Ég var að velta fyrir mér hvort er einhver hérna á Akureyri ef ekki í Reykjavík sem stundar Bujinkan?
Þekki reyndar einn hérna á Akureyri
og héld að hann sé sá eini.
Hatsumi sensei first took a shot at a ninjutsu empire in Japan back in the 60s and 70s during the ninja boom there. He affiliated himself at first with Yumio Nawa Sensei and there are indications that he was, for a time, a student of Nawa Sensei. Things did not work out exactly as planned as far as numbers were concerned, but the Bujinkan was born. For a time, Hatsumi let the ninja image go, and concentrated on serious training based on the bujutsu he had been taught by Takamatsu. In the 70s, this small school had an extraordinary reputation in martial arts circles in Japan – the students there were tough! (I witnessed perhaps the last vestiges of that reputation in 1986). The training was severe! I have no doubt that for a long time, Hatsumi Sensei personally believed Takamatsu Sensei’s claims. However, it is a matter of record that in the late 70s he asked Shoto Tanemura, then a policeman, to investigate his teacher’s claims, and Tanemura was unable to verify their validity, including the existence of the Grandmaster cited as previous to Takamatsu! Therefore, there is no question that, at least by the 80s, Hatsumi Sensei knew exactly what was going on regarding the lineage he was holding.
Now, let me make something clear. Masaaki Hatsumi Sensei is a highly talented individual with extraordinary martial and esoteric knowledge. Let it be known that I respect his abilities greatly, and always have – they are undeniable. This article of mine however has to do with the question of his intent and method rather than his abilities, and that is another matter entirely.
Stephen Hayes, son of Ira (hence the marketing background), was the first in the US to option the legendary ninja business plan. He did it extraordinarily well. In 1981, Stephen was giving seminars all over the US, bringing in at least six figures back then, and more power to him. He came up with the business plan, packaged it, sold it (with a little help from Ira’s connections), and the public bought it. I was one of the buyees. While what Steve was teaching was not specifically representative of the Bujinkan dojo, one could say that this really didn’t matter in the end, because as we will see, there has been no teaching regime specific to the Bujinkan dojo since 1985 or thereabouts.
In the 60s and 70s, as I mentioned, the Bujinkan practitioners became well-rounded martial artists. This was a result of severe training. This training revolved around endless repetition, makiwara striking, randori, and violent application of technique; it should be noted as well that all the practitioners had a background in other martial arts and martial sports, some being very high ranking in same. However, the referenced training method did not sell very well to the general public, and circa 1980 Hatsumi Sensei was debating closing shop.
During this period, Hatsumi Sensei had determined that hard training does not sell well, and came up with the kata-based, free-variation, no-resistance training that made his fortune and has characterized the Bujinkan since the mid-eighties. Concurrently, he hyped up the ninja image once again, because Steve had proven that it worked, and stirred in all the trappings – the patches, black uniforms, construction worker’s tabi, exotic weapons, talcum powder, etc. Circa 1988-89 Fumio Manaka gave a series of private seminars in the States, for the most part to my own students, in which he presented the individual ryu-ha kata material. It went over really big. That was the final piece of the puzzle for Hatsumi Sensei. The Bujinkan took wing. Bujinkan students did kata, non-resisting, and did continuous henka, just like “The Old Man”. The difference was, the Old Man had a lifetime of serious martial arts training behind him, and he was, well, old.
At the same time, circa September 1986 (he even changed his warrior name to symbolize this change in intentions), Hatsumi Sensei began to indulge in selling ranks. This was centred on his advanced recognition of the new market economy. Previous martial arts businesses had been based on multi-level marketing. You had a Regional Director, most typically from the country of origin, a national director, area managers, and local teachers, with the lower levels feeding percentages all the way up the food chain. Away with MLM, Hatsumi declared! There can be only One, and He shall be Me – it’s my school after all! As early as 1986, the Japanese Shihan were complaining to me that Hatsumi Sensei was taking their students away from them. Watch how this worked: the middleman went in, set up shop, then surrendered his efforts and his students to the boss. Works great if you’re the Teacher, but sucks if you’re the middleman. And if that middleman was your own student who had devoted years of his life to you, well, that showed how much you really cared for your student, I suppose. Dog eat dog world, after all. In any case, Hatsumi Sensei followed the modern entrepreneurship franchising system. On the one hand, part of it was simple genius on Dr. Hatsumi’s part: you set up an easy method of training, cloaked it in mystique, made it cult-like in its focus, centered it on one individual. Distribute books and tapes profusely (does this remind anyone of Amway?) so that the material is superficially out there for anyone to review. Eliminate all merit based criteria – in fact, ranks are openly requested and sold freely by correspondence, without examination. (Drumroll) Instant success! Not multi-level, but bi-level marketing, with Hatsumi on one tier and everyone else on the other. The scope is simple – get the numbers out there and the rest is sure to follow. On the other hand, I personally believe the aforementioned system was conceived not only by foresight, but by two additional factors: 1) Hatsumi Sensei’s inability to trust in anyone because of his own family history, and 2) more importantly, because of his inability to handle and understand technology. His grasp of economic transaction was strictly barter; I get the cash, you get the diploma with the stamp on it. Under the circumstances, people suggesting computers and databases (such as myself) in order to insure a more merit-based, time-in-actual-training-dependent system, were met with suspicion and open hostility.
The situation got so bad that Bujinkan ranks had to be increased by another ten so that they could be sold further (that is to say, 15 Dan, plus another 5 variations on the 15th – the presumption that there are “only” 15 Dan in the Bujinkan is incorrect).
Video results for “Bujinkan”: Results 1-20 of 134
Video results for ‘Bujinkan sparring’
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Video results for 'Bujinkan Randori'
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Ron Beaubien
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Ninjutsu History?
And in another “Question & Answer” excerpt by Dr. Karl Friday (Professor of History at the University of Georgia and author of Hired Swords and Legacies of the Sword) from the June-July-Aug 1999 Journal of Japanese Sword Arts (reproduced with permission of the author) we have a bit on “Ninjutsu History.”
Q: I was told once that there never really was “ninja”–in fact the story I got was that an American invented the whole ninja “thing” and sold it to the Japanese who loved the idea and made a lot of B movies about ninja and their secret ways. Any comments?
A: The lack of reliable documents to work with makes ninja and ninjutsu a very difficult subject to research, and the ninja movie and novel phenomenon gives the whole topic a cartoonish aura that further dissuades academic historians from looking into it. Thus, there isn't much out there to read, other than what has been written by modern teachers of “ninjutsu,” none of whom have any credentials as historians. In English, you're simply SOL; in Japanese there are a few decent books and articles around, but for the most part information on ninja has to be culled in bits and snippets from studies on other topics.
The most reliable reconstructions of “ninja” history suggest that “ninja” denotes a function, not a special kind of warrior–ninja WERE samurai (a term, with BTW, didn't designate a class until the Tokugawa period–AFTER the warfare of the late medieval period had ended–before that it designated only an occupation) performing “ninja” work.
The idea that distinctive, specialized ninjutsu ryuha existed prior to modern times is highly suspect. Specialization–focusing on one art, such as the use of sword or spear–was a phenomenon of the Tokugawa period, when Japan was at peace and bugei training was undertaken more for reasons of traditionalism or self-development than for practical use. Prior to that no warrior could afford to specialize–any more than today's infantrymen can afford to learn only one weapon. Given the pomposity of tone that developed in samurai philosophy during this period, arts of concealment and espionage strike me as exceedingly odd choice for samurai seeking spiritual development or contact with past glories. It IS possible, or course, that a few small specialist traditions developed during this period (possibly to serve the interests of would-be spies or thieves) but this would have been a very small market and a difficult one for teachers to reach and sustain. In any event, there is NO extant documentation for ninjutsu ryuha (including the documents that Hatsumi Masaaki claims to possess) that independent experts (historians or authorities on diplomatics) have been able to authenticate as dating from prior to the late 19th century.
On the other hand, even the movie-style ninja have a much longer history than the movies. Ninja shows, ninja houses (sort of like American “haunted houses” at carnivals), and ninja novels and stories were popular by the middle of the Tokugawa period. The “ninja” performers may have created the genre completely out of whole cloth, or they may have built on genuine lore derived from old spymasters. Either way, however, it's clear that much of the lore underlying both modern ninja movies and modern ninja schools has both a long history AND little basis in reality outside the theatre.Karl Friday
We've been accused of unreasonable prejudice against the popular “ninjutsu”-derived arts. To avoid having to repeatedly answer charges of bias, I've assembled a few other independent researchers' thoughts on the matter. Basically, it is our opinion that modern-day ninjutsu and ninjutsu-derived arts are not koryu bujutsu. They are not based on a continuous transmission of technique and culture. Koryu.com covers koryu bujutsu. That doesn't mean that arts we don't cover are not worthwhile. We just don't cover them.
Let me say this again, since it seems some people don't understand. We do not cover ninjutsu! The art and those derived from it do not fall into our definition of the koryu bujutsu. Period. If you want to define the koryu differently, that's fine. Just don't ask us to change our definition, which is based on considerable first-hand experience and decades of research in Japanese source material. Please do not trouble yourself to write us to try and convince us to change our minds. It will not work.
We have made every effort to be as low-key as possible on the issue of “Is ninjutsu koryu?” We do not stress or advertise our position. That's because we sincerely believe that if your training is working for you then it is none of our business. However, if you come to us and ask whether we consider ninjutsu or the Bujinkan-derived arts to be koryu–well, we can only provide our honest opinion.
Please, please, please don't waste your time or ours. We really have seen the material relating to this issue; unless you happen to be a Japanese scholar who delves into ancient makimono, you won't turn up something we haven't seen and considered. Again, just because we don't share the same opinion doesn't mean that we are not all doing useful and good training. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. I really appreciate your consideration!