Is the Bujinkan a CULT?

[superninjagod]

You see someone with over a decade of experience against a guy with less than a week, 5 days, of training. And it's not a complete schooling. Jason actually managed to hold his own.

WOW I can't believe I'm defending the booj here. Jason should have technically destroyed the other guy. In fact either he was totally holding back, or the majority of the fight was completely staged (i believe the latter)

Reason #1 Jason chambers is highly ranked in JKD guy. Even though his stick fighting sucks (they actually showed him stick fight for real in another vid) his experience should have prepared him better than what he showed. I know that they don't do Two handed sword often (if at all) in JKD, but his spacing and timing from his training should have been better than the boojer.

As for the throw part as mentioned by Stygeen, Jason Chambers is a brown belt in 10th planet BJJ. In addition they just did a show on Judo and he had a week of super intense judo with some of the best Judoka on the planet. The second portion of training should have been enough to crush a 13th Dan boojer but the 10th planet training puts him far out of the boojers league.

The fact that the boojer even got up makes me think the fight was staged somewhat. If a brown belt BJJ guy takes your back you not just spinning out of there that easily.

In addition the Boojer was doing some really lame ass **** with the Bo. I'm sure he just wanted to make the spar look lively. In fact the majority of the Bo strikes were from Katas that I recognize.

Anyway back to the cult topic, on a Ralph Severe Thread they alluded to another Booj forum which was exclusively Booj. I checked it out and Ralph's posts on the site made him look like the normal person. It was crazy ****.

However I can't imagine any other TMA being different from the Booj for all the same reasons. When you don't pressure test your skills, and you larp all day, you MUST on some level believe that your skills would work. Therefore it is easy to BELIEVE in some one or something hard enough to be cult like...

[pokeroo]

However I can't imagine any other TMA being different from the Booj for all the same reasons. When you don't pressure test your skills, and you larp all day, you MUST on some level believe that your skills would work. Therefore it is easy to BELIEVE in some one or something hard enough to be cult like...

Yeah, I didn't find my dojo excessively cultish. I imagine it's on the same level as a lot of TMAs.

Also, you don't think that fight was real? Next your going to tell me that wing chun practitioners don't regularly spar, despite what I saw on Fight Quest!

[Styygens]

This \/




In the conversation they were giving evasive answers in stead of answering directly. When pressed for straight forward answers they asked for credientials and tried to discredit me and the other people who were not on their "side." After that they decided to accuse me and several other posters of having an agenda, and then 5 ninjas that I wasn't talking to, or have ever talked to, decided to lurk on my profile to confirm their paranoid delusions.

All this bullshit because they couldn't answer one simple question about the bujinkan.


http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm

I went on this website and ticked off atleast 8/15 boxs. Though someone who is more knowlegable could give a more accurate score.

What was your "one simple question?"

Maybe I, or some of the other Bullshido bullies with Booj experience, can take a stab at answering it for you. I can't promise to have the right answer...

And what forum were you in? Because some forums have a higher percentage of kool-aid abusers than others.

[Styygens]

I won't disagree with you, but I have some additional comments...

WOW I can't believe I'm defending the booj here. Jason should have technically destroyed the other guy. In fact either he was totally holding back, or the majority of the fight was completely staged (i believe the latter)

Reason #1 Jason chambers is highly ranked in JKD guy. Even though his stick fighting sucks (they actually showed him stick fight for real in another vid) his experience should have prepared him better than what he showed. I know that they don't do Two handed sword often (if at all) in JKD, but his spacing and timing from his training should have been better than the boojer.

In the Escrima show, Jason admited his stick-fighting background wasn't much. Who knows? I do think spacing and timing (especially with weapons) is a strength of the Booj instruction. But I can't defend that emprically.

As for the throw part as mentioned by Stygeen, Jason Chambers is a brown belt in 10th planet BJJ. In addition they just did a show on Judo and he had a week of super intense judo with some of the best Judoka on the planet. The second portion of training should have been enough to crush a 13th Dan boojer but the 10th planet training puts him far out of the boojers league.

The fact that the boojer even got up makes me think the fight was staged somewhat. If a brown belt BJJ guy takes your back you not just spinning out of there that easily.

Jason Chambers is a Brown Belt in Jiu Jitsu. I realize that it's not a one-to-one ratio for comparison, but the boojer, Doug Wilson, is above 10th Dan! (I said 13th before, but I lose track, he could be 15th...) Don't you think if anyone in the booj should have mastered throwing, it should be a mega-dan?

Specific problems I see (not all inclusive).

One, Doug throws away strategy by abandoning his sword to come to grips with a grappler. This was not smart. Why intentionally throw away your advantage? His explanation was (I'm paraphrasing), "it was training. I wanted to see what a jiu jitsu guy could do." You did this during a televised bout that was promoting your school? Excellent grasp of strategy...

Second, tactically, Doug fails to properly set up the throw. He does not effectively strike to daze or unbalance Jason. He enters for what appears to be an attempt at ganseki-nage.

Third, the technique is off. Doug's lack of proper kuzushi is compounded by a lack of explosiveness in the execution of the throw. Jason is never sufficiently off-balance, and the throw attempt does not get ahead of his reaction time.

Jason's training pays-off big at this point, and he does as he's trained to do, which is execute his own counterthrow. Doug looks somewhat surprised at the counter-throw attempt, almost as if he's never encountered this before... And he probably hasn't.

I know I sound overly critical. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have faired any better than Doug Wilson against Jason Chambers. Critiquing sparring performance is suppossed to provide an opportunity to improve. However, Booj forums all seemed to think Doug did a great job. I saw very few raise concerns about how systemic training methods (i.e. lack of randori) may have caused any flaws.

(That's how I arrived here.)

In addition the Boojer was doing some really lame ass **** with the Bo. I'm sure he just wanted to make the spar look lively. In fact the majority of the Bo strikes were from Katas that I recognize.

Anyway back to the cult topic, on a Ralph Severe Thread they alluded to another Booj forum which was exclusively Booj. I checked it out and Ralph's posts on the site made him look like the normal person. It was crazy ****.

However I can't imagine any other TMA being different from the Booj for all the same reasons. When you don't pressure test your skills, and you larp all day, you MUST on some level believe that your skills would work. Therefore it is easy to BELIEVE in some one or something hard enough to be cult like...

The other forum is Kutaki, where the standard answers to legitimate questions seem to be "Ask Hatsumi..." and "Ask your Shidoshi." Because all knowledge must be strictly controlled? Hmmm...

[SharinganUser]

What was your "one simple question?"

Maybe I, or some of the other Bullshido bullies with Booj experience, can take a stab at answering it for you. I can't promise to have the right answer...

And what forum were you in? Because some forums have a higher percentage of kool-aid abusers than others.

The question put forth by an other User was "How do you define the Bujinkan?"

He was getting answers like "Hatsumi is the definition," "you're not part of the booj so you're to dumb to know what the definition is," "who are you," and my favorite "don't ask me because it's like asking about my sex life."

This all happened on the MAP ninjutsu forums. I tried to reason with the in a respectful manner, trying to make them understand that if you make a claim you should be ready to back it up, and that it's not respectful, not to mention a bit strange, to answer a question with "Who are you? What are your qualifications?"

[Gypsy Jazz]

Cult exist on a spectrum. There are some groups that demonstrate cultic behaviors, but are not cults, and some cults that don't demonstrate every warning sign. I believe there was a test linked earlier that listed a number of signs. It is a bit of an art picking out where the line lies, which can lead to dispute.

I think a lot of the "Our style is strongest without question" instructors demonstrate a lot of cult-like behaviors, but cult is a fairly strong word. After all, you have to ask if the actions of adherents of group in question is similar enough to a widely recognized cult like Scientology (as picked in the first post) or the Moonies.

[Uglybugly]

Anyway back to the cult topic, on a Ralph Severe Thread they alluded to another Booj forum which was exclusively Booj. I checked it out and Ralph's posts on the site made him look like the normal person. It was crazy ****.

do you mean that the other posts on the forum was so crazy that Ralph's posts seemed normal or do you mean that Ralph's posts was like that of a normal person on that site? I remember Ralph from a thread we had here and he was one crazy fucker.

I trained tkd during my teenage and I noticed that there was alot of old weird people that found their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband through tae kwon do. Probably because they can't find one anywhere else.

martial arts are like cults. The biggest losers can be found in the dojo's.

I would like to stress that alot of these fellows are freaking annoying. I went to the local booj club and trained 1 day.. and there was this guy that started talking about ultimate technique. which in his mind set was a technique or a style that was so superior that it could be used against anything and it would work everytime.. I asked if he watched manga or anime and it turned out he did.

He also talked alot. He interrupted our training and started thinking of counters to this and that move.. the instructor came over and demanded that I hit like I was going to hit him. I said "no.. I won't miss him". the instructor still pressed on and so I did..I hit him with a slow and low force fist to the nose. the guy started crying..and the instructor blamed him for not blocking. I mean this guy had obviously been bullied during his youth and he goes to ninja training. he don't learn anything useful and suddenly he gets punched in the nose and as if that wasn't enough he gets the blamed for not doing his garbage techniques right. which wouldn't work anyway. The world can be such a cruel place

wow did I write this wall of text??

[superninjagod]

do you mean that the other posts on the forum was so crazy that Ralph's posts seemed normal or do you mean that Ralph's posts was like that of a normal person on that site? I remember Ralph from a thread we had here and he was one crazy fucker.

What Ralph wrote in his posts ie about pressure testing skills, about Hatsumi not being the be all and end all to all techniques pissed everyone else off. So yes, Ralph was the voice of reason on the site, and he was up against a bombardment of stupid

I trained tkd during my teenage and I noticed that there was alot of old weird people that found their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband through tae kwon do. Probably because they can't find one anywhere else.

Not really a sign of a cult, just a sign of geeks finding geeks....

martial arts are like cults. The biggest losers can be found in the dojo's.

A Martial art friend of mine once said ONLY losers do martial arts cause all the cool athletes were either in the gym, or playing sports like vollyball, basket ball and/or football. Cause those were sports/activities that would most likely get you laid.....

I had no counter, and still don't

I would like to stress that alot of these fellows are freaking annoying. I went to the local booj club and trained 1 day.. and there was this guy that started talking about ultimate technique. which in his mind set was a technique or a style that was so superior that it could be used against anything and it would work everytime.. I asked if he watched manga or anime and it turned out he did.

He also talked alot. He interrupted our training and started thinking of counters to this and that move.. the instructor came over and demanded that I hit like I was going to hit him. I said "no.. I won't miss him". the instructor still pressed on and so I did..I hit him with a slow and low force fist to the nose. the guy started crying..and the instructor blamed him for not blocking. I mean this guy had obviously been bullied during his youth and he goes to ninja training. he don't learn anything useful and suddenly he gets punched in the nose and as if that wasn't enough he gets the blamed for not doing his garbage techniques right. which wouldn't work anyway. The world can be such a cruel place

wow did I write this wall of text??

Thanks for a long and irrelevant story, yet still sad in an entertaining way

[Uglybugly]

A Martial art friend of mine once said ONLY losers do martial arts cause all the cool athletes were either in the gym, or playing sports like vollyball, basket ball and/or football. Cause those were sports/activities that would most likely get you laid.....

Yes.. but those sports are so boring. It might increase ones chances of getting laid but personally I will choose fun activities that I really want to do since I don't have a problem getting laid. (here is your counter)

[Styygens]

The question put forth by an other User was "How do you define the Bujinkan?"

He was getting answers like "Hatsumi is the definition," "you're not part of the booj so you're to dumb to know what the definition is," "who are you," and my favorite "don't ask me because it's like asking about my sex life."

This all happened on the MAP ninjutsu forums. I tried to reason with the in a respectful manner, trying to make them understand that if you make a claim you should be ready to back it up, and that it's not respectful, not to mention a bit strange, to answer a question with "Who are you? What are your qualifications?"

Huh. Yes, those responses are strange.

Not to sound like a cult-astic dick, but I'm not sure that is a simple question. (Do you remeber the story about the blind men and the elephant?)

The Bujinkan is an umbrella term for a loosely confederated group that practices Hatsumi's martial art, Budo Taijutsu. Everyone pays dues to Hatsumi, and the ranks are registered with him. Instructors and junior instructors pay more than regular members. Promotions in rank do cost a fee to be registered with the Hombu dojo. The strictest rule is that only Hatsumi can approve a promotion to godan (fifth degree black belt) -- the notorious "sakki" test. (If you haven't seen this, there are threads here devoted to it...)

There are some "rules" to joining the Bujinkan and maintaining membership, but these are not strictly enforced.

Budo Taijutsu is the way the Bujinkan teaches the martial art methods of Toshitsugu Takamatsu. (I'd like to consider the martial art as distinct from the organization for descriptive purposes.) The exact history is very controversial, and I don't want to try to sort that out here. What is important to this discussion is that the Bujinkan does not have an official curriculum. There is also a large "faith" component to believing the shared history of the art.

So there is no strict organization, there is no standard curriculum, and the common history is essentially what is purported by Hatsumi.

You can see that defining the Bujinkan isn't exactly easy. In a sense, it is what Hatsumi makes it -- and I don't mean that in a cultish "He is my Savior" sort of way. By ill defining it, he's left room for interpretation among the practitioners. That's not necessarily a bad thing in theory, but in practice it's become a real mess.

I think I'll stop at this point. I've tried to keep to "just the facts" but even this is liable to be disputed. I won't be surprised if someone else (Plasma?) swoops in with a completely different POV...

Personally, I think the art is best approached as a Japanese Jujutsu system.