Ninjutsu Question

[TomMack]

Without the stealth , uniforms and ancient weapons would ninjutsu look like standup jujitsu ?
How is it differnt from traditional Jujitsu ?

Tom Mac

[Lu Tze]

It's fictional.

[nintek]

Without the stealth , uniforms and ancient weapons would ninjutsu look like standup jujitsu ?
How is it differnt from traditional Jujitsu ?

Tom Mac

Alot of factors take into account, I'll keep it simple though. The X-Kans are built upon koryu jujutsu which are valid MA's. Now if you decide to train in one of the X-Kans there are some things to keep in mind.
1.Find a school that emphasized Randori/Free Sparing/Rolling.
2.Be open to cross training (no MA is superior)
3.Find a good techer that doesn't offer a lot of BS
4.Realize you WILL NEVER BE A NINJA only some Larper who thinks they can climb walls and know magic.

Keeping the above in mind be realistic about it. Understand the concepts and principals and understand that some things are only for Kata. BTW IMO ninjutsu doesn't really exist, but bujutsu does and it is most efficient when you train with points 1,2 in mind.

Good luck dude your gonna need it specially if you learn from a hippy boojer.

[TomMack]

Nah not really interested in the Ninja stuff
I'm happy with the arts I'm doing now . Just wondering what the deal with that art is . When I started training in the 80s I started in Vee-jutsu + Judo and would hear from people " Ninjutsu does stuff like that "
Always seemed hard to pin down what they do and how they train even looking at the books

Like I said not looking to go Ninja right now got a lot on my plate with JKD/Kali/Thai Boxing etc
Tom Mac

[plasma]

Without the stealth , uniforms and ancient weapons would ninjutsu look like standup jujitsu ?
How is it differnt from traditional Jujitsu ?

Tom Mac

You pretty much nailed it. Ninpo/Ninjutsu Ryu-Ha and Jujutsu Ryu-Ha are pretty much the same thing technique wise. When they differ come sin at application and strategy. Where Jujutsu focuses heavily on O-waza or complete technique (strike, throw, finish) , Ninpo is more about counter, strike and escape.

[Lucky50]

well put plasma.. i personally, think however, that Japanese jujitsu has a better ground game then the booj (i'm not gonna speak for any other x-kans, since i only took booj). I was lucky that my old sensi had trained in bjj for a little bit and taught us how to move on the ground more effectively..

I'd seen in other booj schools, when they were mounted they would try to move out the way of the punch in what was supposed to be a ground and pound scenario.... yea, nuff said on that i think..

[rw4th]

While in theory the Bujinkan is based on traditional Jujutsu, in practice most of what is taught is basically made up by Hatsumi.

[Bhauk87]

:karated:

It's fictional.

[Razma]

Without the stealth , uniforms and ancient weapons would ninjutsu look like standup jujitsu ?
How is it differnt from traditional Jujitsu ?

Tom Mac

I think you need to refine your question a bit. If you mean the contemplation of studying a Ninjutsu discipline then thats very different to the stereotypical view that most people have of Ninja's. The view at the moment is that their badasses that stealth around and are basically assassins. Which was true given the timeframe say Edo period of 1500 AC. Today, for example I'm a student gone teacher assisstant gone student of Genbukan Ninjutsu. We focus a lot on continued evasive rolls, sparring, grapples, strikes and Bokken training (Bokkai, Bokuto, whatever you want to call it, their about the same thing)

So to answer your question they are different in principle and in process. However I can only tell you what I know about Gnebukan and to a lesser extent Bujinkan (mostly lame MA) I have never studie Jujitsu

[nightowl]

If you were really studying Ninjutsu, you'd be learning stealth and recon techniques with probably some SD stuff throw in, but not very much unarmed stuff at all- just engading someone as a spy weapon or not easily blows your cover. Strangely enough most NinJItsu schools either teach uber deadly karate or ripped off JJJ and Koyru moves and made up varitions on such. Some Koryu schools did/do teach the equivelent of Ninjutsu (spywork), however these were ment for samurai, not some super secret ninja class.

In fact, ninjas existing at all are a bit questionable . A good protion of what we 'know' about them comes from Edo period pop culture and 70's-90's cheesy ninja goodness. For that matter, Hatsumi has been unable or unwilling to prove his style to be from before modern era Japan (pre Meiji restoration). That's not to say that it doesn't contain old JJJ techniques- Hatsumi and his teacher both studied JJJ. But that does tell you that the 'ninja' part points to a marketing campaign. To put it in another sense:

http://dojos.org/cgi-local/search/html/04_06.html

Now I don't know if you can read Japanese or not but that is a Martial arts gym search site for Tokyo. There are hundreds and hundreds of schools listed. Only 3 are listed under ninjutsu and of the 3, two are kickboxing classes miscatagorized, and ONE is for the Genbukan (which suppossedly plays down the ninja angle in the first place). Now take the search for ninjutsu from its supposed home country (and one of the largest cities in the world) to anywhere USA. Find more than one ninJItsu dojo?


....oh and by the way, there is no historical record of death by ninja. Samurais stabbed other samurais in the back instead.

[Fitz]

....oh and by the way, there is no historical record of death by ninja. Samurais stabbed other samurais in the back instead.

That's one of those "Got a citation for that?" kind of statements.

[nightowl]

More like that there is a burden of proof to show a documented ninja killing. It's kind of like the invisible unicorns that live on the dark side of the moon.

I first heard that quip from the awesome mental floss magazine (http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10712), which regularly has guest editors in experts on everything from religion to biology- even Ken friggn' Jennings writes in(and he knows everything). From that point on I really DID look to see what good evidence there was for ninja killings- that and studying japanese history has shown a lot of samurai killing other samurai, but no warlords being found in bed stuck full of shiruken. Experts in martial history (such as the lovely folks at Koryu.com) are hard on the ninja as well.

Saying you study ninjutsu is like a japanese guy coming to America saying that he wants to study 'Robin Hood' fencing. Gawd, how come there are so many ninja guys when you go to online forums dedicated to JMA? E-budo used to be a respectable academic site- nowadays it is full of bujinkan apologists- MAP is just a disaster.

Where's virus or somebody when you need him? Do I need to preform some sort of summoning ritual and prepare a sacrificial goat to get him out here and rip on ninjitsu?

[Fitz]

More like that there is a burden of proof to show a documented ninja killing. It's kind of like the invisible unicorns that live on the dark side of the moon.

It's a bit of a different thing, given that historic espionage including assassination certainly happened in Japan, some done by dedicate spceialists and others done on the sly by warrior/military folks.

But, keep in mind assassination=/=ninjutsu. Ninjutsu would be a catchall term for infultration, information gathering and "dirty tricks" for getting into/out of encounters. Even the one Ryu that claims to be mainly a ninjutsu school, Togakure-ryu, has more methods of infultration/escape then it then it does hand to hand combat or sword methods. The taijutsu and kenjutsu associated with Togakure-ryu similarly had more to do with getting out of circumstance quickly then it does sneaky killing.

From that point on I really DID look to see what good evidence there was for ninja killings- that and studying japanese history has shown a lot of samurai killing other samurai, but no warlords being found in bed stuck full of shiruken.

Aside from a few dumb luck shots shuriken are not intended as killing weapons. They're distractions at best. To assume that finding incidents where shuriken were used as the method of killing would equal "death by ninja" suggests perhaps you've been using the wrong evidentiary criteria. A quick flip through Stephen Turnbull's popular marketed text Ninja AD 1460-1650 might give you a better idea of what to look for, including accounts of ninja activities in Japanese history.

Experts in martial history (such as the lovely folks at Koryu.com) are hard on the ninja as well.

They're hard on contemporary ninjutsu practitioners, not on the historicity of ninja.

[nightowl]

It's a bit of a different thing, given that historic espionage including assassination certainly happened in Japan, some done by dedicate spceialists and others done on the sly by warrior/military folks.

But, keep in mind assassination=/=ninjutsu. Ninjutsu would be a catchall term for infultration, information gathering and "dirty tricks" for getting into/out of encounters. Even the one Ryu that claims to be mainly a ninjutsu school, Togakure-ryu, has more methods of infultration/escape then it then it does hand to hand combat or sword methods. The taijutsu and kenjutsu associated with Togakure-ryu similarly had more to do with getting out of circumstance quickly then it does sneaky killing.



Aside from a few dumb luck shots shuriken are not intended as killing weapons. They're distractions at best. To assume that finding incidents where shuriken were used as the method of killing would equal "death by ninja" suggests perhaps you've been using the wrong evidentiary criteria. A quick flip through Stephen Turnbull's popular marketed text Ninja AD 1460-1650 might give you a better idea of what to look for, including accounts of ninja activities in Japanese history.



They're hard on contemporary ninjutsu practitioners, not on the historicity of ninja.

My. God. You did not just cite Turnbull's book as a source did you? DID YOU? Koryu DOES in fact rip on that book in particular (in all of its uncited historical glory): http://www.koryu.com/library/mskoss5.html

Assasin /= ninja. That's despite hitmen usually wearing black in movies. Togakure-ryu does have what could be classified as 'ninjutsu', however it is a SAMURAI based martial art. Seriously, even if ninjas did exist, would you want the techniques of a guy who stabs people in the back as the basis for your fighting? When have you ever needed to try infiltration? Please please PLEASE don't go reading books in the MA section of Barnes & Noble on ninjas unless for entertainment only.

[Fitz]

My. God. You did not just cite Turnbull's book as a source did you? DID YOU? Koryu DOES in fact rip on that book in particular (in all of its uncited historical glory): http://www.koryu.com/library/mskoss5.html

Um, actually no. They recommend Turnbull's book despite the lurid title, comparing it favorably with Draeger's Ninjutsu. It is also worth nothing that this is his other book on Ninja, not the one I recommended.

Togakure-ryu does have what could be classified as 'ninjutsu', however it is a SAMURAI based martial art.

Let me be really specific here.

I am talking about Togakure-ryu refering specificaly to "Togakure-ryu Ninpo" which Takamatsu taught to and provided both Menkyo Kaiden and Sokeship to Hatsumi and which Hatsumi in turn taught and provided Menkyo Kaiden to a select group of individuals.

Now is this the same sense in which you are using the term or are you using the term as a catch all for everything that Hatsumi teachers under the Banner of the Bujinkan?

If you are talking specifically about Togakure-ryu in the struct sense what is the evidence for your assertion that it "is a SAMURAI based martial art?"