So I must ask, since I have been outside of the Ninjutsu world specifically for a few years, memories of years past with a lot of the indie schools getting smashed about. Which some of them really deserved frankly. But I think that is a general statement of Ninjutsu.
Hey Dave,
Not sure if I agree or disagree with that, ha!
Is there any of the schools outside of the Kans that are still active?
Probably more than there were before, realistically.
Off the top of my head, outside of the Bujinkan, Genbukan, and Jinenkan, there is Hayes' Toshindo, Brian McCarthy's BBD, and Kosen Ron's Shinsenkan being the biggest, but there also being plenty of independent one-off dojo around, such as Peter Brown's in the UK, The Dojo in the US, the schools that broke away from the Genbukan that I am familiar with in both the US and Europe, and myself in Australia. The Myofu-An are still in active practice, and I believe there are still practitioners of Glenn Morirs' Hoshinjutsu system around.
Simply, the longer a school is around, the more likely there are going to be off-shoots. How successful, and how long they last is another question, of course.
Maybe a good discussion of so many of the schools in that group both good and bad.
Potential... the trick will be finding someone with enough exposure to them all to be able to discuss them with any depth.
Is Hayes and Bussey still active? etc etc.
Hayes, and his Toshindo, are still very much active. As for Robert Bussey, he closed down his RBWI (Robery Bussey's Warrior International) organisation in the early 2000's (which was his "ninjutsu" centric organisation), and has been focusing on his Bussey Combatives system as a more modern expression since about 2010 or so. On my side of things, Wayne Roy disbanded his organisation at the end of 2016 (we left the Bujinkan in 2001), to move away from traditional martial arts.
Now that the Bujinkan is segemented has it lost some steam?
That's a rather fraught question, really... is it segmented? Does it still exist? Arguably, there's no such thing as the Bujinkan anymore... except the people involved hanging onto the idea, who remain committed to the organisation. I would say that this state of being will remain until Hatsumi passes, but the splitting of the schools is, to my mind, bizarre and largely meaningless. I've covered this in other posts, so will leave it here for now...