heretic888
Senior Master
Ninjutsu itself is a small specialized science dealing with the gathering and usage of information, strategy, espionage, etc. Judging from that we can clearly see that most people claiming to practice ninjutsu really don't. Strategy and information gathering has extremely little to do with punches, kicks, throws, strangulations, sweeps, takedowns and the like - even though the philosophy behind it all may be connected to the aforementioned strategy, bodily movements in and of themselves are not ninjutsu and never will be...regardless of how much one would like it to be so.
As it was explained to me, ninjutsu (a la Togakure ryu) is really more something you learn to "add to" or "polish off" prior combatic teachings (a la Gyokko ryu and Koto ryu). I've been told more than once that "ninjutsu" somewhat assumes previous training in a ryuha more oriented toward overt combat, and "adds" elements of strategy, philosophy, tactics, deception, and so forth to those teachings.
A ninjutsu system that would focus almost entirely on overt hand-to-hand combat would just seem.... odd. In my opinion. :asian: