Dustin said:
There are a lot of things to be discuss here and as I tried to keep things short and concise, I may have missed key points so please address it if you find them.
1. Is the Toshindo a Modern interpretation of the Bujinkan (soke's teachings).
and
2. Does anyone else agree that forming a totally different organization dedicated to an "updated" version of the Bujinkan unnecessary?
From my limited experience, it is not. It is based on the Bujinkan but is not exactly a modern interpretation. If I have to put it in words, it is more like Bujinkan adapted to fit the 20th century IN THE US. All the training method are design for the mentality of US people and how they can best learn it. Eg. Westerner need proves and references of state of manifestaiton. That's why Toshindo break it down into elements for them to see that earth represent Commitment, Water - adaptation, Fire - Connectivity and intensity etc. It is not neccessary for Japanese, most likely not, but so that more american can better grasp concept, it might be easier if not neccessary. Why not use such method under the name BBT? I guess it just make more sense to change the name to avoid confusion.
3. If it is a "Updated" version, what exactly do they do that is so "Modern".
I am not sure who say it is an updated version. Certainly that would be arrogrant. Now there are things Toshindo does that take into account the modern world, that includes everything from clothing, mentality, equipment to Law, or at least they try to anyway; no system is perfect. So for example, certain ways of doing techniques have change due to size differences and the cloth people wear. Onikudaki, TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE AND I MIGHT BE WRONG, used to be taught as pushing the forearm becuase you have the weight of the armor to support. Now you don't wear the armor anymore so it turns into pulling elbow. It might be that I have been given false information but for me, pulling the elbow (for onikudaki) works but pushing forearm doesn't. Western people require materailistic object, for the most part, to stay motivated. Not changing the belt or elements make them lose their motivation. That's why toshindo have different belt system than Bujinkan.
The most important thing that Toshindo emphasize is that US law is strictly mad (at least to me) that you could totally destroy your life (by getting sued) by preventing yourself from danger using martial art. Because of that Toshindo try to make it seems like you do nothing and that's definitely one main differences between TSD and BBT. Ultimately you can achieve all of this as true master move so little like they do nothing. But since american have more tendency to show the machoness, not that this is wrong it's just how americans are, great emphasis might need to be placed so they can see how compassion is true strength.
All if all this is not enough for you to see why it MIGHT be necessary to have TSD, go check it out. I go check out BBT and learn a great deal from it. Personally I think that once you do BBT you should go do TSD too, just to explore, as Soke Hatsumi always tells us to "look at the world from the eye of a child."
