How does one improve????

That is exactly what my teacher says he did, and what he tells us to do.

 

Of course basics are important, but just saying that doesn't do much. Level appropriate basics must be constantly drilled and improved upon and internalized. Take the kihon happo for example, as you improve, so should your understanding and level of kihon that you practice. Looking at ichimonji, there is the basic jodan uke and then entering in with the shuto to the neck. Even with the basic mukyu level performance of this technique, you see crap across the board, but again that is just the most basic of this basic. As your level increases, you should be going from one, stop, two, stop movement to more flowing application. Then you have the basic henka of the technique to learn. Different footwork, ways to strike, unbalancing with the lead hand that just did jodan uke, attacking the front leg, and on and on. If you are a higher ranked dan grade but your understanding of ichimonji is still trying to blow his arm out of the way(sidewards) or absorb it with a bent arm like you think Hatsumi sensei does, followed by a raising of the rear arm behind you(fist at brow but elbow out and backwards exposing ribs) and follow through with shuto to the neck, then you shouldn't be teaching.

 

Or worse, the version our friend did on bad video thread!! In his video densho.
Many ( even high 'holiday' ranks not all ) seem not to understand the very basic version, let alone anything further! And without proper transmission from a competent person ( almost like finding hens teeth outside Japan, or even in Japan if your face doesn't fit seemingly) this would seem to be almost impossible. IMHO
Save the lucky few.

 

And this is unfortunately exactly how most people teach it.

There's an interesting phenomena in the Bujinkan world. Sometimes, at Tai Kai-esque seminars, a high ranked teacher will first scold everyone for having improper basics. Then he teaches basics from really low kamae (of course, so low that he can barely move from it), with strong strikes and blocks - kind of like PR described above. And then, later, he would say "Okay, now we move on to more advanced techniques". Suddenly he stands with straight, stiff legs and tries to imitate Hatsumi sensei. Very strange indeed.

 

'Caveat emptor' as they say in Scandinavia
Choose your friends wisely and your teacher's even more so!!

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lneVKqdV4Ic"]Vilnius Bushinden Kai 武心ä¼ä¼š 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

Here's a prime example of what I'm talking about. Posing and moving the hands do not a taijutsu one make. The ken is a straight double bladed weapon so one has to understand how to create power and how to cut using one. How to be realistic and effective, not try to look like a recreation of a Hatsumi Sensei class or video. Of course one could claim lack of exposure but the hanbo is even more suspect. It is a basic weapon of Kukishinden but the stick here is dead. There is no manipulation of the hanbo as a weapon, just moving it around like a club without the fundamental Kukishinden principles. It doesn't move in relation to the opponent(on touch) but relies of him manipulating the opponent's body in ways that aren't easily done on a non-compliant non arm hanger.

So here again we have a stop and go form of demonstration that is missing all the important points of the weapons being shown. We have compliant frozen uke and lack of understanding that gets multiplied as others rush to mimic what they are being taught. The cycle of life....

PS-the bo jodan uke was too shallow an angle and the thrust he showed was flawed in several ways.

 

Maybe he's been training with Papasan shihan

 

This here really confuses me. The advice given by some on this forum is that if you want to learn quality Ninjutsu you need to train in Japan, preferably under Hatsumi or alternatively under one of the senior shihan such as Nagato. The guy in this video (as far as I can tell, could be wrong) is Duncan Stewart. Duncan is a 15th Dan who has been training in Japan for the last eight years, and claims to train primarily with Hatsumi, Nagato and Someya (Link to his dojo in Japan: http://tazziedevil.wordpress.com/duncan-stewart-seminars/). Apparently (according to Please Reality) this guy shows both flawed technique and poor instruction. I guess even training in Japan under the top instructors is not sufficient to get your Ninjutsu up to the standards that Please Reality expects, so what can someone realistically do to improve? It is quite a conundrum.

 

It's a question of perspective. A Billionaire could say a Millionaire was poor.

 

You train a lot with people that are a lot better than you.

 

True, but if someone was saying that Charles Koch was poor I would expect some evidence that the claimant was wealthier. If someone said that Marcus Almeida had poor BJJ, then I would expect proof that they were better. If someone said Yohan Blake is slow, then their name better be Usain Bolt. If someone is going to claim that a 15th dan with 8 years in Japan training under the top guys is poor, then their name should probably be Hatsumi. Now, I don't know if Please Reality actually the nom de plume of Hatsumi (it is not beyond the realm of possibility I guess), but personally if I was to criticise highly ranked people in my art I would expect people to question what makes my view authoritative.

 

Certainly.

Personally I don't believe that PR has better movement than Duncan, but I believe it is theoretically ok for him to point these things out. Though I think in doing so we may detach ourselves even further from reality.

 

Besides feigned surprise, anything to add to the discussion? Do you disagree with any of the salient points? If so how? If I said the only way to become President of the United States is to be born there, does that make my perspective any easier for you to understand? It being the only way in no way, shape, or form guarantee that any particular person will be holding private meetings in the Oval Office anytime soon.

Not sure how you missed it(because it is the other thing I've been saying all along) but coming to Japan is just getting your foot in the door and in no way, shape, or form ensures you will get it. Get it?

 

Give us any reason for believing that Duncan, or Renner, etc have good movement. If I was that bad, I probably wouldn't talk. Might even be interesting to show clips of them to an experienced martial artist from a similar art and see what they tell you. To be better than any of the Shihan, yes you would have to be Hatsumi sensei, but then that's another discussion. To set up false idols and worship them despite their glaring deficiencies seems weird in the world of pagan religions. You'd expect that they(or their priests) had at least performed some miracles or made the sun disappear or something. Blind faith and blind ignorance are related but please feel free to point out the greatness of the movement from any of the videos posted in the bad vids thread or at least show where the flaws I pointed out weren't really flaws but kyojitsu spells in the kukan of the gogyo. I won't hold my breath.

 

Who are you? You put yourself forward as an expert, dissecting the abilities of some of the highest ranked people in your organisation, but you won't say who you are. You want to claim to be good enough for your critique of Duncan to be worth reading, well then front up. Post some videos, state your rank. If I say something (on the internet or face-to-face) I am willing to stand by it, why won't you? I don't even claim expertise in any art, yet I have posted my rank and the gym I train at. If you aren't willing to stand by what you write, then why should anyone listen.

Why should anyone listen to a faceless and nameless self appointed expert who criticises while hiding behind a keyboard.

 

I don't recall saying anything disparaging about the Shihan before.

Who's hiding? I take it you still don't have anything to counter my observations with, hence your new line of inquiry.... Are you trolling by chance? If history proves right, next you will claim that you don't have to answer to a nameless face on the Internet who is probably some 12 year old kid in India anyway, therefore freeing yourself from having to face the facts that you can't refute the flaws that were pointed out.

I'd love to be proven wrong though!

 

No-one has to read his posts. If anonymity makes you angry then don't.

Personally, knowing PR's name and rank would mean nothing to me, and I'm comfortable judging him by his technical critiques.

I actually think he's relatively gentle with a lot of his observations. Like the "flawed thrust" in this thread - I would argue that techincally it couldn't really be defined as a thrust (especially not for a black grade), but there you go.

I'm not sticking up for the guy, it's not like we're friends or anything, but I'm puzzled as to how he manages to make you angry

 

He does have a point though.

whenever a video of Hatsumi is shown with Hatsumi showing crappy stuff (like the wristlock using just his chin for example) or doing crappy things (like slamming his sword in the saya) you give an explanation that the purpose of the video is not to show technique, that Hatsumi is not 'teaching' per se, etc. There is always an excuse.

The same video from someone training in Japan with Hatsumi and the Japanese shihan, someone who is a 15th dan, and you have nothing but criticism. Isn't that using double standards?

 

It's the free pass that he gets for making claims without proof that annoys me. If I jumped on the boxing forums and started not only pulling apart aspects of Mayweathers technique, but also claiming that Mayweather failed to grasp the essence of boxing, people would justifiably ask how I was qualified to speak on the topic. If I subsequently went on to imply that I had a better grasp of boxing than Mayweather (but I couldn't tell you my name), then people would rightly call me a troll.

I guess I should have expected an appreciation of secrecy given the sub-forum I am in, but if similar criticisms of top-level exponents of an art were made in any other art-specific sub-forum then the person criticising would be expected to at least give an idea of how they were qualified to speak on the topic. If I said on the BJJ forums that Marcelo Garcias butterfly guard is lacking, then I would be expected to tell people my level of expertise (or lack thereof) otherwise I would be considered a troll.

 

Probably.

But who cares? Everyone here has a bias. I don't care if he is a 12 year-old Indian kid who's never been to a Buj class, if the points in his posts are valid, his identity is irrelevant.