loads of praise. I say the same thing and people put me on ignore.

Is it 'cos I is black?

 

Maybe, it is how it is said.

 

This is quite true. And you probably remember when Tanemura Sensei came up to both of us to show us the kuden for goja dori/musha dori during the Canadian Taikai last year. It was so much more effective after he showed us the slight move.

 

Hey Brian, it's been a while...

I've had the same experience. When learning the Kukishin taijutsu kata at a Manaka seminar, I think I had him perform just about every one on me...totally changed my perception and understanding of what was happening.

Terry

 

Here is what is being said amidst the wall of text:

You're welcome.

-Daniel

 

Thank you.

 

I already wrote this a long time ago, but what the hell.

During your first training session, when you throw a punch, your arm may rotate into a horizontal punch, or you might try to generate power simply by extending your triceps similar to a hammerfist, or you might punch with your thumb inside your fist, depending on your age, gender and martial arts experience.
After that, you pull your arm back to a coiled position and then let it loose, thinking that the muscle tension will let you punch more effectively.
Then your front foot will be rotated inwards at a 90 degree angle because you're afraid of stepping too far and losing your balance.
After that, your hips swing into position half a second before the punch is thrown, robbing you of power.
Then your arm rotates again.
Then you don't punch through your target.
Then you start out with a totally straight front arm with the fingers apart.
Then you bob up and down instead of staying on the same level.
Then your rear knee is rotated in the wrong direction, which will cause irreversible damage if you keep it up for a few years without anyone telling you about it.
Then you rotate your front foot too far and at the wrong moment, which affects your balance.
Then you lean forwards too much.
Then you forget to have your upper body turned sideways in order to become a smaller target.
Then the elbow of your rear arm is too far out, leaving your kidneys, lungs, heart and stomach with less protection.
Then you pull your front arm back before your punching arm comes forth, exposing your head.
Then you hit with the wrong set of knuckles, which may damage your wrist.
Then you forget that a Gyokko ryu punch is supposed to come at a different angle.
Then you're not bending your knees enough to utilize sufficient power.
Then you step too far and lose your balance.
Then you clench your fist too early and telegraph your punch.
Then your elbow is not aligned with your spine when you connect with the punch.
Then you don't punch far enough to actually reach your opponent.
Then your punch is aimed at where your opponent is heading instead of where he's at, because you know what he's going to do beforehand.
Then you do all the other faults I can't think of right now but exist nonetheless.

So to all people who seem to believe that they can teach people to punch (or anything really) correctly, and consistently so, in just a couple of sessions - no offense, but you can go to hell.