Not a close comparison as that wouldn't be phonetically close nor common usage. However I don't care if people spell it gung fu or kung fu, tai chi or Taiji, wing chun or ving chun or wing tsun or ving tsun. They're all commonly used and commonly accepted. And jitsu is a commonly accepted way to romanize that character. Heck not of few posts up from here you have someone using both!
[/QUOTE] I have been told Hatsumi sensei has the scrolls for this ryuha. Not sure about Jinchi Kawakami but his taijutsu gives me serious doubts...If thats the level Akutagawa ninja have Im surprised if even 1 survived to transmit it. Regards / Skuggvarg[/QUOTE] My typo I meant to write curiously I was more convinced by his shinobi skills than his bujutsu skills. Regardless he has repeatedly said that what has been transmitted to him does not include fighting techniques, and anything that he does show cones from other ryuha handed down to him (not sure which schools these are, there are mentioned on the spanish dojo website somewhere) that being said while his martial skills look staged and formulaic, his stuff from the scroll such as grinding powders Making caltrops and such like looks kosher and in line with historical manuals. It is of course just conjecture. We have documentation but no record of his teacher Masai Ishida ever existing.
Only someone without any knowledge of Japanese would write ninjutsu as ninjitsu. There is no comparison to writing kungfu/gungfu. If you don't understand Japanese, you shouldn't weigh in and show your lack of knowledge. Ninjutsu isn't easy to define, hence the nonsense in print and on the internet. If you want to know how to define it, you should research all Japanese sources and learn how it was defined in Japan throughout the centuries. Reading a poorly researched English translation of xy or z scroll or work won't substitute for that kind of intellectual and scholarly pursuit.
When you wrote this, did you intend to insult the intelligence for everyone else that's contributed? Do the Japanese write jitsu, jutsu, or bob? Why would they unless they are attempting to use a language that is not native of them? And while we're on the subject, you do realise that historically here was no Japan, or Japanese as we know it today don't you? It was lots of independent kingdoms. One of the most influential as Okinawa, which was one of the last to resist Japanese conquest and was independent until very recently. Okinawa as soon influential in martial arts because of its trade alliances with China and Korea which in turn had connections and influence with Persia and India. Language itself is still not entirely unified not the region. But I guess you know all that and more.
Japanese is also different from Chinese in that there is uniformity. Chinese has Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Cantonese, etc. Mao Tse Tung can be Mao Zedong, depending on who you ask, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi is Toyotomi Hideyoshi. I asked some Chinese coworkers what they call General Tso's Chicken (General Chu, General Gao, etc), and they all had a different answer. And yes it's always "Jutsu". And while "Jitsu" is incorrect, it's often used to differentiate modern "Jiu-Jitsu" from classical "Jujutsu".
Often but not always. Again, our discussions are explicit enough that no one is really using spelling as the kind of differentiation. And we've established there's a convention in romanization for doing it both ways. Feel uppity and superior if you like; think that people are spelling it incorrectly; but language is a democratic phenomena and I'll choose to use whichever of the two conventions I like just as many other will. In one sentence I may spell it one way, in another I may spell it the other. There's no need to become whiny language fascists.
Not why you feel insulted, what I wrote wasn't an insult. It is factual that jitsu is incorrect and only those without knowledge of the language would write that(with jujutsu outside of Japan that is a convention, like calling dogi kimonos; that is accepted practice) and continue arguing that is okay to write that although people familiar with the language explain why it is incorrect. I have never heard of anyone Japanese using that way of Romanization, probably because they don't need to write it in English and know that the word for skill(jutsu) can never be pronounced jitsu so they wouldn't write it that way. If they weren't familiar with English, I could see how it could be a typo, but wrong is wrong. Okinawan martial arts have nothing to do with this conversation, nor does Okinawa in general. It was colonised by the Satsuma of Kyushu but wasn't really part of Japan until later. What do you mean by influential in martial arts? Before Japan was unified(most consider 1600 or 1602 as a workable date), it was made up of independent regions(don't know if I'd use kingdoms), but that is neither here nor there. There are local dialects even today, but jutsu is still jutsu.
Language evolves based on use. It's democratic and decided by users rather than by academics trying to impose arbitrarily defined standards. Using most adverbs without -ly is technically wrong but since the majority of people have started doing it it is becoming the standard. Lots of people use the romanization 'jitsu.' In fact most BJJ schools romanize it that way. Kano romanized it that way several times when referring to koryu. I've even seen "Yoshin-ryu jujitsu" several times. It's as wrong as the adverb sans -ly or using "you" as an informal pronoun.
Thanks for the clarification. What I wanted to point out is that there are many ninjutsu researchers who knows about arcaic stuff like you described above. You dont need a teacher to learn these things. Hatsumi sensei knows so much on the field it would make him soke of countless ninjutsu ryuha by that definition. Now, what would be interesting was if he could demonstrate some ability that he allegedly got from his teacher that would be really really hard to just learn from reading a scroll. Most people can follow a recipe without having learned it from a master cook. Are there any such signs from him? Another thing that I find peculiar is that he conditioned his hand (hands?) by striking hard surfaces. Why would he do that if there were no fighting system included. Doesnt make sense to me... Regards / Skuggvarg
The spelling "ninjitsu" has also been associated with frauds and charlatans, so if you want to define ninjitsu, just read some Ashida Kim, check out Koga styles, and follow Rick Tew. Using different romanisation for Jujutsu related arts outside of Japan is fine. There is a history and common usage that most are familiar with. However, that has nothing to do with ninjutsu and how it is written in English. Using ninjitsu will make you appear like a fraud or someone who doesn't know anything. Being warned is for your own good, not to be a language Nazi.
I'm going to test the efficacy of ninjitsu by spelling the ninjitsu until ninjitsu practitioners everywhere suddenly appear on my office ceiling after training 2 hours a week for the past 3 years to assassinate me for spelling it ninjitsu. If you hear on the news that software developer died of a mysterious poisoning at his desk by a black clad shadow figure, then we can take it as evidence that it is indeed unacceptable to call it ninjitsu.
Good luck. If you can't even outwit autocorrect, ninjers appearing in your office might be a bit too much to handle. At any rate, it has little to do with the OP so we are just wasting bandwidth chasing this rabbit any further.
Anyway Moving on, back to the original topic, let's define ninjitsu. I'm guessing it's a little bit more than a linguistics art.
Here's an example of someone throwing around Japanese and Japanesey phrases while making little in the way of fleshing out his factual claims: http://www.seishinkan.com/martial_members_area/john_viol_daishihan_menkyokaiden.htm Doesn't mean he's automatically a fake, just that something smells fishy. Just like with ninjutsu, you have to look deeper and ask questions before claiming to know something or accepting things people say about it at face value.
Probably you are interested in the use of techniques from Naruto. There are indeed some techniques in Ninjutsu that makes use of the life force (qi/ki/chi) and some about magic too but these were those which were commonly believed in, even outside the circles of ninjutsu; also, so far there is no big physically practical use to them. Even if these have to work, it would take several years of continuous practice (I suppose around 30 atleast) to be able to master them to a level that you can pass a needle through a concrete wall or push a glass of water over table without physical contact. If you want to discuss the use of life-force in martial arts in general, please open up a new thread. If you are interested in the general use of supernatural techniques, better join a psychic forum online.
