What I don't get is why Hatsumi formed the Bujinkan at all? If the ryuha arts can only be learnt in a close teacher/student relationship that needs almost daily correction and close physical proximity and rank is menkyo only (and Hatsumi seems to have done that sort of teaching well enough to keep the arts alive into the next generation) why form the Bujinkan? If the arts cannot be learnt in an organisation structured like the Bujinkan why start an organisation like that?
Just so that my post above isn't seen as trolling, I should expand on it. It is very common to have an "outer circle" that bankrolls an "inner circle", which is actually the art's raison d'être. Obviously there are big differences, but is it worlds apart from a combat sport gym that stays afloat and keeps competing by virtue of a continuous flow of beginners coming through the door?
Yeah. There are definitely gyms that have fight teams and are helped along by new peoplease signing up. The other side of that though is that new people signing up are probably learning combat effective stuff and sparring each other.
Probably, but not always. I've known people join a kickboxing gym and not learn anything effective or get to spar anyone unless they shell out ridiculous money for kit that has to be supplied through the gym. I seem to remember a couple of boxing beginners complaining on MAP about being left to their own devices and not really receiving any amount of coaching too. Even if they're learning good stuff, I don't think they can be said to be receiving the real transmission. Not the same one-to-one training a competitive fighter gets from a coach, which strikes me as very similar to a deshi relationship to a teacher.
Well kickboxing it really depends on what you mean. If you mean muay thai, chances are anywhere you are you'll learn good thai. If you mean WKA kickboxing then I can't really comment. Boxing 100% has gyms that don't pay attention to you unless you show athletic ability. That's why I quit my first one.
this is an interesting way of looking at it. I seem to think the conversation is going like this. Team 1:"I'm going to Japan to train with Hatsumi sensei..." Team 2:"you mean train in the nine ryu" Team 1:"well, Hatsumi is soke of the nine ryu..." Team 2:"you can't learn that way" Team 1:"what?" Team 2:'you can't learn the nine ryu that way. You need one teacher." Team 1: "well, I was going to train at Soke's dojo where he teaches something called BBT and..." Team 2:"that's not the nine ryu." Team 1:"ah, well I am actually ranked in BBT so I'm going to the home BBT dojo to..." Team 2:"that's not the way to learn all nine ryu" Team 1:"yeah, um, I'm just going to learn what I can from the top BBt teachers and..." Team 2:"nine ryu." Team 1:"yes, Hatsumi is soke of the nine schools but, like I said, soke is showing BBT and that's..." Team 2:"nine..." Team 1:"...that's what soke said I should do. He said train with him and the top teachers and..." Team 2:"that's not how to learn the nine ryu. You need one teacher." Team 1:"but soke has set up the BBT hombu with a rotation of teachers teaching BBT and..." Team 2:" nine ryu!" Team 1:"this isn't a conversation." This is what I meant pages back when I said dunc and PR were talking past each other. Maybe the purpose of training BBT... At Hombu... With the Soke... And the top teachers... Is something other than to become proficient in all nine ryu and receive transmission. I know. Totally crazy.
My experience was exactly the same. In my boxing gym the coach only gave some attention to those with athletic ability. If some of them managed to be good enough to join the amateur circuit, they ended up paying nothing to the gym. At the same time the rest like me were paying the gym's bills while being completely disregarded. The thing is though, that this attention I am talking about was in the form of sparring matches and some basic advices, like keep your hands up or tuck your chin more. As Bernard Hopkins said, there are very few teachers of boxing nowadays. We only have coaches. There aren't many guys who can teach you correct body positioning, proper stance, using angles and stuff like that. Interestingly enough, the focus on athletic ability and the fact that training is built around sparring and high pressure partner drills are enough to make people competent in fighting although they might have inherently lacking fundamentals. Hell, I mean, after a year of boxing you can at least be somewhat confident that you can block a punch. How many TMA styles can offer that?
I don't know, and a lot of Far East TMA stuff does look kind of silly to me, but I do think that the ninjers are often a victim of no true Scotsman arguments from the sport crowd. It reminds me of Greg's post here: - http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1074987168&postcount=173 Because if a ninjer says that they've wrist-locked their way out of a bar fight, it gets dismissed by the sport proponents as fluke (or a lie), but if someone who does BJJ arm-bars their way out of a bar fight it is taken as proof of real-world effectiveness.
I'm thanking you because that was one of the funniest things I've read in this forum.:hail: It's also one of the most absurd misrepresentations of what I'm saying that I've read in a while. I don't know anybody daft enough to say that Hatsumi soke can't teach someone the 9 arts. It may be entirely reasonable to assume that he doesn't have the time or interest to, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't(wouldn't would be a better term). Now, BBT it seems, is what he created in order to protect the 9 ryu from idiots who don't know ichimonji from seigan, who can't fight their way out of a paper bag, can't speak the language or understand the culture, and don't have the traditions he inherited in mind when they do things that are obviously personally and egotistically driven. Sure, BBT might be the crystallisation of all of his years as a budoka, but then again it might just be a way to tie people who hold their arms out into pretzels while looking budoish. Neither Hatsumi sensei nor the shihan got their skill level from playing at BBT, they got it through the transmission of the 9 ryu. And yes, just like Highlander, there can only be one. People can fool themselves, but it is pretty obvious what you have without the 9 ryu. If that is what you want, then good on you. Which kinda gets back to your earlier question about oni kudaki. Does it matter which ryu it comes from? Well, from a purely technical perspective, as long as you can do it well enough that the other guy's arm is broke or mangled, he couldn't punch you with his other hand while you were doing it, you didn't get blindsided by his friends in the meantime, and you made it home all right, no! However, if you don't learn it correctly and train it effectively, the chances of all of those things happening goes out the window(unless you are being attacked by schoolboys or grannies). What difference it does make is that to break technique and escape from the form, you actually have to have technique and form. Those who haven't gone through the transmission might have parts of it, but they don't have the entire form, and this is a problem if you are facing someone competent and/or someone who knows what you are trying to do to them. Sure you might never face someone like that in the streets, but if you can't even face someone like that in the dojo, how do you fancy your chances in those streets?
That was how he taught in the old days before Hayes and the 80s ninja boom. So the question is, what happened to change all that?
Dunno. Is it as simple as money like David says? Spotted a niche in the martial market and formed a martial arts organisation to take advanatage? Incidently PR...how did you get into learning the 9 ryuha? Did you start in the Booj like other people, work out it wasn't a legit way of learning what you wanted to learn and so went to the source?
I think when Hatsumi sensei first went to America and saw what a mess it was, he tried to make the best of it instead of kicking them all to the curb and returning to more or less anonymity in Japan. I was happily oblivious in the US until I came to Japan(read learning nonsense), and happily oblivious being a tourist in Japan(read not learning the real deal) until I met my teacher at Ayase. And the rest is history. ps-he was making money before the invasion, not as much obviously but...
Anecdotal evidence can be accepted and rejected from person to person. Personally I've seen someone use a wrist lock as a pain compliance method. Whilst that's great, I'm more interested in repeatable results that can be used on me all the time. Wrist locks are like the trapping range in WC, very small window of opportunity and lack of people pressuring it against live opponents.
So what was the catalyst? Were you told it was rubbish by someone? Worked it out for yourself? Saw a different way of moving and realised your previous training wasn't going to produce that movement? Was it a gradual realisation or a sudden epiphany?
Yeah, it was a general point rather than specifically being wrist locks vs. arm bars. Substitute wrist lock and arm bar for any other buj/BJJ techniques and the point still stands. Pressure testing is, of course, very important, but there are definitely techniques that are very hard to get to work in a sparring/duelling format that can be effective in a melee. Just because something fails pressure testing in one format, doesn't mean it necessarily fails in all formats.
I was enjoying the show, but was unable to do anything soke showed just like everyone I watched around me. When my teacher showed me some basics that I was missing, things started to make more sense gradually. I saw things that I couldn't before, and became able to do such things. Then I realised I had been wasting a lot of time, and effort chasing the wrong things. Now, I can see when others do the same and feel their pain, but I found the cure.
