I left the Bujinkan some years back. Trained other things. Saw the good and the bad. Not at all shocked by the transition of the lineages. Now I am not involved at all at this point. I suppose a lot of the world is. But how is it run now>? Are the independent ryuha running as their own. Where say you could find a school of Shinden Fudo Ryu and rank just in that? So, for example. I have my Yondan. If I went to a school these days where would I place? Or is it still Bujinkan, just the ryuha have different heads. Is there an organizational head? I know years ago you would be skewered even asking a question as such. At this point from me it comes from a place of current ignorance.
Nothing has really changed yet Perhaps once the pandemic is "over" and folks start to travel again and/or when Hatsumi-sensei leaves this mortal coil things will evolve
Certainly is interesting. I thought one would have ended up with the whole thing. But I guess this was makes sense as well. I haven't see anything from the former power ranger heading up Togakure Ryu now. It is good to see Nagato and Nagouchi Shihans as well as Ishizuka being recognized. Even if they latter being somewhat controversial at times. I guess we'll see. Yes the pandemic has pretty much chomped on everything.
I think this was kind of broached on this thread a few years back https://www.martialartsplanet.com/threads/succession-of-the-schools.133087/ quite how it will turn out is anyone's guess with the various ryu' now being fragmented across 9 different headmasters. If it works we will probably see a 'council' being set up by the heads to act as a technical committee of sorts to maintain and diverge info of the various schools. The loose structure the Org has had worked well with Hatsumi as the personality at the centre, but It might be high time it developed more generic Gendai Budo organisation with a more obvious curriculum . I suspect the new headmasters will not have the blind hero worship around Hatsumi which might in the long term be a good thing. As for Takumi Tsutsui, well even I was puzzled as to why an actor was made Togakure ryu head. But I think its worth remembering that as part of of being the titular character of the show Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya, he was definitely given some physical training by Hatsumi which may or may not have included stuff from Togakure Ryu, which admittedly is more obvious when hes out of costume (I suspect the stuntman in the Jiraiah power ranger costume was doing something else entirely...) . Quite what he intends to do with hsi new Sokeiship remains to be seen.
From my limited knowledge almost every teacher focuses more on certain things than others. For instance mine focuses on Ukemi, Gyokko Ryu and Sword work probably more than some of the other things the art covers. I've heard of schools that do almost no Ukemi at all. I'm not here to knock them for it either. I think it's just more so the fact so much can be covered that each teacher has to kind of pick and choose what their main focus will be. If I'm wrong in this please correct me. This is just an observation from an amateur