Mr Hayes' original practices of ninjutsu

[jks9199]

If you'll allow an outsider's perceptions (I don't train in any form of ninjutsu), I suspect that what you will find is that the training "then" versus the training "now" is that it was different. In some ways, it may have been harder physically, where perhaps today there's a different emphasis on understanding so that the physicality isn't needed as much. Today, you might be working harder mentally than you would have back then.

Using my own system as an example, when my teacher began training -- it was all about fighting. They didn't do anything that wasn't directly oriented to fighting. They trained incredibly hard, and they worked the basics over and over again. When I started training 20 years ago, we were still pretty hard. We had a few other things, but you had to put your time in if you wanted to see those. Today, we've got beginners learning stuff that I waited years to get, from some teachers. Our chief instructor (who introduced our system to the US) has, in my direct experience, shifted his emphasis many times. I've seen him emphasizing footwork for years moving to striking or grappling or stretching and healing. Today, he's moved into a non-violent martial arts approach which I envoy, but know I don't have the mindset for. But...was training better 20 years ago (or 30 or 50)? Or just different?

 

[cloud]

I do not think that Hatsumi really pushed Hayes to the sources he used and I do not think that a teacher can be held resposible for his students failings. I am what I am only due to the efforts of my teachers. But they are not responsible for my failings. You can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink.

Yet if you lead the horse to the water, knowing that it WILL MOST LIKELY drink it and it died from the poison in the water, it could be very diffucult to argue that it is not your responsible at all. A teacher is undoubtedly not totally responsible for teacher's failing, but if the student uses what the teacher refers to and fail, it is either the student false in misuse or the teacher false in misguidance. It is most probable that it is both the teacher and student false. I'd imagine it is too black/white to claim either side to be totally correct and incorrect. The world is often grey.

Cloud

 

[Tengu6]

Yet if you lead the horse to the water, knowing that it WILL MOST LIKELY drink it and it died from the poison in the water, it could be very diffucult to argue that it is not your responsible at all. A teacher is undoubtedly not totally responsible for teacher's failing, but if the student uses what the teacher refers to and fail, it is either the student false in misuse or the teacher false in misguidance. It is most probable that it is both the teacher and student false. I'd imagine it is too black/white to claim either side to be totally correct and incorrect. The world is often grey.

Cloud

Or maybe he horse was too stupid to swallow the water correctly and choked.....no poison after all, and there were numerous horses who drank before and after who are doing just fine.

My horse is better than your horse.

Blah.

markk bush
www.bujinmag.com

 

[Zaii]

I agree with you Brian, there is plenty of hard training in the Bujinkan.
http://www.bujinmag.com

Where, and what?

 

[Tengu6]

Where, and what?

Who are you? Are you lost? Should we call someone from the Muay Thai forum?

markk bush
www.bujinmag.com

 

[Zaii]

I'm not lost. I didn't think the forums were exclusive only to people currently training in the style they take their name from. If I've missed something, my apologies.

I was a member of a bujinkan class for two years. In that time, and having visited a few other places of instruction, I saw nothing at all resembling "hard training". I saw dead drills, near useless classical stances, predictable randori, and exaggerated lunging punches. I did learn a few valuable things from my time there, but I also learned a few things that if I tried to apply them in a more realistic setting (which all I constantly hear from the BJK crowd, how "street" effective the techniques are) would have landed me with some hefty injuries and likely a trip to the hospital, not to mention had me looking like an idiot performing such useless things as wide circular blocks, for instance.

I'm not bad mouthing the bujinkan as a whole, and I certainly am not tooting the Toshindo horn, I think stephen hayes is a joke. But I've never seen "hard" training in a bujinkan class, nor do I know anyone who has ever experienced anything resembling it.

So, my genuine question to you was, what, and where?

 

[Bigshadow]

I was a member of a bujinkan class for two years. In that time, and having visited a few other places of instruction, I saw nothing at all resembling "hard training".

There is your answer. Plus I have to ask, how close of a connection to Japan did your instructors have? In this training, the game of 6 degrees to Japan doesn't work.

 

[Cryozombie]

I was a member of a bujinkan class for two years. In that time, and having visited a few other places of instruction, I saw nothing at all resembling "hard training".
So, my genuine question to you was, what, and where?

My inital response to that would have to be "further along in your training than you would get in 2 years." Ive been at my dojo almost 4, and I have seen some pretty hardcore stuff, but have hardly participated in much of it.

Plus, like anything else, milage varies from Dojo to Dojo, instructor to instructor. As to your comment that if you tried to use what you had been taught you would get hurt... well, again, that's where you were at at the time... there are numerous, NUMEROUS accounts of Bujinkan students whoes lives were saved, (or the lives of others in one account I can think of) because of their training... So all I can think is you didnt give it enough time.

Maybe my opinion of this is because I dont belive that the martial arts should be an issue of "Instant Gratification" but that it takes years to master them... if you ever truly master them.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I've only watched a couple of classes at a Bujikan dojo so far, but it was about as hard of training as any I've seen, save maybe the Muay Thai and Boxing I used to do. Easily as hard as the Kyokishin dojo I was involved with. A more relaxed atmosphere, but the hard training was there.

Jeff

 

[Zaii]

There is your answer. Plus I have to ask, how close of a connection to Japan did your instructors have? In this training, the game of 6 degrees to Japan doesn't work.

The head instructor was kind of a schmuck and it really hit me when I realized that one of our outdoor training sessions had more or less degenerated into LARPing, and I actually left over finding out that most of his training came from RVD. He constantly talked about Japan, being in japan, etc, and mentioned his "upcoming summer trip" that never happened to my knowledge, and the "signed picture" of Hatsumi on the mantle in the dojo wasn't really enough to convince me of anything (nor should it have been), and seemed a little over the top.

I think what bothers me most of all is that the answer I keep getting from people is "train with Hatsumi", which says to me that people are putting all their faith into one man and what he teaches, and that somehow the status of the art lies in one man's hands. Hasn't he even said himself something along the lines of "if you're not training with me, you're not staying current"?

While it certainly isn't universal, an almost cult-like reverence seems to surround the man, and the idea of one man and a small group of instructors with him having some kind of exclusive handle on progress just seems absurd to me.

I also have a lot of trouble stomaching the "ninja-ism", period dress habits (not even japanese per se, it just seems that in general people in the bujinkan like to dress up in costumes a bit too much) that seems to follow the bujinkan, and the ridiculously poor physical shape the majority of practitioners I've seen have been in.

I'm not discounting the possibility that I've simply never seen a decent school, but I also haven't seen anything pointing towards one.

My inital response to that would have to be "further along in your training than you would get in 2 years." Ive been at my dojo almost 4, and I have seen some pretty hardcore stuff, but have hardly participated in much of it.

Plus, like anything else, milage varies from Dojo to Dojo, instructor to instructor. As to your comment that if you tried to use what you had been taught you would get hurt... well, again, that's where you were at at the time... there are numerous, NUMEROUS accounts of Bujinkan students whoes lives were saved, (or the lives of others in one account I can think of) because of their training... So all I can think is you didnt give it enough time.

Maybe my opinion of this is because I dont belive that the martial arts should be an issue of "Instant Gratification" but that it takes years to master them... if you ever truly master them.

I'd like to think that in two years, training in a martial art, I'd have a much better conception of how to handle myself than before, but honestly, I didn't learn much that was useful until I left that class.

I'm genuinely curious about there being numerous accounts of bujinkan students saving lives with their techniques (including their own), as I hear this constantly, but I've never actually seen someone tell of their own experiences.

I don't believe in instant gratification in any aspect of life, but like I said, I've learned an infinitely larger amount of practical knowledge and application after having left than I ever did while I was in that school.

 

[Cryozombie]

I'd like to think that in two years, training in a martial art, I'd have a much better conception of how to handle myself than before, but honestly, I didn't learn much that was useful until I left that class.

Well, then you were in a bad school, or were not a receptive student... Honestly, it could be either, the guy was genuinly a LARP kinda guy and the training sucked, or you were to hung up on beliving thats what it was and didnt learn.

I'm genuinely curious about there being numerous accounts of bujinkan students saving lives with their techniques (including their own), as I hear this constantly, but I've never actually seen someone tell of their own experiences.

THAT I find difficult to believe, since I hear them often, and have seen the accounts online... if you were genuinly curious you would have seen them by now, or asked some of the people on this board who rely on them in their chosen fields for more info. I'm not one of them, so I can only recount other peoples stories.

I don't believe in instant gratification in any aspect of life, but like I said, I've learned an infinitely larger amount of practical knowledge and application after having left than I ever did while I was in that school.

Well, then perhaps you just didnt find the art to be right for you. I have similar stories about my TKD, Hapkido, and BJJ training from back in the day... but the buj stuff "works" for me... so go figure. Granted, I had to "try on" several buj schools to find the one I like, but hey... thats part of life that doesnt JUST apply to martial arts.

 

[Tengu6]

I'm not lost. I didn't think the forums were exclusive only to people currently training in the style they take their name from. If I've missed something, my apologies.

not exclusive but it helps to have an understanding to contribute IMO

I was a member of a bujinkan class for two years.

Not long enough to make those comments IMO

In that time, and having visited a few other places of instruction, I saw nothing at all resembling "hard training". I saw dead drills, near useless classical stances, predictable randori, and exaggerated lunging punches. I did learn a few valuable things from my time there, but I also learned a few things that if I tried to apply them in a more realistic setting (which all I constantly hear from the BJK crowd, how "street" effective the techniques are) would have landed me with some hefty injuries and likely a trip to the hospital, not to mention had me looking like an idiot performing such useless things as wide circular blocks, for instance.

I cant judge your experience because I was not there and I do not know what dojo you trained at but I do know that understanding true combat is complex and does not remotely resemble UFC or MMA stuff. I hear so much about "trying a technique on a resisting partner"..... well, this is a perfect example of complete lack of understanding because if your partner is resisting, you have already screwed up because he should not have any clue what is happening. If your instructor was unable to create that feeling with you then you were not given a good example of BBT.

I'm not bad mouthing the bujinkan as a whole, and I certainly am not tooting the Toshindo horn, I think stephen hayes is a joke. But I've never seen "hard" training in a bujinkan class, nor do I know anyone who has ever experienced anything resembling it.

So, my genuine question to you was, what, and where?

Fair enough. if you are genuinely interested, let me know where you are from and I will see if I can point you to a good Dojo, but I must say, what you are calling hard training is just one of many training tools used in the bujinkan and probably will not look as you expect it. But perhaps the instructor could give a better example that you have seen so far.

markk bush
www.bujinmag.com

 

[Tengu6]

I think what bothers me most of all is that the answer I keep getting from people is "train with Hatsumi", which says to me that people are putting all their faith into one man and what he teaches, and that somehow the status of the art lies in one man's hands. Hasn't he even said himself something along the lines of "if you're not training with me, you're not staying current"?

While it certainly isn't universal, an almost cult-like reverence seems to surround the man, and the idea of one man and a small group of instructors with him having some kind of exclusive handle on progress just seems absurd to me.

Hatsumi moves like no one else in this art, you truely have to feel it as his uke. You have to understand that some scholars in Japan consider him not only the grandmater of Ninjutsu (and 6 Samurai arts) but the Grandmaster of Budo.....that is huge.

I also have a lot of trouble stomaching the "ninja-ism", period dress habits (not even japanese per se, it just seems that in general people in the bujinkan like to dress up in costumes a bit too much) that seems to follow the bujinkan,

Never saw anyone in a ninja costume.

and the ridiculously poor physical shape the majority of practitioners I've seen have been in.

BBT is veryphysics based and thus stresses "efficiancy" over "strength", so that it why there re more out of shape people than you would see in say BJJ, be careful of the out of shape BBT crowd.......they know they dont have time to play with thier food. heh.

I'd like to think that in two years, training in a martial art, I'd have a much better conception of how to handle myself than before

If you had the right instructor you would, however you wouldnt
necessarily be any good at it yet. Perhaps this is what led you to your conclusions.

markk bush
www.bujinmag.com

 

[Bigshadow]

I think what bothers me most of all is that the answer I keep getting from people is "train with Hatsumi", which says to me that people are putting all their faith into one man and what he teaches

Maybe they are seeing something you don't. It isn't about putting all their faith into one man. Although, it is that one man who has the most experience in the art. If things didn't work, how long do you think it would take all the experienced people to figure it out? I would be quicker to question the other people who claim they have found the way.

While it certainly isn't universal, an almost cult-like reverence seems to surround the man, and the idea of one man and a small group of instructors with him having some kind of exclusive handle on progress just seems absurd to me.

Well he is the source. It takes resources to get there, it takes prioritizing one's life to have the opportunity to travel to Japan to train with the source. Naturally, the number of people who do travel there frequently to train are few in comparison, however, it is not nearly as few as you would think. I know people in my home town who travels to Japan annually and often twice annually. It isn't a cult. If it were someone else who was the source and they lived in Anartica, then people would go there. It would still be comparatively few.

I also have a lot of trouble stomaching the "ninja-ism", period dress habits (not even japanese per se, it just seems that in general people in the bujinkan like to dress up in costumes a bit too much) that seems to follow the bujinkan,

Hmmm... If your talking about wearing tabi, other arts wear them as well. If you mean dressing up in black masks and running up walls and hanging out trees? I haven't seen that.

and the ridiculously poor physical shape the majority of practitioners I've seen have been in.

What kind of shape do you expect everyone to be in? This art can be done by most anyone. I am not in the shape that my instructor is, but then again, I am a fat boy! If you think the training should give you an aerobic workout or strength training, your better off at the gym.

I'm not discounting the possibility that I've simply never seen a decent school, but I also haven't seen anything pointing towards one.

Well, if you don't know what a good school looks like, how are you going to find one? Just a thought.

I'd like to think that in two years, training in a martial art, I'd have a much better conception of how to handle myself than before, but honestly, I didn't learn much that was useful until I left that class.

Your absolutely right, you should have felt you could do something after 2 years. I agree. So find a better school, if it is something you truly want to learn.

 

[Don Roley]

Yet if you lead the horse to the water, knowing that it WILL MOST LIKELY drink it and it died from the poison in the water, it could be very diffucult to argue that it is not your responsible at all. A teacher is undoubtedly not totally responsible for teacher's failing, but if the student uses what the teacher refers to and fail, it is either the student false in misuse or the teacher false in misguidance. It is most probable that it is both the teacher and student false. I'd imagine it is too black/white to claim either side to be totally correct and incorrect. The world is often grey.

Cloud

Again, I doubt that Hayes was pushed into anything like this.

But I can tell you my experiences in things like this. I have found that if I do a bit of research on my own the Japanese shihan are more likely to help you out than if you show up expecting everything to be handed to you on a silver platter. Just knowing Japanese seems to open doors for me. Aside from saving the Japanese time and energy, it shows that you are serious about the matter and are willing to work on your own.

Typically my teachers will give me advice and give some broad advice for study. When I do some, I come back and bring the subject up again. When they figure out how much I have done, they start giving me advice to what areas to concentrate on. And the process repeats.

So if you do not do some research on your own and you don't touch base with the Japanese from time to time, you are going to go spinning off in some strange directions. I have seen that happen.

So I can imagine how a comment by Hatsumi about how Hayes should learn about Japanese matters such as religion and history and somehow that is what Hayes is talking about. I give the same advice about learning all you can about Japan, its culture (which includes its religions), and its language.

But the important thing I want everyone to remember is that if you want to present the idea that the contents of training has changed from the early days, you had better talk to some of the guys that were around Hatsumi for decades back then.

 

[Don Roley]

I saw nothing at all resembling "hard training".

There are groups that train like that in the Bujinkan- especially those that seem to sit on their laurals and don't go out and challenge themselves with things like trips to Japan. But even those that do show up sometimes are not quite as harsh as I think they should.

I had a case where someone that many people here would recognize showed up for my teacher's training. He never came back. A few months later I joked on a mailing list that our training was so off the wall that many people run screaming into the night and never come back. This guy (I was not even aware he was part of the list) shoots back that he never came back because he was scared of getting hurt and not being able to attend any other training in Japan.

I can kind of imagine that reasoning. But I do think that you need to take things to a rougher level with a greater level of danger. My teacher has never given me any injury that made me miss class, nor am I aware of anyone in class missing training because of something he did. But Dale can tell you how he got freaked out within the first few minutes of class when we did taihenjutsu drills.:erg: Of course, Dale is good enough to be pushed like that and the rest of us were known quantities.

You can't do that sort of thing at seminars, because you can't control the level of danger to test people while keeping things reasonably safe.

Wait a second, is any of this really part of this thread?

 

[Zaii]

I see that I'm likely not going to get anywhere with what I'm after, so I'll just end it now and spare the trouble, and as has been pointed out the thread has already been drawn off topic anyway.

There are a lot of things I'd like to address, particularly the comment that I should be wary of the "out of shape bujinkan crowd", but I have a feeling the only thing I'll be doing is stirring up more responses in the same vein.

For the record, I'm not after bujinkan instruction anymore and haven't been for quite some time, I was just curious about what people considered "hard" training in the bujinkan.

 

[Don Roley]

I was just curious about what people considered "hard" training in the bujinkan.

For me, any training where a mistake could end up in serious injury or death. Do not expect that at seminars, nor with students that have only been around a few years. Anyone who would do that sort of training with someone that has not been with them so long and so close that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt just how far to push the envelope is a dangerous moron as far as I am concerned.

 

[Bigshadow]

I see that I'm likely not going to get anywhere with what I'm after

What is it specifically you are after? I certainly haven't seen anything thus far in this thread.

 

[Bigshadow]

There are a lot of things I'd like to address, particularly the comment that I should be wary of the "out of shape bujinkan crowd",but I have a feeling the only thing I'll be doing is stirring up more responses in the same vein.

We can politely discuss that topic. Start a new thread on that topic. Just be polite and you will get politeness back. I would be happy to discuss that with you.