Australian bujinkan

Dean Whittle said:
Chris has done an admirable job in summarizing Wayne Roy's 20yr involvement in the Bujinkan as the first Australian to train in Japan and bring it back to Australia (although he wasn't the first Australian to train in Japan, there were two before him ... but that's another story). But I just wanted to clarify a few small things:

Mr Roy's first trip to Japan was in 1980.

Mr Roy returned to Japan on three occasions, roughly 1983, 1986/7 and 1990, it was at the end of this trip that he was graded to Rokudan.

he received his copy of the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki from Nagato-sensei at the end of his initial stay, not from Charles Daniel, however I understand he also received another version from Robert Bussey (who also got his from Nagato-sensei).

Gillian Booth was not the first Australian female black belt, that was Leonie Furner, followed by a number of others. Ms Booth was graded to Shodan by her Instructor Maureen Jensen who was Mr Roy's representative in Sydney at the time.

I don't believe Ed Lomax received any dan grades from Mr Roy, I believe he was graded by Andrew McDonald (IIRC) and left Mr Roy's Organisation thereafter.

Michael Tattoli was one of the first homegrown New South Welshmen to be graded to Shodan by Mr Roy, along with Dean Gum (retired) and Dion Kalos, this was around early '87.

I'm not too sure of Mike Hammond's history, I know he was part of our organisation at some stage but I don't know who he trained under in Sydney.


By way of background, I've been training in Mr Roy's organisation since 1986 and was privy to much of went on over the years. As Chris highlighted there's much more than what is indicated above however this is a brief overview of some of the barebone facts, based on my memory.

With respect
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Hi there Mr Whittle,
I am new here and came across your comment as part of my serch for Ninjutsu origins in Aust. Would you mind if I could know the names of the other two people who trained in Japan before Mr. Roy. I am attempting to assemble a genealogy .
Cheers Rob.
 
Rob,

It appears that the first Australian to study with Hatsumi Masaaki was Laszlo Abel, who made these comments in an interview with Stanley Pranin (Aikido Journal) in 1992.

"I arrived in September of '76.

When I came to Japan, ... I had contacted a style of ninjutsu. This was before the popularization and commercialization of that art. I was completely ignorant as to what ninjutsu was. Even the Japanese at that time knew it only through TV shows and comic books and I suppose a lot of people nowadays think ninjutsu is flying around in the air, swimming under-water—doing superhuman feats. So I came to Japan and did about eight months of training out at Noda City in Chiba Prefecture with Hatsumi Sensei.

I think the reason I did not continue there again was the commercialization. I distinctly remember one night getting changed with a Frenchman, Laurent Tressiere, who had trained there for a long time. Hatsumi Sensei came into the changing room, and said in the course of the short conversation, "Study here, take the techniques back to your country, charge a lot of money for them, and send it back to me." That's what turned me off. "

Mr Abel went on to study with Nawa Yumio for many years and passed away in 2009.

According to Nagato-sensei, the other Australian who studied prior to 1980 was a guy who was in Japan on his honeymooon, studied for one night and was never seen again.

With respect
 
Greg Alcorn said:
Ha ! I wondered why my ears were burning...... Perhaps Ayase is the best place to start training....and perhaps people who have not been conditioned to be compliant are the best training partners....

I think I'm part of the third generation of the Australian Bujinkan. I have Andrew Macdonald to thank for years of authentic training here in Sydney during the 90's and encouraging many of his students including me to go to Japan. 1999 seems like so long ago now.....
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Hey greg "a" , havent seen you in a long time , hope you are well . I remember quite a few painfull nights of training with you and pete when you were living in japan , ha ha , greg "b"
 
unitedwestand said:
Hi all,

I have to say, with the little bits I actually know of this art, and in particular throughout Australia, I am indeed impressed.

I have seen (footage of) the following:

Tim Bathurst
Greg Hinks
Andrew Netes
Andrew Jarvis
Duncan Mitchell
Duncan Stewart
John Cantor
Ed Lomax
Jamie Mac Aninch
Darren Horvath

All of the above are actually quite different, yet all excellent.

Can anybody tie a story together about when and where the Bujinkan originated in Australia and who actually trained with each other to begin with?

Coincidently, I think all of the above, are probably ranked the highest (although to me this means very little as there would surely be lower ranked guys superior to them and vice versa) in Bujinkan Australia with the exception of S. Jarvis, Steve Revnac, Lindsay Hawke, Craig Guest, Scott Shulze, Robin Doenicke and Gillian Booth????

I do not know the story behind Andrew MacDonald, Beattie, Greg Alcorn, Gary Bailey, Chris West etc.

An unbelievable line-up of folk within Australia?!!! You don't 'have to' go outside the country to train with elite craftspeople. Of course, each country would have a great line-up but I am most impressed at the shape of the Australian Bujinkan climate at the moment.

Respectfully yours,
Click to expand...

United , you have named most of the main people in the bujinkan as well as a few others who dont relly train in japan . I can tell you the were abouts of most of regular guys .
Myself ( greg hinks if you havent worked it out ) moved back to north queensland where I grew up , after a 14 year stay in perth . I have been back in townsville now for 7 years and still am training in japan regularly with Hatsumi sensei and Nagato sensei , and any other shihan I can fit in .
Since leaving perth the Jarvis brothers have turned the training over to Chris West and Lindsay Hawke down south and Gary Bailey in scarboro .
Dont know what happened to Steve Revnak , the last time I saw him was sometime around 94-6, so I havent seen or heard of him since .
Duncan Mitchell moved to brisbane where he runs a dojo with the help of Warren Cross .
Jamie MacAninch is still training in the beenliegh area .
Tim Bathurst now lives in melbourne as well as Peter Meden , both are running dojo`s .
Ed Lomax and Scott Shultz are in adelaide with many of there students now running there own schools .
Stephen Joyce moved to cairns where he now runs a dojo .
Dale Heers was living and training in alice springs but has left and moved to the atherton tablelands in north QLD .
Darren Horvarth spends most of his time training in japan .
Gillian Booth , Peter White , Scott Abercrombie , John Cantor , Andrew Beattie and more , whose names I cannot remember at the moment , all live and train in the sydney area .
Duncan Stewart , Robin Doenicke , and a few other aussies live and train in japan .
Thats about all the people that I know from my training in australia and japan , of course there are others and If I have forgotten you I am sorry , gregh
 
Dean Whittle said:
Rob,

It appears that the first Australian to study with Hatsumi Masaaki was Laszlo Abel, who made these comments in an interview with Stanley Pranin (Aikido Journal) in 1992.

"I arrived in September of '76.

When I came to Japan, ... I had contacted a style of ninjutsu. This was before the popularization and commercialization of that art. I was completely ignorant as to what ninjutsu was. Even the Japanese at that time knew it only through TV shows and comic books and I suppose a lot of people nowadays think ninjutsu is flying around in the air, swimming under-water—doing superhuman feats. So I came to Japan and did about eight months of training out at Noda City in Chiba Prefecture with Hatsumi Sensei.

I think the reason I did not continue there again was the commercialization. I distinctly remember one night getting changed with a Frenchman, Laurent Tressiere, who had trained there for a long time. Hatsumi Sensei came into the changing room, and said in the course of the short conversation, "Study here, take the techniques back to your country, charge a lot of money for them, and send it back to me." That's what turned me off. "

Mr Abel went on to study with Nawa Yumio for many years and passed away in 2009.

According to Nagato-sensei, the other Australian who studied prior to 1980 was a guy who was in Japan on his honeymooon, studied for one night and was never seen again.

With respect
Click to expand...
Thanks Dean for that little nugget.
Do you know if Laszlo opened any schools in Aus. And their possible decendants ?
Was Mr. Roy one of his students ?
Rob.
 
Greg Alcorn said:
Ha ! I wondered why my ears were burning...... Perhaps Ayase is the best place to start training....and perhaps people who have not been conditioned to be compliant are the best training partners....

I think I'm part of the third generation of the Australian Bujinkan. I have Andrew Macdonald to thank for years of authentic training here in Sydney during the 90's and encouraging many of his students including me to go to Japan. 1999 seems like so long ago now.....
Click to expand...
Hi there Mr. Alcorn,
I'm a bit fuzzy on what you meant by 3rd generation ?

Rob...
 
Rob,

My apologies for the delay in replying, I didn't notice your question until today.

Mr Abel states quite clearly that he left Hatsumi's dojo because of perceived 'commercialisation' back in 1976 or 1977. He then became a student of Nawa Yumio and stayed in Japan until his death last year. Therefore he would not have established any Bujinkan schools in Australia, there would be no 'descendants' and Mr Roy was never his student.

With respect
 
Sorry to come in so late, but I was wondering if any of you knew anything of Steve McKeon (sp?)? I did one or two classes with him, in Hawthorn or Kew, 12 or so years ago, and it inspird me to (finally) find someone near here to train with.

I had about a 10 or 11 year layoff, and knew nothing about him or the bujinkan in general, but he seamed to move impressivly for someone who know nothing at the time.
 
Hi Scott,

Hmm, Steve McKeown.... this may be tricky. Steve was, from memory, a student with us in the early days, he took a copy of the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki (the version that Nagato Sensei gave Mr Roy when he left Japan the first time) and published it under the name Sakushin Dojo back in the early/mid 90's (without our or the Bujinkan's permission, I might add). In terms of his background other than that, let's just say that tales of his training have been greatly exaggerated (mainly by Steve, from what I've heard, such as claims of training with Sato Kinbei and others). I haven't seen him in action myself, so I can't comment on that, though.

That said, who are you training with these days?
 
I am now training with a bujinkan shidoshi-ho who is herein Albury, Cameron Horsburgh (I am sure he wont mind me saying his name on a forum......he does have a web page after all). His Shidoshi is nearby too, so we see a bit of him too.

He is also encouraging of us going to visit other dojo's, he is just keen for us to learn (but being older, and having a 2 year old child and my own buisness means that I don' t get that chance often).

Thank you so much for your reply Chris
 
Not a problem. Shizen Bodai Dojo, by any chance? (That just happens to be the website I've found, that's all...) Looks like a nice space there!

All the best with your training.
 
Thats it! It is the only school I could find in this area (other than a Kevin Hawthorn school, which among other things is 50 odd mins away, so is one of the reasons I am not training there).

You dont do sat classes by any chance do you, I would love to meet you and maybe train when I am in Melb some weekends.
 
Ha, I'd hope there were other reasons (apart from distance) that would keep you out of the KH schools? Not that we need to go into them here, of course....

Once every two months or so I teach a three hour workshop on a particular subject, essentially to allow us to go into more detail on a particular subject than we can during regular class time. The next one will be either 12th March, or 9th April (haven't decided yet). I can send you a PM when I have an idea of when (and what) I'll be teaching, if you'd like.
 
Read this thread with interest, really though someone is going to have to explain how the Japanese martial art was adapted for the Australian personality as stated in an early post! :)

I have all sorts of thoughts going through my mind!


I'm always interested in the East/West mix in martial arts and how the Japanese would have taken to an Australian rather than an American asking to train?
 
Hey Tez,

I'll see if I can give a basic idea of what was meant by that.

In Japan, there is a culture of belonging to a group, which leads to students having a greater tendancy to stay with a particular school for a while, whereas in the West, the average life of a martial art student is about 9 months. This means that while a Japanese student may be expected to stick around for 10, or 15 years, or more, and can therefore be given a form of training that works over that amount of time, but a Western (Australian) student should be given skills that can be applied pretty much straight away.

Japan is also a relatively "safe" place, compared with many Western countries, so the immediacy of self defence skills isn't anywhere near as high a priority.

The last point is in the methods of teaching. In most Asian cultures, there is the concept of "Believe what you're told - Do what you're told - Don't question what you're told". This leads to little explaination, as it becomes assumed that you will be told when you're ready to know, if you're not told, then it's not something you should be worried about (known in Japanese as the concept of Nyunanshin, or Junanshin). Western students, on the other hand, tend to prefer explainations, and asking questions, and we're geared up (through our education system) to expect answers when we ask them.

So, in short, training held a lot more explaination of the lessons, there is less variation in order to get the skills rather than the longer-term Japanese approach, and there is a higher emphasis on modern street assaults. For more details, I'd suggest going to my schools site (in my signature) for explaination.
 
greetings to all who use this forum.my name is robert roma.i do not xpect many of you to kno who i am-so here goes.am internet newbie so bear with me.my son showed me how to googl and such during a letter translation he was doing for me to go to soke hatsumi.the posts re early oz bujinkan connections and history captured my interest.why?cos i too was there.i was the first of ed lomax's "sth oz students"to go to japan.i have much to tell of those early days which may interest you all-any interest?til the next-rr
 
most of your comments on the bujinkan and aust early history are generally correct.there are some small points of issue.tanemura was a student of takamatsu before hatsumi was.takamatsu chose hatsumi as soke.this upset tanemuras sense of how things should have been done and so he eventually left bujinkan after hatsumi had control.thus only technically a hatsumi student after takamatsu retired.from what i know and remember of those times tanemura was technically hatsumi's "elder brother"training wise etc
 
Okay, Im going to have to ask you to back that statement about Tanemura being a student of Takamatsu before Hatsumi with something, as it's not something that anyone (including Tanemura Sensei) claim. The one and only time that Tanemura and Takamatsu were even in the same room was a single day when Hatsumi brought a group of his students to meet Takamatsu. In fact, everything in that post is incorrect (the reason that Tanemura left, who was whose student, who was whose "sempai", who was "kohai", even to the idea of Takamatsu "retiring"). Can you back up anything you have posted here?
 
sure can do-refer"secrets from the ninja grandmaster" soke hatsumi and sk&r hayes etc- think around pg10-11 where soke hatsumi acknowledges that he was training with a teacher studying kobujutsu as i recall and says"...that teacher was himself a student of toshitsugu takamatsu,who eventually became masaaki hatsumi's teacher..." etc-from memory the students involved in those early days of bujinkan 1980-1990 should remember this episode as i do cos i was there and remember the shihans discussing these events involving tanemura and hatsumi and takamatsu and other events too
 
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