you will not get any unbiased advice from these forums on the Bujinkan.
Absolutely agree that we are all bias in some way.
You are completely correct here. You won’t get unbiased opinions on any subject on this forum or any other. That’s because all these posts are written by humans and not omniscient gods. Everything any of us says or does not say comes from our individual perspectives shaped by our individual experiences, personalities, and values.
Being biased does not mean that someone is wrong or lying or ignorant. It just means that when they process the available information they will have a tendency to focus on certain aspects of the story and be predisposed to draw certain kinds of conclusions and possibly make mistakes in one direction rather than another if they do get things wrong.
It’s useful to be able to identify your own biases and those of your sources, because it can help warn you of where to look for errors or omissions. (Both in your own thinking and in the sources you rely on.) It’s not generally helpful to dismiss sources out of hand just for being biased, because there are no unbiased sources to be had here or elsewhere.
I don’t think you are going to get any objective or factual information on the Bujinkan from these forums.
See my comments above regarding bias and objectivity. However if you think any of the specifics offered above are incorrect or non-factual, feel free to offer corrections. I should note that none of the information you’ve provided so far contradicts any of what we’ve written.
The other 2 “somewhat educated” posters, one is not a member of the Bujinkan and like never has been and the others credentials is dubious considering he apparently is a member but doesn’t seem to like it much.
I presume you are referring to Dunc and myself.
Dunc has been a member of the Bujinkan for over 30 years, teaches within the Bujinkan, has made numerous visits to Japan for training, and has written on more than one occasion on the value he finds in the training. I’m not sure where you would get the idea that he doesn’t like it much or that his credentials are dubious.
I trained in the Bujinkan for about 9 years before I drifted away into other arts for a variety of reasons. Since then I’ve occasionally trained a little bit with other Bujinkan practitioners and kept up with some of the news from the organization and checked out videos of Bujinkan instructors to see how the art has evolved (or not) since I left.
As far as my biases, I have opinions regarding the curriculum, training methodology, and culture of the Bujinkan based on my first hand experience training there and my subsequent training in other arts over the almost 3 decades since I left. I proffered a very small portion of those opinions in my original post.
As far as the history goes, I just summarized information I’ve gotten from a number of people (inside and outside of the Bujinkan) who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding Japanese history and traditional Japanese arts and the Takamatsuden arts in particular. I don’t pretend to have any first hand knowledge of the matter. I’m neither a time traveler nor a Japanese historian. I don’t even speak or read Japanese, so I’m not in a position to evaluate primary sources.
If you are doing research on the authenticity of the Bujinkan then you will need to do a lot on the lineage of each school to satisfy yourself.
I guess what I am saying RogueShooter06 is to do your own research and come to your own conclusions
And here we come to the problem I referred to above. How exactly is RogueShooter06 supposed to “do his own research?” He can find the info you listed above on Wikipedia. As far as establishing the historical bona fides of the individual lineages, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge. I’m still reading Askew’s book, but he states early on that none of the history of Togakure Ryu was ever written down before Takamatsu - that it was strictly a secret oral tradition before that. (I haven’t gotten to any mentions of the other 5 associated lineages, but I suspect the same will turn out be true of them as well.) How exactly is a non-Japanese, non-historian supposed to “do his own research” to determine the accuracy of this claimed secret oral tradition? This is why I stated in my original post that we will probably never know the full truth regarding the origins of those 6 of the arts contained within the Bujinkan.
(I’ll leave aside the debate about whether the individual arts are “taught” within the Bujinkan or if it’s all Hatsumi’s personal synthesis of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. I know that the individual techniques and katas from the individual arts have been shown. I believe that when Chris says that the individual arts aren’t taught, he means that they aren’t taught as separate arts with distinct body dynamics and tactical doctrines and training methodologies. We’ve had some discussions and debates in the past concerning our philosophies on how martial arts can be categorized and distinguished.)
BTW, I’m still planning on presenting a short book report with my impressions on Sean Askew’s book once I’m finished, in case anyone is considering checking it out for themself.
