Ninjutsu vs Bjj (NAGA rules)

[Tony Dismukes]

Reading this thread makes me want to stay away from any BJJ studies because that kind of condescending attitude is not where I want to spend my time.

While I do hope someday to have the financial means to study a grappling art, (a guest instructor taught a few classes of jujitsu at my Karate club back in the 1990's and I loved it) I have now crossed BJJ off the potential list. If BJJ needs that much negativity toward others to promote itself, well, it must be compensating for something.


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Most of us don’t actually have such negative attitudes. I’ve been a BJJ instructor for some years now. I invite you to look through my posting history and see if you can find any examples of my trashing other arts. I don’t think you’ll find any.

 

[drop bear]

More and more these days I’m trying to include that approach in the BJJ I teach. It’s important to know how to work from the bottom when you have to, but it shouldn’t be your default in most situations.

Yeah. It is important supplemental knowledge.

Even as a drill. It teaches a lot of important ideas. I mean even just taking that will game into bjj submissions is beneficial.

 

[drop bear]

Speaking of which, how's Sambo doing in Australia? It's pretty much DOA in the states.

Nice vid.

I have never really seen it. But then I have never really seen wrestling here either. It is mostly jits for grappling.

Our gym in theory is strong wrestling base but I am not all that great a representation of it. Mostly because I am lazy. And stand up is hard.

 

[Hanzou]

I'll answer give a response to this one for you. I'm not a grappling guy but those videos are questionable. Now take it with the understanding that I'm not a grappling guy and there's 90% chance I don't know what I'm looking at.,, but hmmm that 10% certainty is looking pretty solid. It's just the mechanics of it all. After paying attention to body mechanics some stuff just makes you wonder "Have they really tried the technique that they are showing in a demo?"

You're being quite generous. I can give the Ninjas at Bujinkan Matacowhatever a pass, but the head of modern Ninjutsu should know better.

My guess is that this is new stuff added.

You guess? Of course its new stuff added. I have no problem with that, but at least be real about where you got it from. You didn't get it from some ancient Ninja scroll, you got it in a Bjj gym or a video.

The entire concept of being stealthy is to do the job quickly and not wrestle on the ground for 3 minutes and hope no one comes by. Even 1 minute is enough time to yell for help and to attract attention. Mobility would be a must for anyone sneaking around trying to get in and get out. Not saying you are wrong, but my guess is that it's probably something that was added. Sort of like how some striking schools add BJJ components because the striking system had limited ground fighting.

Not every system has a dedicated ground fighting component. If a person is on a battlefield or village skirmish, then you can lay on the ground if you like and hope the other side doesn't come to the aid of their fellow soldier. And you can hope that you won't get a knife in you t while you try to get off the ground after being tangled up with your enemy.

Things have to be taken into context and people just need to except if their system is limited on ground fighting instead of just making stuff up, just for the purpose of saying "yeah we we do that, ground fighting stuff"

Speaking of people making stuff up....

Enjoy.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The "leg lifting" throw is one of the most difficult throws to develop. It requires single leg balance and leg flexibility. I give credit to that BJJ blue belt for being able to make that work. It's also one of the most difficult throw to counter. Even if many beginners don't know how to counter it, a black belt should know how to counter it. I don't see any counter intention in that clip.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

And stand up is hard.

I think ground game is harder than the stand up game. If you are good in stand up game, you can relax and your opponent will have hard time to take you down. But if you are good in ground game, you can't relax as you do in the stand up game.

 

[Headhunter]

Reading this thread makes me want to stay away from any BJJ studies because that kind of condescending attitude is not where I want to spend my time.

While I do hope someday to have the financial means to study a grappling art, (a guest instructor taught a few classes of jujitsu at my Karate club back in the 1990's and I loved it) I have now crossed BJJ off the potential list. If BJJ needs that much negativity toward others to promote itself, well, it must be compensating for something.


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I 100% see your point especially with the Gracie's constantly trashing then stupid threads like this. But not everyone's as closed minded as this. Bjj is good does it have all the answers 100% not just like any style. The best instructors are the ones that know that. Frankly if anyone's got to put down other styles to say how good theirs is that's some serious insecurity issues they have

 

[dunc]

If you don't do ground fighting as a methodology you should be wrestling not bjj by the way.

Because they do take down defense fight for top position and try to stand back up.

Yeah I think that's valid
Both BJJ & wrestling would seem to fit the bill

FWIW - I gravitated towards BJJ as 1) it fits quite naturally with the older Japanese schools which do cover take downs and defences, 2) it's an easy adaption from "escape to try and submit" to "escape and stand", and 3) I feel that the gi forces you to develop technical solutions that perhaps you won't get without the gi

 

[dunc]

They'll never do that because they want to claim that ground fighting is native to their MA system, but was just hidden within the kata.

Probably there are some people who try to claim that
BUT, in my experience they are very much in the minority - the techniques of the old Japanese schools are pretty much in the public domain and it's clear to all how much newaza they include

 

[JowGaWolf]

You're being quite generous. I can give the Ninjas at Bujinkan Matacowhatever a pass, but the head of modern Ninjutsu should know better.



You guess? Of course its new stuff added. I have no problem with that, but at least be real about where you got it from. You didn't get it from some ancient Ninja scroll, you got it in a Bjj gym or a video.



Speaking of people making stuff up....

Enjoy.

The video reminds me of something my dad told me long ago "Do it right or don't do it at all" I haven't thought about that in more than 30 years. If I had to teach a ninjutsu class. I would follow it the same way that I follow my Jow Ga Kung Fu and that is.. "We don't play on the ground, we escape from it." I would stay true to this as much as possible and just focus on being good with 2 things in terms of ground fighting.

1. Escaping and countering any of the opponents attempts to be put on the ground.
2. Escaping from the ground once the opponent is successful with #1.
3. If I go to the ground it should be of my own choice and not because of my opponent's successful technique. Being on the ground should always be for a moment.

If I can be really good with #1 and #2 then I can deny the ground fight and deny / avoid where my my opponent is stronger than me. I wouldn't add anything to the system unless it works well with #1 , #2, and #3. My opinion is that once Ninjutsu gets into having 3 minute grappling matches, then it has moved very far away from the concept of finishing the fight quickly and as a result it throws away a lot of the concepts and true focus of what Ninjutsu was. Now if there's a BJJ technique that will allow me to stay within 1-3 then go for it.

I guess I look at things like the role of a sniper. Once a sniper starts to learn how to enter a hostile building, he's no longer sniping and knowing how to enter a building doesn't help him be a better sniper. Learning how to be on the ground for more than a moment probably doesn't help someone to be good at being a Ninja.

Jinichi Kawakami is supposed to be the last of the Ninja. If this is true then everything he has said is far from what we see from other people claiming to be Ninjas. The concept and focus of training are totally on opposite ends.
Japan's last ninja Jinichi Kawakami, 63, can hear a needle drop in the next room and kill from 20 paces | Daily Mail Online

 

[Hanzou]

I 100% see your point especially with the Gracie's constantly trashing then stupid threads like this. But not everyone's as closed minded as this. Bjj is good does it have all the answers 100% not just like any style. The best instructors are the ones that know that. Frankly if anyone's got to put down other styles to say how good theirs is that's some serious insecurity issues they have

Yeah, because the Gracie's are the only martial artists to ever claim that their arts are superior to all others.

I suppose you didn't read some of the descriptions of those Ninja videos I posted. Quite a few describe their ground techniques as something you won't find in "sports or UFC". Implying that what we do is just fun and games, while they do the "real stuff". They aren't the only ones either, so I have no issue being critical of traditional styles who claim they're more effective than styles with a competitive component.

 

[frank raud]

The "leg lifting" throw is one of the most difficult throws to develop. It requires single leg balance and leg flexibility. I give credit to that BJJ blue belt for being able to make that work. It's also one of the most difficult throw to counter. Even if many beginners don't know how to counter it, a black belt should know how to counter it. I don't see any counter intention in that clip.

That blue belt in BJJ is also a brown belt in judo.

 

[dunc]

Yeah, because the Gracie's are the only martial artists to ever claim that their arts are superior to all others.

I suppose you didn't read some of the descriptions of those Ninja videos I posted. Quite a few describe their ground techniques as something you won't find in "sports or UFC". Implying that what we do is just fun and games, while they do the "real stuff". They aren't the only ones either, so I have no issue being critical of traditional styles who claim they're more effective than styles with a competitive component.

There are some idiots in the Bujinkan (often referred to as ninjutsu) and a proportion of those idiots try to pass off some crappy ground fighting that they made up as somehow unique & thereby different from sports/UFC. Unfortunately these idiots seem to like posting videos online...

The vast majority of people in the Bujinkan will simply say that "we don't do much ground fighting". There are loads of historical reasons for the lack of a focus on the ground, but bear in mind that mostly the curriculum within the Bujinkan comes from old schools of Japanese martial arts (aka jujutsu, budo, etc)

The ground fighting that does exist is different from modern grappling in that its objective is to finish the opponent quickly or to create space to access weapons (often with strikes) whilst retaining a high degree of mobility (thereby sacrificing some control)

 

[Hanzou]

The video reminds me of something my dad told me long ago "Do it right or don't do it at all" I haven't thought about that in more than 30 years. If I had to teach a ninjutsu class. I would follow it the same way that I follow my Jow Ga Kung Fu and that is.. "We don't play on the ground, we escape from it." I would stay true to this as much as possible and just focus on being good with 2 things in terms of ground fighting.

1. Escaping and countering any of the opponents attempts to be put on the ground.
2. Escaping from the ground once the opponent is successful with #1.
3. If I go to the ground it should be of my own choice and not because of my opponent's successful technique. Being on the ground should always be for a moment.

If I can be really good with #1 and #2 then I can deny the ground fight and deny / avoid where my my opponent is stronger than me. I wouldn't add anything to the system unless it works well with #1 , #2, and #3. My opinion is that once Ninjutsu gets into having 3 minute grappling matches, then it has moved very far away from the concept of finishing the fight quickly and as a result it throws away a lot of the concepts and true focus of what Ninjutsu was. Now if there's a BJJ technique that will allow me to stay within 1-3 then go for it.

Yeah, now you're entering silly territory.

There are people out there that will put you on the ground, and keep you on the ground. If MMAists, Judoka, Jiujiteiros, Samboists, and state and collegiate wrestlers can be taken down, you can be taken down as well. Unless Jow Ga has some grappling escapes I've never seen before, punching, kicking, and clawing isn't going to cut the mustard. Once the first blows start dropping from the superior position, you're going to start reacting instead of thinking and it'll be all over before you know it because you're going to be taking very significant damage.

Additionally, it shouldn't take me, or any mid-to advanced level grappler 3 minutes to subdue someone on the ground unless my opponent is also a mid-to advanced level grappler. If you have no grappling experience and a grappler is on top of you, you're screwed unless you've trained against it.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that whatever kung fu skills you've developed will protect you from gravity, they won't. This is especially true in the US where grappling is exploding in popularity and people are flooding into wrestling, BJJ, Sambo, and MMA prgrams and mixing everything together to create even more potent grappling systems. Frankly traditional arts aren't keeping up with that evolution, much less learning how to properly counter it. Some are adopting Bjj into their programs, which is a good thing, but unless they're doing dedicated programs, it may not be enough.

In short, there's nothing wrong with some cross-training. I'm sure you can find some Bjj or Wrestling in your neck of the woods.

 

[Martial D]

Yeah, because the Gracie's are the only martial artists to ever claim that their arts are superior to all others.

Surely not, people have been doing that forever.

BJJ is only special in that they have tended to put their money where their mouths are.

 

[drop bear]

Yeah I think that's valid
Both BJJ & wrestling would seem to fit the bill

FWIW - I gravitated towards BJJ as 1) it fits quite naturally with the older Japanese schools which do cover take downs and defences, 2) it's an easy adaption from "escape to try and submit" to "escape and stand", and 3) I feel that the gi forces you to develop technical solutions that perhaps you won't get without the gi

There is also more bjj out there. People understand it a bit more. So I realize why people do it.

This video on ben Aiken kind of shows the difference in priorities. So even if you jits it is worthwhile thinking about.

 

[Hanzou]

Surely not, people have been doing that forever.

BJJ is only special in that they have tended to put their money where their mouths are.

Exactly. Somehow I don't think "Michele" has any issue when Karate or JJJ talks trash on those "MMA meanie-heads".

 

[Martial D]

Exactly. Somehow I don't think "Michele" has any issue when Karate or JJJ talks trash on those "MMA meanie-heads".

Followed by 100 reasons they aren't willing to prove it.

 

[pdg]

Exactly. Somehow I don't think "Michele" has any issue when Karate or JJJ talks trash on those "MMA meanie-heads".

I have an issue when they do... It lowers everyone associated with them, just like when bjj people do it.

There is no "best" - there's best for the person and best for the situation, but that's it.

I think tkd is best for me, but I don't think it'll give me superpowers to prevail in any/every encounter, because that would be silly.

 

[Headhunter]

Exactly. Somehow I don't think "Michele" has any issue when Karate or JJJ talks trash on those "MMA meanie-heads".

I have a problem with anyone who does that regardless of style because it's stupid, childish and pointless