You must be new to MAP. I suggest you read a bit more before you go around asking questions all over the place as many of your questions could be answered by some cursory exploration. For example, you asking about jwt. Many different kinds of attacks are dealt with in our curriculum, from jabs, crosses, attacks from behind, and much more. This has already been discussed in great detail in other threads. You can do an advanced search function to find them. This forum in particular is a heavily watched, so people derailing threads are not treated kindly(not that I think that that's your goal). The particular punch you are calling weird is actually a combination attack. If someone who knows how to use it attacks you, it is not an easy thing to deal with without experience.
Yes i am new.. i don't think i asked about jwt?do you mean jpw(John Wayne Parr)? Didn't mean to derail.
"The particular punch you are calling weird is actually a combination attack. If someone who knows how to use it attacks you, it is not an easy thing to deal with without experience." Can you elaborate on this for me please? I still find that weird lol
jwt is the interview thread you were commenting on. It is like a jab followed by another punch with the rear hand as you attack his legs with yours. As I said, if you do an advanced search you can find plenty of discussions about it. The name is oitsuki but it is often called a lunge punch.
You want me to search for you and then link the threads here instead of doing it yourself? So my time is worth less than yours? Sorry Charlie, and enough derailing this thread.
No. i thought you knew and would have been kind enough to link me to something. Thats fine if you don't have anything off the top of ya head.
You're the one who started the thread bemoaning the quality of the organization. I'm actually trying to avoid commenting on the effectiveness of the art. It's a topic that has been done to death and i have little interest in rehashing it yet again. My comment was, in the organization known as the bujinkan, which seems rife with undeserving inflated grades- the topic of this thread- it's pretty much an intractable problem because there is no objective means of qualifying the skills people think are being imparted to them. I brought this up as a counter point to dunc's comment about the same thing happening in BJJ, where if you have a different style of movement you have to prove its effective in a competitive environment. But please refrain from inviting me to Japan to 'cross hands' with a bunch of old Japanese men. I'm not going to Hong Kong to fight wing chun guys, or Indonesia to fight Silat guys or some mountain in central China to fight a white eyebrow master. Putting it out there is disingenuous on your part considering you are offering for someone else, not yourself, and I don't have the time, money, or desire to travel the world as a martial arts crusader. So in lieu of going down that endless rabbit hole again let's call a truce. I'm not insulting your teachers or your ryu-ha. I'm bringing up a point about the org you are complaining about.
Not exactly. I was mentioning the interesting pattern of senior western practitioners inventing creative yet nonsensical philosophies, hypotheses, make believe playtime theories, in order to explain away deficiencies in their personal practice. I don't have an issue with the quality of the arts themselves, and I am quite aware that the compliant arm hanging play many consider "practice," won't yield effective results. The organization on the other hand, serves a purpose(or several), as organizations do. The OP isn't a comparison with bjj, although competition is not the only arena an art's efficacy can be tested.
I wasn't responding the the OP, but to a point dunc made. And if you're talking about the deficiencies of 'senior western practitioners' you're talking about members of the bujinkan. Or am I wrong about that?
To me it doesn't matter if someone is 15th dan, 5th dan or 1st dan. What matters is how a person moves and behaves. I've seen plenty of 15th dans who are very humble in front of the art (including Ishizuka sensei), but I've seen many more who are the opposite. Which is what this thread seems to originally have been about. The rank itself is not an indication of skill in the Bujinkan – Hatsumi sensei has stated this many times, and he has used himself as an example of how one should act. He received his soke titles prematurely – according to his own words – but instead of just being happy with that, he dug deeper and pushed forward in an almost inhuman fashion. Which is also the mark of a good Soke, and Takamatsu sensei was able to foresee this quality in his successor, but naturally it's something we should all strive after. To always reach for excellency, no matter where we land in the end. Anybody who is sincere in their practice, even after only a couple of years of good training, should be able to see who is arrogant, thinks he is good, thinks he knows a lot, etc. If everyone was just honestly trying to learn the art, it would be different. But there are very few diamonds and a lot of rocks in this world... that's why diamonds are worth a lot and rocks aren't worth anything.
But if Hatsumi sensei – and so many others as well – has clearly stated that rank is not an indication of skill, that you instead need to use your own common sense and judgement to find a good teacher, why do you continue to hold on to your erroneous way of thinking? If you don't want to be involved in politics you don't have to. If you just want to train and learn, then you can easily do it. Here's my recommendation, based on my own bias: 1) Go to a seminar with Kacem Zoughari, whether close to where you are living or in another country. 2) Look, listen, learn, and try to copy what he is doing. 3) Go back home, and practice ALONE on whatever you saw him doing (hint: kamae, and moving in kamae). If you can only remember one thing, just practice that. If you also have the opportunity to practice with someone else, do this as well. But it doesn't substitute daily solo practice. 4) At least six months later of practicing these same things an hour every day, repeat stages 1, 2 and 3, adding new things to your practice and getting corrected on your mistakes in what you thought you've been doing correctly since the last seminar. After a few cycles of this, I guarantee that you will see things very differently.
Very interesting thread but we seem to be going over the same ground again. But let me say that I fully understand the feeling of some that say that the Bujinkan has no quality control or simply wouldnt work. I started this art in 1985 (Over 30 years ago) and actually started in the Bujinkan (EBNS) as it was then in the UK and gained IIRC a 6th kyu. I then trained with others Hayes, Tanemura, etc and have always been very critical of the Bujinkan. Believe me there was no one more anti Bujinkan than myself. Go back and look over my posts here on MAP. However about three years ago I rejoined the Bujinkan. Why I did so I can't really say. Maybe it was a mad impulse, but I had been in contact with a teacher a couple of years previously who I thought might be teaching stuff that was of value and felt that this could be good for myself and my group. We as a group joined the Bujinkan and now with regular help and instruction from this teacher and another person our group has gone from strength to strength and I have learnt a lot, and I mean a lot. But then we don't practice and we aren't taught kukan balls, A multitude of made up henka or the magical flow where you effortlessly put someone to the ground with one finger (You know what I mean). Instead we concentrate very much on the kihon and the kata from the Ryu Ha, and punches are thrown where you attack your attacker as an attacker would attack you on the street. No arms hanging in the air. Am I still criical of the Bujinkan? You bet. About 18 months ago I went to Japan and saw people that I wouldnt myself have given a 5th kyu to. They had no understanding of the terminology, how to apply a wrist throw/lock Omote Gyaku and after six years training and still in their twenties took and passed the 5th dan test. Ludicrous I thought, and still do. But then on the other hand theres excellent training to be found in Japan. Strange I found that whilst Hatsumi Senseis class was packed, and I mean packed to the extent that one night we couldnt get in the door, some of the classes run by other shihan are virtualy empty. Spent a bit of time training with Someya for example. He taught hanbo (Chuden and Okuden) Shinden Fudo Ryu and Yari, and would start his classes with the kihon, teach directly from the densho, made sure you got it, asked you to write the technique down and answer questions before moving on. Yet strangely although Hatsumi sensei's class the night before was packed with possibly easily about 100 people plus, in Someyas class was only about 12 of us, and a couple of them I had invited. But then Someya doesn't grade people, well at least not westerners from what I hear. I have heard that its a similar case with people like Ishizuka who teach very much to the densho but have few training with them, and you have to be at a certain capability before you grade. I therefore absolutely agree with PR when he says... Now can't really comment on Renner never met him, although from what I have seen on the clips i'm not impressed to the point I would book myself onto one of his seminars and frankly I think some of the things he shows on the clip PR posted would get you killed very quickly. Maybe he's better when one trains with him. but I get what PR is saying here. And I also agree with him when he says... So the idea is that you get given a 4th dan and then you work hard each day after to make sure you are worth that grade. And whilst many would do this we have to understand that "This is westerners we are talking about here". Which is why I agree with bujingodai when he says... In short and to finish my diatribe, to criticies the Bujinkan for its lack of quality control through the rank system may have some measure of truth in it, but to think that the Bujinkan does not have value, or that the techniques would not work in reality, or that there are no good teachers who do not get it, could be a mistake.
Be glad you didn't meet Ben or Rob when you were looking for inspiration. The godan test is not a test of martial skill, solely of one's ability to sense sakki and roll out of the way from seiza(not even that these days). Someya sensei isn't in the in crowd these days, so don't expect him to have packed classes.
I don't see my thoughts as being erroneous. Because I believe that rank should be an indication of skill? No grading level is perfect but if someone has achieved the level of Shihan. I'd expect them to be proficient enough to teach or for that matter go out on their own if the org no longer suits them.........as long as they are doing their own gig and claiming nothing else. I had the same situation as Garth. But when I returned from Japan. I left as I was saddened with the QA. Hatsumi classes are a blind of air. People looking for Kanji and to clap when he turns his foot majically. Even if what seems an error that is ratified to make sense... is taken as on purpose. Everyone has fault, Hatsumi included. The etiquette was sad, the ego was disgusting and the skill was deplorable. At the Budokan (I believe that was the building sorry while back) the show was pretty bad. Even when visiting the changeroom having the other budoka from the building chiding me for what we learned. So I stood outside the room and watched. It was understandable how they came to their entertainment. Coversly I trained with some of the Shihan in their classes. Much better. Shiraishi, was interesting. Class ended near 5 hrs. Sublte Nagato I loved. Mind you I was made a fun for that here, with the comment. Yes you would be the kind to like Nagato. I am not sure what that meant. Also chided for liking Shiraishi. In that those are Japanese Shihan. Yet I was critiqued for it. So, double speak told me enough was enough I could seek other kinds of training and continue with what I knew, practicing as best I could. In the end. I'm not too worried. Likely the argument can be seen from both sides. But neither side will make a concession. I loved Ninjutsu. But it became a series of A either defending my own training to people I never met. or B being let down by the quality of what I saw.
I understand the frustration, and I sacrificed for years before finding what I had searched for. What's confusing is why you expect everyone to like and agree with your choice of teacher. There are plenty of people who don't like my teacher. Likewise there are plenty of teachers whom I don't think are qualified to wield anything but a pair of blunted scissors. C'est la vie, not everyone is going to like each other. Practice with who you want but understand that you are responsible for those decisions and the consequences. The only opinions that should matter if you're in the line of transmission are Soke's, your teacher's and your own, IMO.
it's a problem in more than just ninjutsu; i've seen it in aikido and hapkido. in the absence of a way to deterministically demonstrate ability, there's really no way to get around the problem. you're always going to see some kind of imbalance: either a lower dan is maybe not ranked as highly as he/she should, or a higher dan has some kind of grade inflation. at least when i studied in a usaf school, there are clear guidelines for all ranks, posted publicly for everyone to see, and rankings are given by committee--somewhat mitigating the problem. hapkido in the u.s. is the wild west.
Hate to burst the woe is me bandwagon but... One's martial arts journey is their own responsibility, and responsibility means in part, making the right decisions(of course the other part is owning up to them). Most didn't make the right decision when it came to starting ninjutsu, in that they didn't start learning from a Shihan(no, not a foreign dude calling himself one, but a Japanese guy who was Hatsumi sensei's student and who has MK in the arts that make up the Bujinkan). Had they done so, I can almost guarantee that they wouldn't be complaining years down the road with little to show for their efforts. Now, I didn't start down that path either, but I realised the errors of my choices and fixed it as soon as I could. When I reached the conclusion that I wasn't learning the real art, I had to let go of what I thought I knew, including the time investment in learning what I thought was real, traditional ninjutsu from a credible source. Why spend a lifetime wondering and worrying when the real masters are still alive and teaching? Westerners failing to learn anything about Asian culture really have no business trying to learn an Asian martial art. There are plenty of Western ones that don't require this added burden. Saying things should be a certain way because that is how we grew up or were taught or believe to be true doesn't make it so. The world is a big place, and nothing will magically bend to our desires because no, the force isn't real and we aren't jedi or Lords of the Sith. No organisation or martial art is perfect, but sometimes we have to put our egos aside and look within to find fault, instead of looking without. That is part of what being an adult is all about, and definitely what being a martial artist is all about. Because in the end, all you have is you to rely on, not your teacher, not your rank, not your diplomas and accolades, but imperfect, fragile, human you. Sometimes that's good to reflect on. PS- Oh, and before anyone chimes in, I know I know. I'm a rude, condescending blue meanie for suggesting what I wrote above.
