BudoSeek! Martial Arts Community Forums - Blogs - Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/blog.php?543-Don-Roley en Sun, 26 May 2013 04:39:47 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/images/misc/rss.jpg BudoSeek! Martial Arts Community Forums - Blogs - Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/blog.php?543-Don-Roley The Reality of Weapons http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?72-The-Reality-of-Weapons Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:41:04 GMT Can we really use "unarmed" techniques in self defense?
My Bujinkan teachers in Japan always stress that this art was built around the reality of weapons. We use them, we train to go against them and even though we do unarmed stuff most of the time, there is always a connection with weapons. This art was not meant to be used at a tournament. And in Japan, a entire class openly carried twin swords.

I have been thinking of something for a long time and kind of want to throw it out here.

The following is a work by Darren Laur on the knife. http://members.shaw.ca/tmanifold/edged_weapon.htm Most shocking is the following section.


"I'm a big believer in, "don't tell me, show me" so in early 1992 I conducted an empirical video research study. I had 85 police officers participate in a scenario based training session where unknown to them they would be attacked with a knife. The attacker, who was dressed in a combative suit, was told that during mid way of the contact, they were to pull a knife that they had been concealing, flash it directly at the officer saying "I'm going to kill you pig" and then engage the officer physically. The results were remarkable: - 3/85 saw the knife prior to contact - 10/85 realized that they were being stabbed repeatedly during the scenario - 72/85 did not realize that they were being assaulted with a knife until the scenario was over, and the officers were advised to look at their uniforms to see the simulated thrusts and slices left behind by the chalked training knives."
Please note that these were police officers who are used to detecting trouble and consider the fact that people may use weapons on them. And they probably have some experience with real fighting and unarmed training sessions. Add in the fact that this was only a training session and not as stressful as a real fight. Despite the fact that someone made an effort to flash the knife during the scenario and scream about it, only 3 out of 85 could tell that the guy had one before it was used on them.

So I take this to mean that there really is no "Unarmed" techniques in self defense. By that I mean you can't have something you would do if the guy has a knife and something else that you would do if he did not have one. Because you probably will not be able to tell if he has one or not. And this is not even taking into account the idea that the guy may not show you the knife before he uses it on you.

Kelly McMann, writing as Jim Grover, lists the following techniques being taught in today's prisons that all revolve around the idea of hiding the knife before sticking it in the other guy; The Smash and Slash, The Jailyard, The Jackknife and the Slap and Tap. In fact, the only technique he mentions that does not hide the knife is called Bulldogging. You can read about them on page 163-165 of his book, "Street Smarts, Firearms and Personal Security."

These are the slang terms given to these techniques in prison. So they are known and practiced by criminals. If you are talking about self defense you can't ignore the reality that the most likely to try to kill you with a knife are training so that they make you think they don't have a knife.

So I think we can throw out the idea that you can go into a battle in either a 'unarmed' or 'armed' mindset. The law and morality will not let you treat a guy who throws punches at you with the same amount of force that you would if you knew he had a knife. But you can't treat him as if he were just going to try to punch you. You have to assume that he may have a weapon and will pull it at some point- if it is not already hidden in his hand.

So far, a lot of folks may be asking what is the point. All of this may be something you have heard already. But my point is that a lot of artists seem to look at combat like it was a tennis match. You throw something, then maybe the other guys throws something.

Well, when I look at Hatsumi I see pool. To be more exact, I see Hatsumi as a pool shark. Once he has the shot, the other guy never gets a chance to make another. He clears the table and the other guy is just along for the ride. If they guy has a knife, he never gets to use the thing. He can't touch Hatsumi with anything. Hatsumi controls his entire body so that a hand of the other guy can't reach him. For unarmed stuff, a guy who can scratch you, and not much else, is not a credible threat. But if the guy has hidden a knife in his hand, then that scratch can kill. Hatsumi does not let him get that hand anywhere near him.

But I see a lot of Bujinkan folks that seem to be doing taijutsu as if it were a tennis match. Instead of luring in a committed attack and then taking control of the guy (or gaining distance away from the guy), it is a case of give and take. And you don't want to do that with a knife. In some cases I see Bujinkan members allow touches to them that can't do much damage as long as it is merely an unarmed situation. But as I said, you can't assume that you will know that it is an unarmed situation.

So I think more Bujinkan members should take a look at what Hatsumi does and try to watch for what I am talking about. If you look for it, it will become clear. Hatsumi is playing pool, not tennis. A guy had a knife would never be able to use it on him because he always moves in such way that he would be safe from it.

People might want to read more about knife fighting realities and how much they rely on surprise and deception by reading Marc MacYoung's web site at www.nononsenseselfdefense.com. He was also the guy who first drew contrasts with fighting and the way a pool shark works. But once you read it, and take a good, long look at Hatsumi, I really hope that I see a lot less tennis going on in the dojo.

Please note that I am not talking about using a weapon on someone else. I am talking about the fact that the other guy might have one. If you only train to go against unarmed opponents in your sparring and training, you will probably do as you have trained when you go against someone who has a knife and those habits will likely get you killed. Certain people on certain sites seem to not understand that and take it to mean that we will use weapons on someone who legally can't be attacked with a weapon. I do not know if they really do not understand, or they are trying to confuse the issue.

When you think about facing a potential knife, things change a lot. You don't want to "take" a hit to get in a better hit. If he has no weapon, great. But if you are wrong you lose big time. Instead of blocks and taking hits you probably want to think about getting off the line of attack or maybe just get the hell away from there.

And your purpose is not to defeat someone else. Your job is to survive. Ever think about running? How about not getting into trouble in the first place? When you look at how much trouble could be avoided by just walking away, it is amazing. People don't just pull a knife and attack- not often. In most cases people need to work themselves up to start a fight. During the fight they then pull the knife. What if you apologized and walked away quickly as soon as that little dance started? Yes, you may look like a pussy. You may look like you are scared. But are you going to let your fear control you? I am talking about the fear of looking like a pussy. Being scared of someone who might pull a knife is just common sense. But putting your ass on the line just so people don't think badly of you is complete idiocy and gives power to them and to your fears.

Right now in England they are having a lot of news about knife crimes. Part of the problem, according to a friend of mine on the police there, is that it is considered "cool" to be carrying a knife. They keep trying certain bans to stop the problem, but until the perception among young idiots change, they are not going to do much.

Maybe this will not happen in America. We do have guns. But guns tend to lift things up to the criminal level if you are caught with them. Many knives could be passed off as tools if it becomes a problem with police, but still fill the posturing fantasy of unstable young bozos. And even if it is not popular to carry a knife, you may still hit the lottery so to speak.

If you go up against someone who only trains for unarmed, one on one attacks, has about the same amount of training time and his techniques-strategy reflect this outlook then you will probably fail against him when playing to his strengths. But if you face a knife without being prepared for it you will lose a lot more than against the unarmed guy. ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?72-The-Reality-of-Weapons Patchy Bujinkan (Or, Confessions of a Japanese Elitist http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?69-Patchy-Bujinkan-(Or-Confessions-of-a-Japanese-Elitist Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:15:13 GMT As we all should know, contact with Japan and Hatsumi is important for Bujinkan members. This has been said often enough. Students who don't come are not considered real students anymore. We all are clear on that, right?

Well, I think that a lot of people mistake the reason they need to keep in touch with Japan.

Quiet simply put, the first time you see something like a kata, you don't get all the points. Anyone who has taught knows that you need to get people so that they are moving the correct limbs in sequence. Then you refine your corrections with making sure the limbs work together, then you correct the spine, make sure the breathing is at the right time, and so on. You start from the gross movements and move to the finer details. But the fine details are often more important than the gross movements. Are we pretty much in agreement on this point? Good, I'll continue.

Now lets face facts, the people who did the most to take the art outside of Japan in the early days were far from the most knowledgeable. Stephen Hayes is credited with being the reason most of us are in the art, and many of us either studied under him, or under teachers that did or even teachers of teachers that first started out under Hayes.

But as those of us that were around at the start of the ninja boom can remember, Hayes went around saying that there were no kata in the Bujinkan. That is obviously not correct. Obviously he was still working on the stuff before kata before he returned home. I have been told that in Japan. He also wrote that the ninja used straight swords. If he had been run through the basics of using a sword, he would have known better. A friend who used to be a member of the Shadows of Iga told me that Hayes once admitted that he had not been taught sword in Japan, but felt he needed to teach it so he got a book on kendo and picked up stuff from it. And after seeing some footage of his sword work, I can believe it. He does many, many things that I have been told not to do.

I don't mean the rag on Hayes. He is no longer part of the Bujinkan, and really has not been for a couple of decades before that. But my point is about the legacy of Hayes in the Bujinkan. Many people still think that what he does and puts out can be used in the Bujinkan. That is a problem. So is the fact that a lot of the early people trained under him and picked up some of his habits. Even though they left him, they still have some habits that are from Hayes and not from Japan. These people are now very high up in the overseas Bujinkan presence. They are unaware of their habits and pass them on to others, who in turn pass them off to others.

And it is not just Hayes. There are many teachers in the Bujinkan who think they can learn something from a video and turn around and teach it. Some folks even watch videos and turn around to make their own videos! There are folks that think that if they have notes they can learn the form- and in at least one case turn around and teach a seminar. And many people think that they can add moves from other arts and pass it off as Bujinkan. In all cases, these are people that think the goal of training is to build up a huge amount of techniques that they can recite and that will make them skilled. This is why the term "kata collector" is such a dirty word in the Bujinkan. Katas are great things to learn from. But they are really misused by a certain type that does not seem to think that quantity trumps quality. These are the sort of folks that try to get people to lend them your notes without having you go over the material in person.

The best way to think about martial arts training with a teacher is someone whose job is to knock you back on course. When you start to go off on a wrong angle, the teacher should steer you back toward the real goal. If after the first lesson the student still learning how to use the right limbs in sequence were to leave and set himself up as a teacher, he obviously would not be teaching something close to what the school he went to was doing. But of course, that is true for people that opt out even later in the sequence as well. If you are off even a little in terms of angle, the farther you go down the road the further off the course you will be. You can have many years of experience, but unless you are on the right angle it will be of no use.

People who do not have all the pieces of the puzzle on how to make a martial arts work tend to come up with patches. I have to thank Marc MacYoung for coming up with term and pointing out a very obvious thing when you know what to look for. A patch is something you use to cover over problems in what you are doing to get it to work. But obviously it is not the same as the system as it was supposed to be practiced. The most common patch is strength. Trying to muscle a technique is something you see on almost a daily basis in the Bujinkan. But strength is not the only patch out there. There are many others like adding in extra moves, changing the moves and things like that.

This is one reason I have ranted on various forums about people who come to Japan to train and then won't even seem to try to do what the teacher is showing. "There is no wrong way to eat a Reeses" goes the joke between some of us as we view a room full of people and none of them seem to be even close to what we just saw the teacher doing. I am not talking about slight mistakes, I am talking about people that toss in extra moves or change them so that it is not even close. Well there are many wrong ways to do taijutsu. And even if you manage to get your partner to harmonize with the earth, unless you do it in the same exact way the teacher showed you are using patches instead of taijutsu. In that case, you are training yourself to use patches. That is the habit you will build, not taijutsu.

It is kind of like how you are supposed to learn math by always using the new formulas. Sometimes you can do the stuff inside your head and not bother with the proper way to do the problem. But when you get to a point where you can't do it in your head, if you have never gotten used to the formula you won't be know how to do the problem, period.

The thing about patches is that you can evolve to center around the patch in what you do. You find something and seem to get it to work. You rely on it more and more and you drop the old way that you are supposed to be doing in order to stay within your comfort zone. You build up new patches for what you do as you set off in another direction. You get to a certain point on this journey away from taijutsu and when you reach a point where you can't go any further with the current patch, you build up another patch on top of that to continue. You end up going in another direction and get something composed of patches that in no way looks like the smooth lines of the Bujinkan. Maybe what you do manages to work, but most often it is not even close to the full potential of something with a common core like the Bujinkan. And even if you think it is, it is not the real Bujinkan. And if you want to learn and teach Bujinkan you should try to have as few patches as possible.

Now what is my point? Just this, we need to keep in touch with Japan NOT to learn new stuff, but to get rid of the many patches we already have. Instead of trying to learn a new throw, we should be looking to see if we have too many moves in throws we already think we know. We need to find out if our quality of movement needs to be bounced back on line. And we need to ignore ex-students like Hayes who have not had their movements nudged back on the same track as the Bujinkan and whose stuff has had to evolve in another direction with its own sort of patches for the last few decades.

It is not necessary for everyone in the Bujinkan to go to Japan. But there must be a link. If you are not going to a teacher that trains in Japan, you need to go yourself. I have a bit of scorn for people that consider themselves teacher of the Bujinkan and won't train under anyone else in America or Japan. If you are too good to train under anyone in your area, and believe me I think I will be in this situation when I move to America, then you need to go to a source where you can get your taijutsu nudged back on line. And no one is better at taijutsu than Hatsumi. If there is no one else you think is good enough to point out your mistakes, there is always him. But more often, there are plenty of people who could nudge you back on line. There is no reason for any member other than Hatsumi to not visit a teacher on a regular basis. Those that think they do not need nudging are already well down the path on a totally different angle.

And when you get to Japan you need to be willing to have mistakes pointed out to you. You need to have the courage to fail and let everyone see you fail. Because it is through failing that you learn. If you can't get the move to work as the teacher showed it, you are obviously missing something. If you pull out a patch and continue on you will never learn what the vital point of the move was. You are missing something. If instead you fail to pull the throw off and look at the teacher with puppy- dog eyes, they might come over and show you what you are missing. It might be that the entire class then gets to see that you could not pull off the move and the teacher is taking the time to tell you how you were wrong.

Some people avoid that type of situation like the plague. Not only do they pull out patches to keep going, there have even been a lot of cases where people do not practice the moves in Japan but instead spend their time trying to "correct" the mistakes of others. Imagine spending all that money to come to Japan with a load of students only to avoid practicing because you don't want them to see you make a mistake! It is something I have often seen and ranted about. To get good at taijutsu you must have the courage to fail and fail in public. You must put your desire to be better above your desire to look good in the eyes of others.

And folks, that sort of person seems to be getting rarer in the Bujinkan.

One thing you should be concerned about if you are an honest student. The Japanese are not very big on public confrontations. In my experience, if they think you are there to teach folks or do your own thing they will not smack you down. Instead, they will probably just nod and smile and spend their time pointing out things to people they consider real students instead. If you make an honest mistake and are not aware of it, they will probably be pleased to tell you. But if you add extra moves, or act more like a teacher than a student you will get a smile and praise.

My impression is that many of the Japanese teachers almost have given up on most students that come to Japan. They would like to help, but after seeing so many cases of their teaching being ignored they get the impression that it can't be helped. I once was working out with a senior Japanese at training and he commented on how long I have been in Japan. I said that despite my years, I was still having trouble with the technique and was "dame." "Dame" is Japanese for "no good." He corrected me and said that I was lacking in some skills yes, but I was not "dame." He looked around the room at all the people for other countries training and said that I was the only non-Japanese in the room that wasn't "dame." It is sad to say, but they have come to that conclusion with people after many long years of experience. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing. I have seen Nagato say that it was very nice that people can improvise when they can't get something to work, but unless they did the technique as Hatsumi showed it they won't learn what he is teaching. I have read on the board of the honbu administrator saying much the same thing about doing what the teacher is showing. In my experience, if someone in Japan has to point out a problem like this in public it is already pretty large.

There is more to be concerned about. Sometimes people pull out patches because they choose to. Many times it is because people have habits that they rely on by default. Some of these habits are built up by teachers like Hayes, and sometimes they are from other arts.

People that come into the Bujinkan from other arts have to be careful that they leave their preconceptions at the door. But it is not the problems we see that as big a concern as the ones we do not. What works well in one art may be suicide in another. It is not a case of the way of moving being bad, just not appropriate.

Which is a better car, a humvee or a Ferrari? The answer is it depends on what you want to use it for. If you want to race around town, one is good and if you want to race around the desert the other is the best choice. Both have four tires and use an engine, but there is little else in common between the two. And you can't take too much from one and use it on the other. They are both built around central cores that let them be excellent in what they are designed to do, but limit what they can do. There are limits to everything from cars to martial arts. If you try to make the humvee as fast as the Ferrari the first time you take it and its high center of gravity around a corner at top speed you will go tumbling ass over teakettle. If you try to take the Ferrari out to the desert, years from now they will find your bleached bones in the remains of a car with a broken frame.

It is the same way with martial arts. If your art was designed mainly around the idea of standing up and pummeling the opponent from a distance, snappy movements that get in and out like a whip might be the best strategy. The entire art can be built around that central core. And if your art is based around occasionally facing someone who has so much covering that you can't get a decent hit in you might want to work more on blows that disrupt balance rather than damage and let you transition into a throw to the ground.

This is a danger for people that come into the Bujinkan from other arts. The habits they built up are excellent for their old arts. They are unaware that they have these ways of looking at things. But those habits do not mesh well with the central core around which the Bujinkan was developed over time. Worse is when people try to take things from other arts to cover gaps in their knowledge. Sometimes it works, more often it is like souping up the humvee.

Sometimes looking at other arts can be very informative. You can pick up new things and add them, just not everything. I had a conversation with another Bujinkan member here in Japan about a martial arts tape. He liked it since we could probably adopt 70 percent of what was shown on the tape to the Bujinkan. Of course, that means that there is 30 percent we would have to leave aside not because it was good, but because it did not mesh with the central core of the Bujinkan. And this tape was rather high in percentage of stuff we could possibly adopt. Before anyone tries to adopt things from other arts, you need to have a good grounding in not only what we do in the Bujinkan, but why we do it. If you try to expand your knowledge too soon, you might try to adopt 100 percent of the tape I mentioned instead of just the 70 percent that meshes with the Bujinkan.

There are people that do not learn from videos, or try to add things from other arts and only study from real Bujinkan teachers. Sadly, some of the teachers they may be going to might be learning things from videos or from ex students going their own way and passing it off as Bujinkan. The honest students then pass on what they learned to others and it gets accepted as Bujinkan. Contact with Japan can help expose this type of thing as long as you are able to try to look at things with new eyes and honestly try to learn and do what the teacher is doing.

The Bujinkan I see in Japan is a wonderful art with a great potential. The version of it I am seeing from people outside of Japan seems to be going in another direction entirely. This art deserves better. We can't change others, but we can change ourselves. I write this for the person that desires to get better and may not have realized the reasons he needs a link to Japan or that he might have habits that hold him back. I know it will anger some, but that can't helped. I hope that this helps some folks and brings them back to what Hatsumi is doing instead of going off in another direction.

I have been accused by some of being a Japanese Elitist with my beliefs that the Bujinkan in Japan is where we should looking. Guilty. I even have a t-shirt made for me with a friend that proclaims me as a Japan elitist. But I would like to caution folks that not everyone who comes to Japan or has lived here is automatically good . As with all things, it depends on what your purpose is. I honestly have seen some people that seem to only live here so that they could say that they lived here. It is very obvious in the way they do things that they want to be teachers and they are the ones that trumpet how they have lived in Japan.

There was one guy who seemed to live on various forums telling folks how to behave in Japan and commenting how things were in the country. People listened to him, bought his DVD and followed his advice as to what to do and not do in taijutsu and in dealing with the Japanese. I saw him walk into the Mister Donut at Ayase once and he had to order a coffee in English. Later his Japanese wife divorced him and got legal custody of his kids because she was tired of him unknowingly offending so many Japanese he came in contact with and leaving her (in Japanese fashion) to apologize. The poor guy will never see his kids again due to his behavior, but he honestly thought the way he acted and told others to act was acceptable.

So I am not saying that every person who has lived in Japan knows all this type of thing. It took me years to be accepted as an honest student instead of someone who only stays here in between seminar tours overseas. It was then that the Japanese were more willing to correct me and give me advice they would not give others. And I know I still have a lot to learn even after about 15 years in Japan.

(Note, this was originally written in 2009, when I was still living in Japan.) ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?69-Patchy-Bujinkan-(Or-Confessions-of-a-Japanese-Elitist <![CDATA[You Can't Learn Bujinkan From Home Video Courses]]> http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?66-You-Can-t-Learn-Bujinkan-From-Home-Video-Courses Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:42:18 GMT Some things come up so often on internet forums that it gets tiring answering them. This blog is meant to be used in the future when someone else comes up with something that has been dealt with before. If you have been told to read this it means that you are asking about a home study course... Some things come up so often on internet forums that it gets tiring answering them. This blog is meant to be used in the future when someone else comes up with something that has been dealt with before.

If you have been told to read this it means that you are asking about a home study course that will allow you, a beginner, to learn Bujinkan "ninjutsu" from video instead of a going to a real school.

The responses you are getting are probably that it can't be done and you do not want to accept that. After al, it is your dream to study ninjutsu and the advertisement you read says it is possible.

Robert Heinlein wrote, "Man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing one." If we want something, we find excuses to overcome logic against it. If you think it does not apply to you, you're wrong. You must realize that your desire to achieve your dream deafens you to the advice of those that gain nothing if you take it or ignore it.

The responses you got probably have been pretty savage. There is a reason for that. As you might have figured out by now, this subject comes up a lot. People come on asking about video courses and when they don't get the response they hoped for, nine times out of ten they try to argue with folks who have far more experience in the art than they. They tend to strike people as being pretty egotistical in thinking that they know better than more experienced folks. Despite that, people do want to help if you are willing to accept it. If you can keep your ego in check, maybe we can reason with you.

Why can't you learn from a home study course? There are many reasons.

Prime among the reasons you are doomed to failure from a home study course is that you need a teacher to point out mistakes.

As I say, the job of a teacher is not just to present knowledge, but to bounce you back on course when you wander off it. There are problems that those doing the technique cannot see. They do not know their mistakes, or even know they have mistakes. It is the teacher's job to point them out.

You may think that you will be able to find the mistakes. You may even think that your friends can point out the mistakes. In a pinch, maybe sending a video of yourself to the video teacher will allow them to point out the mistakes.

Sorry to tell you this, but if you think that you are wrong.

There are some ways of combat that are very crude. There are no fine points. I learned some myself back in the military. If we are talking about those types of styles that are not meant to be very subtle, maybe you could learn them from a tape and a little feedback from friends. But if you are talking about anything more subtle than that, it is just too much to try to learn from a tape.

When you talk about martial arts, the art portion tends to mean that there is an acceptable level of ability in something but there is always room for improvement. At first you will be shown a punch and the teacher will be satisfied with your abilities. Later he will point out how to use your hips better with your punch. Maybe later he will align your arm a few degrees to optimize the transfer of power. I have seen people who have been in the art for years still get pointers on how to punch.

Instead of something that you check off and go on to the next technique, arts require you to peel away layer after layer of a move. That is the exact opposite of what you will get from a video home study course. The teacher can't peel away the layers as I detailed. Once you have sent in your tape of you doing the technique, you move on and don't get any more instruction in it. In the military, they did not care if we stayed at the level we were. Once we had the move down, they were satisfied since we really were not there to punch the enemy and had to devote more of our time to skills more likely to be used.

There are some things that will make sense at first. Those are not the things you need to worry about. The things that do not seem to make sense at first that your teacher tells you to do but later become clear that are the problem. When you have a teacher whom you trust, you will do what he says as he says to do it. But if you are learning on your own, you won't. So the true depth of the art will never be available to you.

If you are attracted to the art due to the way it can take you all the way to mastery, do you really want to cut off your future potential like this?

A beginning is a very delicate time. You develop habits that will follow you for the rest of your journey. If you are just starting out in the art, you need to pay close attention to the habits you start to build up. The earlier the habit built, the more central it is to what you do and harder to get rid of. So any mistakes made due to lack of someone there to point it out is worse than something picked up later in the journey.

There is something else you should know- different arts have different principles on which they are based. Some can be snappy, others can be smooth. Neither is ineffective if done right. But when you have habits from one are with its principles you tend to view all arts through that experience. That is when you need to unlearn old habits and develop new ones. You might not even be aware of the differences. As the saying goes, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." So if you are thinking that prior experience in another art might help, you are completely mistaken. Without a teacher to point out the differences and explain why you will try to build on the wrong type of foundation.

Some things are not even visible, they have to be felt. That is why you need someone like a teacher to work with you. Even large classes are not good for learning. The arts of the Bujinkan are so subtle good technique can differ from bad based on whether you pull with your rear leg to move forward or push off with your rear. Can you see the differences in yourself? Can you even see that on a video?

After you have built up good foundations you might, just might, be able to learn things from a video. But at the beginning you need a teacher. Do not look at videos and such meant for experience folks and think that their experience is applicable to your case.

Here is the thing, I know of no one who is decent that has started with a video course and was glad they did. I know quiet a few that started out and wished they had not. The teachers trying to sell you a video course probably all had real teachers. So it is strange that they would think that it would not be needed for others. Again, I call attention to the fact that I said I knew no one who was DECENT in my first sentence of this paragraph. I know several who consider themselves the best in the world but leave me unimpressed.

Here is a basic fact, much of what passes as video home study is not geared toward honest students at all. Instead they are marketed for people who want to add to their resume more than they want to learn. This alone should cause you to think about the type of person you are dealing with when you sign up for a course. I have seen many, many people get a black belt in an art like ninjutsu through the mail and then create their own style. It is really sad in my opinion that there are people in the Bujinkan willing to help these folks bilk money out of unsuspecting students and I look at them in the same light as the dojo owners.

If you have read this far without dismissing everything I have said and going back to your DVD player, I applaud you. At this point you might be readying some arguments to counter what I have written. Perhaps I can answer them.

"But if you can't learn from video learning courses, why are people selling them?"

They want something from you. Some of them are after money, some a stroke to their ego. Most times, a little of both.

In their own minds, I am certain they do not see things like this. Go back and read that quote by Heinlein again. Everyone wants to look in the mirror and see a good person looking back at them. The people that try to sell you video courses honestly think that they are doing good for the most part. Just remember that they gain something if you take their course. People like myself and the folks who pointed you to this blog have nothing to lose or gain by telling you that you can't learn from a video.

In addition, I should point out that the quality level of the Bujinkan is sometimes lacking. From the earliest days, people that should not have been teaching were trying to put together training groups. That legacy still haunts the Bujinkan and the head of the art has commented that he is trying to overcome the bad habits that people have built up. Many of the people I have seen trying to sell video courses are not people that understand the depth this art is capable of. They are limited in what they know and think that that level of knowledge is all they need to pass on to others. They are honest, but unskilled. Do you really want to start your journey with someone like that?

Consider this as well, the guys trying to sell you videos are saying that you can do it. You might respect their opinions because of their greater experience than you. But if you use that logic, then you should listen to the words of Masaaki Hatsumi, the head of the Bujinkan. A simple search of what he has said will find that he is strongly of the opinion that you can't learn his art from videos.

"But there are no schools around me!"

Then you can't learn. Sad to say, but you can't have everything. Life is rather unfair. Accept it. Do not try to do something half cocked because you want to. Would you try to learn to be a doctor on your own just because you could not commute to a medical school?

In the future a school might present itself to you. It would be better if you waited and started out with a fresh outlook rather than try to overcome the bad habits you will gain if you try to learn from video.

The folks who pointed this blog out to you are probably willing to help you find a school near you. Not all of them are easily found. Try to ask around before you give up and go with a video course.

"The Bujinkan schools near me are not good enough."

First of all, don't you think that is a bit egotistical? You have no experience in the art and yet you consider yourself a better teacher than the dojo near you. If you really give that answer to why you learn from DVDs instead of a local teacher you should expect to be treated as an egomaniac.

However, I will admit that there are some teachers who use the Bujinkan name and yet do not seem to hold up any standards for themselves. I would not advise people to go to them. In that case, it is the same as if there were no teachers in the area and you can't learn Bujinkan. End of story.

"I will go to seminars and such to supplement my training from videos."

That is a good idea after you have built up a good foundation. If after about a minimum of two or three years under a decent instructor you probably can learn that way on your own. Many people do it. But not at the beginning. Two days with 30 or more people just does not give the teacher the ability to deal with your individual habits. Moreover, I know that I can show someone something on one day and there is about a fifty fifty chance that they will have gone back to their old habits the next. At the beginning you need to show up on a regular, weekly basis to build up good habits and not just once every few months.

"Hatsumi himself learned from a teacher who was far away."

First of all, I would not suggest you loudly compare yourself to Hatsumi. That won't get you many friends on those forums you have been trying to post on.

Secondly, he never learned from video. I have talked to many of his first students and they say that he used to go almost every weekend at the beginning. Later on as his responsibilities mounted he cut back to once every few months. But the routine did not change. He would take the overnight train and get into his teacher's house early in the morning. From then on until he had to go home at the end of the weekend it was intense, one on one training with his teacher. And it was harsh. HIs teacher would not allow him to get away with any mistakes. He got frequent and rather rough feedback on his mistakes just as soon as he made them. This is a far cry from a video learning course.

"If Hatsumi does not want people to learn from videos, why does he have so many out."

In most cases, they are reference. There have been many times when I have not know the name of a technique but have been able to find it after viewing the videos I have. I also buy tapes of sessions I have been to in order to reawaken my memories. Since I was there the first time, they are very effective memory aides. But they are useless to a beginner to learn from.

"If people need a teacher to learn, how did arts get invented in the first place?"

People went out and faced real situations and if they survived, passed along their observations and experience to others. Those that came later added to the knowledge as they gained experience. Every generation's mistakes served as lessons for later students. Slowly the level being passed on grew to where they reached the levels they are now. The first folks to fight another were flying blind, as will you be if you try to follow the same path.

In closing, I know that what I write is probably not what you wanted to hear. If that disturbs you, how do you think you can hack the real hurdles martial arts will throw at you? This is your first chance to take the path of overcoming your ego and show the world that you can take bad news and accept reality. If you do, then if and when you finally find a real teacher you will be the better able to accept the lessons he has to give you. ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?66-You-Can-t-Learn-Bujinkan-From-Home-Video-Courses Recognizing Signs of Fraud in the Martial Arts http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?65-Recognizing-Signs-of-Fraud-in-the-Martial-Arts Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:19:37 GMT Recognizing fraud in the martial arts People have suggested that I should write something about how to recognize and deal with martial arts frauds. Living in Japan I have a better understanding of its martial arts and history and in the past I have helped poke holes in the stories of many... Recognizing fraud in the martial arts

People have suggested that I should write something about how to recognize and deal with martial arts frauds. Living in Japan I have a better understanding of its martial arts and history and in the past I have helped poke holes in the stories of many frauds.

It is actually rather sad that I have to write this. I went onto the internet to get information about martial arts. I did find some online journals, web sites and other resources that were of help. But as soon as I wandered onto a message board I was confronted with frauds spreading complete rubbish. I soon found myself trying to counter the mistakes they were spreading in order to make themselves look good. I happen to like history and I was able to point out many mistakes in what they were trying to present. Soon I got the reputation as both a fraud buster and a history expert. It is not something I set out to do, but over the years I’ve been pulled into a lot of investigations and I have learned all of the tricks that they seem to use as well as a simple litmus test for determining if someone is 99 percent likely to be a fraud.

The key to figuring out if the teacher you are thinking of studying with is a fraud is simple, verify his claims regarding his personal experiences. Do not worry about the generations prior to him. He may not know how to confirm the story of his teacher. He may have been lied to, or made a mistake about something that happened to his teacher- but there is no excuse for not knowing and being able to prove what happened to him.

This is important for determining the honesty of the person. If someone wants to make claims in public to attract students, then it is their responsibility to back those claims up just as publicly. If they do not want to prove anything, they should not be talking about it in public.

I expect people to make mistakes about history, Japanese culture and things like that. People make mistakes. Even the most legitimate and advanced student of a martial art may not know beans about their arts history or related subjects. Some people just train and learn how to do their art, but know nothing about anything that happens outside their own experience. They are not frauds for not knowing something like that.

But there is no excuse for them not knowing what happened to them. And that is what they have to prove.

If they claim to have trained with a teacher in a 500 year old art, then they have to prove that they trained under that teacher. Don’t worry about the 500 year old part if he can’t prove even the simple fact of whether if he ever had a teacher. If he claims to have been in a secret military unit that fought in Croatia then make him prove that he was in it and don’t get bogged down with conversations about the political situation in the former Yugoslavia. If they want to say they had hundreds of street fights, ask for documentation in the form of police reports, hospital records, legal bills and things like that.

Keep in mind that you want to be polite about this, but if he is saying you should train with him because they teacher is qualified in a certain way you have the right to ask for proof. You can’t expect people to provide personal information to you for just any reason. But if they mention being trained by a certain teacher or have it on their web site, then it becomes fair game. Just keep things in perspective. If I ever started teaching my art, I would be happy to point people to the office in Japan that administers my art. If I provided that, and they told you I was qualified to teach, I would be justified in refusing to give the phone number of my teacher in Japan.

The concentrating on the personal history will also let you know if you are dealing with a fraud or someone who has been fooled by a fraud. I have run across many people who tried to defend their teachers. I have gotten a few of them to realize they were being lied to. The key was that everyone who was being fooled backed up what they experienced and where they heard things. If they claimed to have trained with a teacher who is a fraud, they will say where you can find them and confirm their story. The people that don’t do that are the frauds. Eventually you work your way up the ladder and find the point where someone says they were an assassin for the CIA and only give excuses when asked for some proof. You may have to check the story of not only the teacher, but the head of the organization as well. You can only go as far as the head of the art, and if he is a fraud then the instructors under him can’t teach you any better.

But be careful. Sometimes there are people who have so much invested in the status they get from a fraudulant leader that they end up helping with the deception themselves. It is not uncommon for the people at the top of the chain to be the ones who were around long enough to realize they were involved in a fraudulant art, maybe even a cult, but not drop out like everyone else when faced with the truth. Marc MacYoung gave the term “Bitch Squad” for these types in an article he wrote about martial arts cults. It is an apt name. The BS guys go out and engage in the worse attacks against anyone who criticizes the cult’s leader, make the most outlandish claims and run cover for the head of the art who keeps his reputation intact by not seeming to be involved in petty arguments. If some claim about the teacher the BS makes is found to be untrue, the head has a cut out and can say it was a mistake by his subordinates and not a lie by him. This is actually very common in the bigger cults that pass themselves off as martial arts. Imagine if you had joined a martial art at age 15 and after 20 years you were a full time instructor of the art. Your kids go to school and eat based on the art you teach. Considering just how much of your self image is based on being a teacher of a legitimate martial art and the utter lack of skill you would have for almost any other job, you can imagine why people would do anything, anything at all to defend that status quo.

You can usually tell an honest student from a BS member by the way they will back up what they say. An honest student will give his sources. If he is relying on the word of his teacher he will say so. He will admit it. He may argue that others have to prove that what his teacher claims is wrong or make bad arguments, but he will give his sources. The BS member will usually say they are privy to information that the rest of the world is not and they can’t back it up. They will say they traveled with their teacher to Japan, or found records of his military service, or talked with other members of his CIA unit. None of this will be something anyone else can do for various reasons.

At this point, some people ask why it matters if someone is lying about their experiences or not as long as the skills they teach are good. Even today I am still floored whenever I hear this question.

Central to the idea of martial arts is the concept of honor and integrity. Without that, there is nothing you can learn from someone that can’t be better learned elsewhere. The martial arts did not build up this idea for purely noble reasons. They did it because honestly dangerous arts know that teaching their skills to people of questionable morals is like giving a pistol to a convicted felon. Yet I have heard people say that they have been studying martial arts for 20 years and they don’t care if a particular person is lying through his teeth or not, as long as they get what they want. These people are lost forever to the true depths that the martial arts can give. They have built their experience on the wrong foundation and instead of a large, stable, structure they are left only with something that can collapse at any time. I have run into people like this, and they are as morally questionable and lacking in skill (to my eye) than the worst frauds. Some people do not believe that their teacher or the guy they know is a fraud. But it is the ones that ask, “who cares if he pads his resume” that show as much of a lack of honor as the fraud spreading the lie.

If someone was stealing, would you not care if they did so as long as they did not steal from you? Because in essence that is what those that excuse frauds are doing. If people attract students based on a lie, then they are selling false goods. I myself will not associate with such folks, nor those who claim to not care. I got into martial arts not only to defend myself, but to make the world a better place. Excusing fraud as long as you get what you want is not a way to leave the world a better place for our children.

On a more practical level, unless you have a lot of experience facing folks that want to kill you, enough to start recognizing patterns and build up a statistical base, you probably really can’t tell what will work in a live situation and what will only work in a controlled situation. That lack of knowledge is nothing to be ashamed of. But we have to be honest about it. We have to acknowledge that what we think as being a useful skill may not be. As long as we are honest, when better information comes along based on reality we can adopt it. But a fraud is not honest and when information contradicts what he saying, he will reject it.

So we really do not know what is good and what is not. We can tell if someone is better than us- but from that standpoint we can’t tell how they rate compared to real masters. And we can’t tell if by going down the path of someone better than us whether we will end up with the masters, or end up in the dead end that all the frauds I know end up in. It would be rather egotistical to say that you can judge the amount of skill of someone you acknowledge as being better than you. All you can say is that he seems to know more and you can’t say how he rates compared with others who have more skill than you.

Ego is rampant in the martial arts. And it is one of the biggest hurdles everyone has to overcome to improve. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in your accomplishments. But you need to recognize and accept your failings and correct them. Mistakes and failures are actually wonderful things for advancement. You need to push yourself until you fall flat on your face, dust yourself off and figure out how you can overcome your present skill level. A teacher coming over and pointing out all of your many mistakes is helping you to see things you couldn’t on your own. If you live for the applause of others, it will be very difficult to admit those mistakes, even to yourself. The more importance you place on the adulation of others, the more a slave to your ego you become.

And people who lie to look better are total slaves to their ego.

This is why it is important to differentiate between those that are passing along information that may be false as honestly as they can and those that know they are not telling the truth. A person who was told that his teacher used a technique in real life will acknowledge that he can’t get the desired results from the technique and look to what he is doing wrong. He will work at the problem until he either finds a way to make it work, or think that he is missing something and gives up on the technique. But the person who made up the story has told people he made the technique work, so evidence that it does not work threatens that story. He will make excuses, even blame the students for their failures. Thus ends their ability to learn more.

Make no mistake, every fraud I have run across is motivated by ego. Money is an added benefit, but if you have low morals and are willing to lie there are much more profitable scams than teaching martial arts. Some of the biggest frauds don’t get into teaching for money; they end up doing that because it makes their image a bigger part of their life. The people that try to pass themselves off as veterans of elite military units don’t do it for money, but they may do it so that people will respect them as macho studs. People who make false claims in martial arts do so for the same reason. But unlike the fake vet, you can make your means of support off of teaching and put it on their business cards. It looks strange if you tell a person you just met that you were in the green berets in Vietnam. If you try it will be obvious to all that you are trying to impress people. But if you live off of teaching you get to let people know your status as the last living grand- master of Whoflung-pu as soon as you meet folks.

But just because someone is not making a living off of teaching, or even taking money, does not eliminate the chance that they are a fraud. Getting called master is often enough.

I have been a student of martial arts for over a quarter of a century, but until recently never taught. I only started teaching when I had to move back to America. I can tell you, it is very pleasing to the ego to be looked on as a teacher. People bow to you and call you fancy titles if you don’t stop them. You can see respect in their eyes as they talk to you and feel amazement when you show them some key to the problem they could not see. Oh yeah, I could get used to that real easily.

For some people, that type of thing is a drug. It becomes not just a nice experience in life, but rather a reason for living. You can see it in rock stars and olympic athletes. The money is good, but the fame- the respect- is what motivates them to put in the extra time to excel. It is difficult to fake ability in these types of things. Milli- Vinilli pulled it off in the world of music, and people do take steroids to improve sports performance. But in martial arts there rarely is a chance to demonstrate the skills you learn outside of a controlled situation. Even sparring can be controlled to play to certain strengths. But actual fights that may end up in death are not something that 99 percent of the students learning martial arts will ever face, let alone demonstrate to others.

So people seeking the quick, easy way to being treated as macho studs can lie about their past and teach martial arts. They build up their life, their image, their status in the community and among everyone that knows them based on a lie. The fact that they know they are lying is not important as long as people believe it. They are so much a slave to their ego that they give that much power to total strangers. To be exposed means losing everything- their status and self image primary among them. After building up everything on the base of being thought of as a master, the thought of losing that is worse than even dying. It is a form of dying. For them, their life is dependent on how others view them. To not be looked on in the same way voids their reason for existing, and thus their life.

Trust me, when these people face losing their purpose of their existence like that you don’t want to be anywhere near ground zero.

I have worked with a group of ex-students of a fraud. Through an internet message board I countered the points their teacher had tried to push and it was his inability to deal with simple questions of proof coupled with my ability to provide references to counter what he said that caused them to realize the truth and lead a large defection.

Then things got ugly for them.

People leaving the group told stories of criminal behavior, students being made pregnant by teachers, prison experience for the head teacher and other horror stories that they had been willing to overlook at the time. They had all kept quiet and mainly thought that it was normal, or that they were the only ones that saw it. Once they started comparing notes, it became quite clear that the school was a very dangerous criminal group and they told the world about what had happened to them. The leader of the group retaliated by any means he could. He tried to destroy any student who had left him. He used frivolous lawsuits, turned family members against them with false stories and even physical intimidation. Some of them were honestly convinced that their lives were in danger.

That is the type of thing you may face if you get involved with someone willing to lie to make themselves look good. None of them saw the danger when they walked into the martial arts studio. Con men are rather charming when you first meet them. So are cult leaders. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And as long as things go their way, most frauds can seem to be the nicest people on the planet. But at the first sign of their house of cards falling and the truth being exposed, you see a whole new ugly side to them.

Consider the fact that these people already do things that decent people would never do, namely building their entire life around living a lie and deceiving even their closest loved ones. You threaten to bring down all they worked for, all that they really are. You threaten something that is their existence and they have been proven to not have a problem with behavior we would find repulsive. Just try to imagine how they will react even if you have no intent on exposing them. Even if all you do is ask innocent questions or find something somewhere that contradicts an element of their story, you can be a target. Martial arts con men have sent students to kill others. These cases are a legal fact and documented. You don’t want to risk it by looking the other way when honest concerns are first raised. It is best to just put as much distance between yourself and someone who won’t answer simple questions. There are always other teachers you can train under that are honest about what they do.

Again, the simplest way to tell if someone is a liar is to concentrate on what they claim has happened to them. What happened to others is not easy to confirm sometimes. But on important things, there is no excuse for not backing up personal experience.

Let me give you an example. I served in the military. According to my family, my great grandfather served in the Union Army in the war between the states. The only picture I have of him was taken decades later and I have little idea of how I would find out if he served, and with which unit. I never even met him. But if I wanted to prove that I served, I know exactly how to prove it. I have a mountain of proof. Other people and institutions can back up what I say about my military service. Even if the military lost each and every record they had on me, I could still provide dates and the names of people who served with me. They could be contacted and their relationship in the military could be confirmed.

It is the same way with martial arts. There is no excuse for someone who claims to have more than a couple of months of training to not be able to lay the proof down for others to check for themselves. If it was only a single weekend seminar, then maybe no one would remember them. But if they are claiming to teach an art, then they had to stick around for years and get certification. That type of person should be able to lay it out and let you talk to their teachers to answer your questions. Even if the teacher is dead, there should still be multiple sources that can confirm the story.

Checking with the teacher of a person you are planning on training with is a pretty good idea. Sometimes people can be associated with very decent, legitimate teachers and still fall into the fraud category because they inflate their experience. Many people spend a little time training in Japan, earn a yellow belt and by some form of magic gain a tenth level degree black belt on the airline flight home. I am aware of many people that have done that. If anyone balks at the idea of you contacting their teacher or their organization, your suspicions should be roused.

Worse, I am also aware of a few cases where people have studied martial arts and actually gotten very good at it. But their attraction to the martial arts seems to have been at least partially motivated by a desire for access to young children. When they are discovered molesting their charges, quite frequently they move to another state (after serving time in prison) and set themselves up as martial arts instructors again. Even if they are supervised and not allowed to run children’s classes, they still are a danger and you don’t want to be associated with them. If you were to contact their old teachers, they will be aware of the situation and they will warn you off. An unwillingness to let you contact their past teachers may be because of this. Some of us are not willing to take the chance even if they are skilled.

It is sad, but it is very easy today to gain something to show a person that will seem on a shallow level to back up their story. If you have any reason to suspect something, you need to look at it from the angle of how the evidence you see could have been made up. Putting something on an internet home page does not mean it happened. I have seen people claim too be members of actual organizations in Japan when I know they are not. Their web page to this day still lists the claim.

Unless you are really close to the subject matter, certificates on a wall or a web page are pretty much useless now. With photoshop and laser printers anyone can come up with something that looks good to the untrained eye. The writing on it may have come from the local Chinese restaurant. I have seen certificates that had Japanese written on them that made me fall off my seat laughing. But unless you read the language, you could not tell. The certificate that read that it was from the “Heavenly Dog Association” and had a different name on it than the guy claiming it as his own actually was pretty neat in terms of fonts and such. I suspect that a few things were taken from examples posted on the internet and the final version was what I saw. So beware anyone who says that a certificate is all you need and that they don’t want you contacting their teacher.

Beware of pictures being presented as some sort of proof. An exception to this might be pictures obviously taken over the course of a few decades that cover both training situations and social ones. Take a look at the pictures and ask if they could have been taken over the course of a single weekend seminar, or less. Beware of accepting the comments on what is going on in the photo. Ask yourself if there is another possible reason.

As an example, if you took a seminar with someone and at the end of it presented a certificate of appreciation to the teacher for visiting you, how would a photo of you passing it to him differ from a photo of him passing a tenth degree black belt certificate to you? Answer- not a bit. You can make a fake certificate that resembles the certificate you gave him and have it say whatever you want. There is an actual case prosecuted in Japan with the leader of a cult. During the trial it was revealed that this man had arranged a meeting with the Dalai Lama and presented him with a fancy ring that he also wore. The pictures of the two of them standing side by side wearing the same ring and of a ring being passed from one to the other were offered as proof to his flock that he had been made part of an elite, secret religious group by the Dalai Lama.

Many famous people let others take pictures with them. This is true in martial arts as well. Ninety nine percent of the time these photos are treasured by the recipients and remind them of the time they met with a man they admire. If I had a photo of me with the late Bruce Lee, I would frame it and put it on the wall. But they can also be used to try to convince people that these famous folks are either their teachers, or approve and support what they do. All the photos really prove is that they were in the same room together at some point. And with photoshop even this may not be true.

Photos of people are just photos of people. I know of cases where people have pictures of honest, respected martial artists on their web site and in their school with claims that these people are their teachers and I know that the two have never even met. I am also aware of a case where the leaders of that group I helped leave a cult came to Japan merely to take a lot of pictures of themselves. They put a photo of a man wearing the robe they used in their school up on their web site and claimed it was their mysterious teacher. A quick investigation by people in Japan found that it was a staff member at a Japanese theme park that had been asked to pose for a photo with the group. The thing that caused suspicion in the Japanese searchers was that the robe was worn over a polo- style shirt instead of being worn as a Japanese martial arts uniform normally is.

Be very wary of any resistance to a reasonable request to contact the person they claim to have taught them. And it is best to run, not walk, away if they even hint at there being a need for secrecy as the reason.

Let me get this straight, they have a school in the local strip mall where they will tell you they are a ninjutsu system, a web site visible to billions advertising themselves as a ninjutsu system and have books they write where they claim to be a ninjutsu system- and after all that publicity it is only when they are asked for simple proof that the leader actually had a real teacher of ninjutsu that the subject of secrecy comes up? Just how stupid do they think you are?

If someone is going to make a claim, it is not a secret. The more open the claim, the less the excuse of secrecy is valid. If you hear it before you are even a student, it can in no way be defended as being a secret.

I do know people that have secrets. We all have things we don’t want others to know, or at least only those that we can trust with the information. These things are not talked about in the open or to people you have not known for a good long time. Anything else, any talk that someone other than their best friends are privy to is an open claim and then has to be proven or treated as a lie. They may not be able to prove what they heard from their teachers, but they have to be able to prove what happened to them.

An even bigger danger sign is any talk at all of enemies being out to get them or of conspiracies. As silly as it sounds as you sit in front of your computer screen reading this, it is one of the most common tactics used by groups with dubious claims. Anyone who casts doubts on them are attacked on a personal level and said to be saying what they are due to some sort of agenda. If it is multiple sources casting doubt, then frequently the explanation is that they are working together. Believe it or not, I know of one case where a fraud claims that articles that expose him in sources as diverse as Soldier of Fortune Magazine (about as right wing as you can get) and the rather liberal L.A. Times are part of a plot by the CIA to destroy his reputation.

I do have to admit that sometimes accusations are motivated by an agenda and not the truth. In a custody battle in a bitter divorce case it is not uncommon for one parent to accuse the other one of child molestation. These things happen and you should be aware that the frauds themselves frequently attack their critics to deflect their comments. But you should find it strange that everyone who is casting doubt on someone’s claims are out to get them. Take a look and see if these attackers are not rival schools, or ex- students/ lovers/ partners but rather objective sources like CNN and the L.A. Times. If someone points out that they can’t prove something, they don’t shut the critic up by proving it, but instead go on the attack of their character? Accusations should be met with proof, or demanding that the other side show proof- not in more attacks in kind. Whenever there is a case of possible motivation, it usually is pretty obvious. The reasons they could have for falsely accusing are as obvious as the child custody case. They can be proven to exist. It should not require possible motivations that need to be explained and can’t be proven. They can be proven to exist. Accusations of misdeeds by those that cast doubt should be proven if made.

Seriously, if talk of people being out to get the teacher are a major part of the defense, you are probably dealing with an out and out cult. You never want to get involved with a group that acts like this. Take a look at the famous cults in the past that cost a lot of innocent lives and you will probably find this type of tactic. The Japanese cult that gassed the subways earlier had kidnapped and murdered a lawyer and his family who had led the legal battle against them. In the course of the kidnap, a badge of one of the members was left behind and pointed to the cult’s involvement. The response by the cult that it was planted to make them look bad. They repeated the tactic when the first evidence of their involvement in the subway attack became public. Of course, they were found to be guilty. Other cults have used the tactic. It is a dangerous sign. And it is best to avoid anything that even hints of that type of reasoning.

Claims of secrecy and of conspiracies out to get them are not just signs of fraud, they are very real signs of potential danger. It is not worth the risk. People have died from groups that use this type of excuse to explain things away.

There are many lesser signals of possible concern. Not all of them are proof of fraud, but they should set off red flags. In most cases, you might not bother trying to check the claims of your teacher. But if you see some of these red flags, you should start to wonder.

- Selling a fantasy. Take a serious look at some internet sites and you will come away with the idea that they were written to cater to the fantasy of a 14 year old raised on bad kung fu movies and ones with explosions. Not all frauds do this, nor are all the people that do this frauds. But there is a high correlation between the two. I know of some folks who teach in a park and try to keep a low profile so as to not attract the attention of the police. But groups that have you sneak into a hidden location are just plain silly. If you see things in the hand outs or web site like sniper rifles, hooded ninja climbing walls and guys in military style uniforms, it may be a bad sign.

- Claims of military service, especially elite units and combat experience as part of the resume of the martial arts teacher. As I already wrote, martial arts frauds lie to make themselves look like macho studs. Military service has very little to do with martial arts, so its inclusion in part of the studio literature about the teacher is a worrying sign.

Of course, there are people who have made names in the martial arts and served in respectable military units. I know several. One example is my friend Alain Burrese. He joined the military as a young man because the idea of jumping out of airplanes and blowing up buildings appeals to many men at that age. After training him as a paratrooper the army sent him to Korea. While there he received training in being a sniper. Korea is famous for its martial arts and for someone with as many wild oats to sow as Alain, it was a chance not to be missed and he was introduced to Hapkido. He even moved back to Korea after leaving the service to train. Today he is a fourth dan and practices law, teaching martial arts only in his spare time.

Many of the first teachers of karate were service men stationed in Okinawa after the war. Many of the folks I know who like martial arts also like guns, and many of the people who like guns served time in the military. There is a high percentage of mutual interest. But the legitimate folks I know like Alain just don’t make it part of their appeal and don't have photos of themselves in cam outfits on their web page. Frauds seem to try to link their martial arts experience with their military one by telling stories of having to use their knife defense techniques instead of the typical soldier solution of shooting the knifer. A key sign seems to be that many frauds not only say they were part of the military, but that they also saw combat. People like Alain who never claimed to have been in a shooting war are probably safe bets.

- Stories that sound too good to be true, probably are not true. It is strange to have to point this out, but the way some people pile on higher and deeper the stories about themselves should be a warning sign of it’s own. But in person they often are a lot more subtle and not all laid out at once. Just how many people in the world are the students of secret Apache wrestling techniques taught from a young age to only to a select few each generation AND a veteran of an elite unit involved in every conflict since the first gulf war AND an ex- assassin for Interpol AND a secret student of Bruce Lee AND a holy warrior monk under the command of the Dalai Lama?

Yes, objectively speaking it is strange to think that people would not be suspicious of so many claims. The problem I have seen in frauds that lie to make themselves look better is that there is a hole in their personality. They only live for the admiration of others. They can’t exist without occasionally getting people to look at them as they spin their stories. So they have to come up with new stories. It is rare to find someone lying about only one part of their life. Too many good things may be a sign that they have run out of stories in the past.

- Stories of learning from early childhood. This actually does happen in Asia within families. If the guy is not from Asia, then the chances of this are pretty much zero. People may start training at the local martial arts academy with all the other kids from age seven, or younger. But if the claim is of learning from a guy in their back yard or something it can be safely stowed with all the stories that can’t be confirmed. The person they said taught them one on one in the back yard can never be found, and if the parents are alive they are always unaware that their little boy was spending so much time with a man they never met. Unless they wanted their kid to be molested and end up with his throat cut and body dumped in a ditch, they probably were pretty aware of where he was most of the time. There is no way they could have missed that guy teaching their son from age 5 to 18.

I think this is so common because people want to make themselves sound as skilled as possible and pushing back the age gives them more time under training they can claim. Instead of 6 months of training at age 17 at the local Shaolin- Kenpo- karate & kung fu franchise on the corner, they can say they had 15 years of more by the time they are 20.

- Claims of high ranks in multiple martial arts or offering classes in them. Martial arts are very, very different from each other. It is very difficult to gain a real level of skill in disciplines as diverse as ballet is from football. It may seem that skill in one art carries over to another, but unless you are talking arts with very similar roots, this is just not the case. Internal Chinese arts are very, very different from hard style Japanese ones.

Many experienced martial artists have been exposed to a variety of arts. Taking a seminar in an art not only broadens your outlook, it might reveal an art that is better than the one you now do. But there is a difference between that and saying that you are skilled enough to teach those arts. Getting skilled enough to teach an art takes years of instruction on a regular basis with a qualified teacher. If you see people in the 20s or 30s claiming to teach five or more arts, it is time to get suspicious.

Today there are people that will essentially sell you a rank. They may even be legit teachers but have sold out for money. They may try to cover over this fact by calling what they do something like “long distance video learning courses” but in most cases it is pretty much assured you will get the rank after the check clears the bank. And the teachers will not be eager to point out how they got the rank. Your only hint may be in seeing that someone claims to have gotten a rank from someone thousands of miles away.

-Wall candy. This is the name for certificates that look pretty sitting on a wall, but don’t have much nutritional value. Today, anyone with a laser printer can design an impressive looking certificate. And as common as it is for people to do just that, there are also ways of getting wall candy from other sources that seem more real.

The first type is a soke board. A soke is a Japanese term for the person who owns the copyright for an arts name. If you want to teach it, you have to get his permission and follow his standards and directions. The term has been borrowed by many who can’t even tell a Japanese word from a Korean one to come to mean head teacher or something close. The lack of knowledge of the term (unlike “sushi”) allows them to both impress people with its exoticness and also give a definition they desire.

Soke boards don’t all use the term soke, but they do offer to certify people as the heads of their own art. The whole idea of an outside organization being better able to certify you than your own teacher is just silly to serious martial artists. Speaking for myself, if my teacher won’t certify me, I can’t imagine why I should listen to a bunch of guys who get together for a dinner once a year, wear elaborate pajamas and call each other master. If I am going to be independent and break with my teacher in the name of freedom and doing my own thing, then I don’t see why I should drop one set of chains for another. Either I stay with my system or teacher or I am not going to be bound by the judgment of people who have never seen me and may not know the first thing about what I do.

At its basic level, a soke board is nothing more than a group of people that get together to give each other legitimacy. Say, five guys get together and form an organization that claims to judge and certify martial arts ability. The organization then certifies all of them as masters. When asked why they are masters, they can point to the certification of the organization. When asked what makes the soke board fit to judge others, they can point to the large number of masters on its board. This is helped by the fact that there are several soke boards, so it is not quite as obvious as this. It takes quite a bit of digging to follow the trail around and back to the source. And members frequently trade high ranks with each other. A person might found an art, or claim to be certified in one. He gives rank to several people. They give him rank. If ever asked what qualified him to create his own art, he can point to the high rank he has from other masters as proof of his skill.

The image that soke boards try to present is one of a group of skilled people with high standards. So a shallow search by means of the internet will not set off alarms to the typical mother looking for a class for her kids. But rarely is there any checking of facts or qualifications. In one case, a soke board stated that it required the fee (of course), two pictures and a video tape of the person submitting an application for review. Some jokers on a mailing list sent in the application, fee, one photo of an Asian man, another of a caucasian female and a video tape of “Debbie Does Dallas” and received their certificate from the organization. The only thing they are certain was looked at was the check they sent in.

Another thing some soke boards do is give free membership to respected martial artists without them asking, and then add their photo to the membership lists on the internet. People like Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and others do not need to associate with some of these groups and they never asked to be members. They are usually not given a chance to turn down membership either. But the typical karate mother thinks that because their photo is on a web site that the group is elite indeed. And she thinks others on the web site are in the same category when they are not.

The second type of wall candy are groups that pass themselves off as professional organizations. Understand that it would be quite legal for me to set up an organization called “The International Anti-Terrorist Training Association” and start charging people money to join. They would get a certificate of membership, their name listed on the web page and maybe access to an on- line forum and a slim newsletter sent by e-mail every few months. I do not have to actually have ever taught elite anti- terrorist units to do so, nor would any of the members. The same rules go for soke boards. So it is best to be careful of impressive- sounding organizations listed on the instructor’s resume.

- Any mention of a hall of fame. Black Belt Magazine came up with a hall of fame and that is pretty much respected. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of other martial arts halls of fames set up by soke boards. The main requirement to be named, “Knife fighting teacher of the year” is a check that clears the bank. This is one of the easiest things to find when talking about red flags.

-More Asian than Asia.

One big warning sign should be if things look almost like a parody of what you think life in the orient is like. Students who have to bow before talking to a teacher, use only certain terms to address them and maybe a studio that even has a gong are all things that would keep me away from it.

I lived in Japan and have trained there for a long time. There is respect towards teachers and things that are expected of students, such as cleaning the dojo after class. But it is no where near the worship that I have seen go on in some American schools of questionable lineage. I would be wary of groups that use a lot of asian words where perfectly good English words already exist. If there is a board of advisors, call them that instead of “Karo”- a term not in use in Japan for over a hundred years. If the students are required to get the teacher coffee or other chores, you are probably dealing with a cult. It is best to stay away.

-Pictures of celebrities provided as some sort of legitimizer.

As I said, many famous martial artists have their picture taken with others when asked. These can be very valuable memories. But they should be treated in the same ways as pictures of friends and family that are also full of memories. If there is even a hint that all the respected people on the wall would support the teacher you should stay away. No one with any integrity would even try that. They may have a photo of their teachers to honor them- but never a gallery of photos that might lead others to assume that he associates and is approved by the best.

-Talk of being warriors, samurai, or ninja instead of just learning the art.

Today a lot of people throw out the word “warrior” to mean a lot of things other than someone who fights in a war. I feel it is used a little too freely. But it is probably not a bad thing overall. The problem I have seen is when schools try to lure students with the idea of being some sort of warrior. Unless you are joining the military or police, you don’t need to live a life dedicated towards war. You need to learn how to defend yourself from more realistic attackers like muggers or enraged motorists. Maybe you just want a hobby and a means of improving yourself in addition to self defense. You don’t need to be a warrior monk.

The samurai and ninja are dead. If people are using the idea of making you one, or use them as terms for ranks, it is a very scary red flag. These schools are not realistic representations of schools that teach samurai arts; they are cults that prey on the desire of some people to be more than a member of the mundane world. Certain schools seem to use the image of a samurai as part of their advertising, but are clear that they are teaching samurai arts like swordsmanship and not making you a samurai yourself. On the other hand, some very dangerous martial arts cults have the idea of making their members ninja or samurai central to their image and means of attracting impressionable young students. It works because people want a sense of adventure at a young age. They don’t want to be just a part time clerk as they go to community college; they want to be ninjas in training. The groups that attract these types and feed their fantasies are not what serious people want to deal with.

- A lot of talk of mysticism and super powers.

I have seen things I can’t explain. That does not mean there is no explanation somewhere. In a lot of cases, things I thought were real turned out to be parlor tricks. There are arts like Taiji and Aikido that believe there is a power that is yet understood by western science that they try to cultivate. However they do not make a big deal of it. It is like air to them. It’s something that they need- but not the purpose of training. They do not do exercises to build up their power so that they can toss people across the room without touching them. They do not try to say that “Ki lightning bolts” can save them in a fight. Instead of talk of these powers, beginners are told to concentrate on good posture and basic moving skills.

But people like the idea of mystic power available to them. And those that seek the admiration of people can cater to that. Just like the talk of being a warrior, too much catering to the fantasies of youngsters about mystic power is a sign of possible trouble. Remember that there is a million dollar reward for anyone who can prove a form of mystic power under controlled conditions. If the people that really insist that they can do mystic powers and teach you to as well were able to do so, wouldn’t they like a million dollars instead of collecting the training fees they are now? If a school has exercises on how to read other people’s minds, they are moving away from a reality you want to be in.

If anything like these points come to your attention, it is best to check on the credentials of the teacher leading the class. It is very difficult for people who do not speak Japanese or know the differences between the Edo period and the Kamakura period to note the problems with the story of an art that supposedly came from Japan. But if the teacher claims to have lived in Japan they should be able to prove that. Stick with what you yourself can check and what the teacher himself experienced and do not be led astray by distractions if they get thrown in your way. If they are, that is only more reason to no do anything until the history of the teacher can be confirmed.

Checking on the teacher before you question his credentials in person might be a good idea. Even if you have no reason to suspect anything, a little knowledge is never a bad idea. And if it is a scam, you might avoid some trouble from some of the crazier frauds by just never going back. The internet can be your friend in this. But don’t just punch the name of the art and the teacher into a search engine. You will probably only get web sites run by them at the top of the search.

Instead, consider joining martial arts message boards like Budoseek.net. Registration is free. Once you are on, you can use the search function to find the name of the art or the teacher. If there are any problems with the story, it has probably been talked about before. There are people on Budoseek that live in Asian countries, train in martial arts and read the language. If there is something fishy, they will be in a position to know.

Mind you, frauds and their followers can join these boards as well. But if there is a problem, the general tone of the members outside of a few will probably be pretty obvious. If there is any debate at all, you have reason to be suspicious. And then you have a right to ask for confirmation on your own. Take the time to know the general situation and check on the past threads of people joining the conversation. A person who posts on a variety of subjects and seems to be respected by others is probably not someone there just to tear down a rival teacher or defend a fraud.

The sad fact is that there are a lot of creeps involved in martial arts now. People that get into martial arts to feed their ego have a need to get others to note them, so they are more active in promotion and you are more likely to become aware of them than the guys that do it out of the love of the art. But even so, frauds are still only a minority in the martial arts. And in most cases, there probably is not a reason to bother checking the credentials of the teacher. If the web site you find deals with class descriptions instead of the resume of the teacher, you probably are not dealing with a fraud. If you are invited to sit down and watch a class and the teacher talks about the benefits of studying martial arts rather than its secret history, you are probably on safe ground. But if anything sets off even a little suspicion in you, it is always best to check things out. Lives have been ruined by frauds, on occasion people have died. There are plenty of good teachers out there so you don’t have to settle for a fraud. ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?65-Recognizing-Signs-of-Fraud-in-the-Martial-Arts The Myth of the Straight Bladed Ninja Sword http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?52-The-Myth-of-the-Straight-Bladed-Ninja-Sword Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:44:54 GMT The reason I write and post things on blogs such as this is to try to end the confusion that often surrounds ninjutsu. Past things I have put up on the internet about the Koga ryu, the Godai and such help folks to correct mistaken impressions, and there are a lot of them in the art of ninjutsu.... The reason I write and post things on blogs such as this is to try to end the confusion that often surrounds ninjutsu. Past things I have put up on the internet about the Koga ryu, the Godai and such help folks to correct mistaken impressions, and there are a lot of them in the art of ninjutsu.
One of the most pervasive ones is the idea that the ninja used a straight bladed sword because they could not afford to make ones like those used by the samurai. This mistaken impression is one of the most common ones and seems unwilling to die.
As far as some of us can tell the idea came about from the writings of a Westerner, Stephen Hayes, and then spread around the world due to the volume of his writings and the influence they had. First they showed up in the West, then they showed up in Hong Kong movies and now they even can be found in Japan!
If the last surprises you, it should be noted that there is no mention of the ninja using straight bladed swords in a Japanese source prior to Hayes writing that they did.
All the evidence so far points to this being a mistake by Hayes due to a misunderstanding of the subject matter on his part. According to Japanese teachers who were there when he was actually training in Japan, he could not get to many classes, his Japanese ability is still very poor and he never advanced far enough to learn things like sword. Viewed in this light, mistakes are to be expected. Many people think that the ninja used straight swords because the story is also included in the book "Ninjutsu, History and Tradition" accredited to Masaaki Hatsumi. However, that book is not a straight translation, but a collection of things taken from some stuff Hatsumi had printed in Japanese with some "explanation" added in by Hayes.
It is important to note that there are no Japanese sources by Hatsumi where he says that the ninja used straight blades. In addition, he and other Japanese have denied that they use them when asked. There was even a humorous incident when Fumio Manaka first laid eyes on a practice wooden sword with a straight blade and asked what they heck it was and why people were using them in ninjutsu training. In sources in English where Hatsumi had a great amount of control, there is no mention of the ninja using straight bladed swords. The only references we can find in any language are in English. One of them is the previously mentioned book, the other seems to be something added by an editor of the now defunct Ninja Magazine and does not originate with Hatsumi.
To those not familiar with the publishing world, editors do add their own copy to articles and such. Sometimes it is to make clearer what the writer is saying. Sometimes it is to add in some details they think were overlooked. And sometimes they even do it to make a short article a bit longer. The passage attributed to Hatsumi in the Ninja Magazine article is so close to the terms first written by Hayes that most objective folks have concluded that it was the source of what the editors added.
It is not just the similarity in writing style, though that is fairly clear if you are familiar with translations, that convince folks that the passage was added by the editors. The fact that Hatsumi has denied that the ninja used straight swords when asked, all his Japanese members have confirmed that he never said anything of the sort and the lack of a single source in Japanese by Hatsumi also is overwhelming evidence that Hatsumi never said that the ninja used straight swords.
And it is safe to say that the ninja did not use straight swords.
Logically, it makes no sense. When crafting a blade, it is not easier to make a straight blade compared with a curved one. The ninja also would not want to stand out with a different blade if they could help it. If the ninja were using a blade different from the norm, it would cause notice and someone would make mention of it in an historical source. So far, no one has been able to find such a source and give its name.
Indeed, after writing for years that the ninja used a straight blade and even licensing his name to a series of weapons including straight bladed training swords with Taipei, Hayes reversed himself in one of his books by Ohara Publications and claimed that the idea that the ninja used a straight sword was a cultural myth. He claimed that the common people thought that the ninja used a straight blade due to their association with Fudo Myo- ou and not because they ninja actually used them.
This last part is a little strange since you would assume that if Japanese people mistakenly thought that the ninja used straight blades, we would be able to find some sort of reference to the ninja using them. If they did use them, then there would be historical references that could be named where people commented on it. If it were a common mistake, then you would assume that historians and writers would take the time to correct the mistake.
However, there is NOTHING in Japanese we have been able to find before Hayes started writing about the straight bladed ninja sword. Hatsumi in his "Ninpo Zukan" book only notes that the sword was shorter. Authors such as Yumio Nawa never mention anything about the ninja using a straight sword either as if it were fact, or a mistake they need to correct their reader's impression of. The lack of any source saying anything about the ninja using a cruder, straight blade in Japanese by historians and writers should be looked at in the same light as the lack of reference to American Indians using machine guns. There is no reference in any way because there was nothing to support the idea.
Since the ninja made a large splash in the West, there is now some places that cater to this image of the straight bladed sword. While serious publications in Japanese still do not say that the ninja used straight swords, the ninja museum in Iga Ueno in an attempt to attract foreign tourists have added a modern made straight bladed ninja sword made in Taiwan. The museum is really more of a tourist trap than a serious museum and they have no actual historical examples of the ninja sword and so they have to use one made in the last few years instead.
Why did Hayes think that the ninja used straight swords? We may never know unless he chooses to tell us. Hayes is also famous for the story that the ninja were an oppressed minority, hunted and hated because of their mystic powers. This mistaken view of history is the background for the need for an easily made sword. The reality is far different.
Certainly we can say the following,
-There is no mention of the ninja using a crudely made, straight sword in anything written by Hatsumi in Japanese.
-He and several of the senior Japanese teachers in the Bujinkan have denied that the ninja used such weapons when asked.
-No Japanese historian seems to have made mention of the ninja using a straight sword.
-There are no historical sources that have been named that talk about the ninja using a crude, straight sword.
-The ninja were not an oppressed minority and they did have access to regular swords.
and
-The idea that a straight sword is easier to make than a curved one is false.
So I hope that people reading this will know that those that portray themselves as previously secret ninja traditions come to light in the 20th century and use their traditional straight sword are in fact using a weapon that did not exist prior to 1980. So the secret traditional version of ninjutsu they claim to teach is probably no older than the cars they drive. ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?52-The-Myth-of-the-Straight-Bladed-Ninja-Sword What to look for when looking for a Bujinkan Dojo http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?23-What-to-look-for-when-looking-for-a-Bujinkan-Dojo Mon, 24 May 2010 13:46:28 GMT ---Quote (Originally by Don Roley)--- Hello, I got a few private messages here from someone seeking advice on finding a dojo and what to look for. It seems to be a rather common question so I thought I would write a blog about it so people could reference it. I would like to try it out here and...
Quote Originally Posted by Don Roley View Post
Hello,
I got a few private messages here from someone seeking advice on finding a dojo and what to look for. It seems to be a rather common question so I thought I would write a blog about it so people could reference it. I would like to try it out here and get some feedback first.

There are many Bujinkan dojos in the world. Unfortunately there are some frauds passing themselves off as Bujinkan. And not all Bujinkan dojos are ones I would recommend.

Your first stop should be to visit www.winjutsu.com and see the yellow pages they have there of Bujinkan dojos. Not all dojos are listed there. I myself did not have a web page for a few months after I started training. And they don't accept things like facebook or myspace pages, only ones that can link back to them in return. So a dojo you heard about not being there is by itself not conclusive. In addition, at least one dojo listed there I know for a fact is not Bujinkan.

The next step is a simple use of an internet search engine with the name of the instructor and the term "Bujinkan" in it. In this age, anyone that has been around long enough to teach in the Bujinkan would probably be discussed on the internet. You might find references to them going to a seminar or links from other Bujinkan sites. Some of the frauds will probably be exposed on message boards. If the only listing of the person is on sites they control, there may be a problem.

Even if the teacher is in the Bujinkan, there are times I would urge caution. Sadly there are some folks that seem to only put in the bare minimum of time to get listed as an instructor and then do whatever they want.

What I would look for is indications that the teacher is trying to improve himself and further his knowledge. This can be tricky. In my years of living in Japan I saw quite a few examples of people that only seemed to be visiting to say they had been to Japan and not to really learn. In at least two cases I know of people that flew out to Japan and spent only one day in class to take pictures for their web site to "prove" they were studying with Masaaki Hatsumi.

To be a full teacher in the Bujinkan you need to be a fifth dan. People below that rank can teach as assistants. Sometimes they are in locations far from the teacher that named them as assistants, but as the pool of qualified teachers grows this is becoming rarer. The fifth dan is given only in Japan now. So someone claiming to have it should have proof that they went to Japan or took the fifth dan test when Hatsumi was still traveling overseas to train people. Most people that have been to Japan are all too eager to put photos of them with a Japanese teacher or Hatsumi himself up on their web site.

I would look for evidence that the teacher has gone more than once and is thinking of going again. One trip may be to just take the test so that the teacher can say he was a teacher. If there are photo galleries, they might have pictures of multiple trips.

Not everyone can go to Japan. It is rather expensive as you can imagine. So if someone only took one trip, or none, that is not strange in my book. However, I would look for other signs that they are continuing to further their training.

One thing is an acknowledgement of a teacher they train under. Unless you are very experienced in Bujinkan it is common for serious teachers to still have a teacher in the same country that they go to from time to time. Someone who lives in San Diego might go up to San Francisco to see their teacher a few times every year. If someone in San Diego lists a teacher in Spain I would consider the possibility that they are only token students and are more interested in doing their own thing and not the Bujinkan. I have seen several cases of that.

One way of improving a teacher's knowledge is to host seminars. If there are senior people coming in to give seminars mentioned on the web site that is a good sign that the person is serious about improving themselves. It also shows that the teacher is probably not running a cult of personality and acknowledges that he is not the sole source students should learn from.

It is my opinion that an willingness to continue improving is one of the most important aspects of being a teacher of the martial arts. When you look at a web site or talk to the teacher you should be looking for signs that the teacher is still a student in deed as well as word.

There are some danger signs I would point out now.

One is if someone is claiming to teach several arts in addition to Bujinkan. There are some folks with a wide experience of arts. I myself have studied quite a few. But it is a tactic of some teachers to get ranking in multiple arts through video black belt courses in order to appeal to more students. And there are some folks in the Bujinkan that have sadly decided to make some money by selling video courses and giving rank to people they have never met face to face. I have seen some of the people that have started out this way and none of them are people I would send students to. One Japanese teacher of mine said that he thought that anyone who started with a video course was forever lost no matter how hard they tried.

If the teacher has multiple arts on his resume, do some digging. I saw one site where the teacher listed five arts he held instructor rank in. I followed the links he gave to his teachers and they were all in other states and all listed video black belt courses on their web sites.

One very big warning sign is indications that the teacher is catering to the fantasy of being a ninja. Selling the fantasy of being a ninja can make people a lot of money. I do not think the Bujinkan is about selling the fantasy of being a ninja. The Bujinkan I learned was about getting home alive if I was attacked.

Typical Bujinkan dojos wear a black outfit. The story I got was that they used to use standard white outfits, but Hatsumi's wife complained at all the grass stains they got while training outdoors. So they made the switch to black. If you see full ninja outfits on the web page instead of just a black outfit, I would stay away.

In Japan they use three colors for belts. If you have a white belt that means you do not know how to take a fall. I know I should not throw people with white belts. Green belts are given to people as soon as they can be thrown. When a person has advanced enough they are given a black belt.

Testing fees for rank are a good source of income for some teachers. To encourage students to take these tests, many schools have belts that show the advancement of the student. Sometimes this is the colors themselves or stripes on the belt to show increases in rank. If you see more than three colors or stripes you might consider that the teacher is interested more in getting money than doing what they do in Japan.

Running around in the woods in ninja outfits, doing drills of clearing houses like a SWAT team and images of meditating on a rock are all examples of selling a fantasy and I would avoid any school using them on their site. I can't think of a single group that has pictures of themselves wearing masks that I would consider competent.

In the past, ninja used hand gestures called mudras to achieve certain mental states. No one in America has ever learned how to do these from Hatsumi as far as I know. If you see someone doing this, my advice is to stay away.

One thing that should send up warnings is the use of exotic weapons. From time to time Hatsumi has demonstrated and had people do movements with weapons like the spear and kyoketsushoge (a rope with a knife on one end and a weight on the other), but that is not to say he ran them through the basics of their use. Hatsumi has said many times that he is teaching to tenth dans and above. My take on the meaning behind that is that he should not be bothered to teach the very basics and if you do not have them down you should go to the teachers under him to get them. But the people in Japan that can teach the basics of the spear are rarely willing to do so.

Sticks are a very common weapon taught to Bujinkan students. It is not unusual for a teacher to have knowledge of them. Sword is a bit rarer, but there is one teacher in Japan that runs many people through the basics if they ask. Anything more exotic than that should cause suspicion. I learned the basics of the use of a spear and glaive in Japan and I know of one other person that got the same training. I also know one Japanese student of Hatsumi taught the spear at a seminar in America when he was still part of the Bujinkan. So maybe someone might know those skills, but I would ask and be cautious. I never learned to use the basics of chain weapons during my years in the Bujinkan. My knowledge of those weapons comes from other schools I studied while I was there. I would be very wary of anyone claiming to teach them. It is more likely they decided to come up with something on their own rather than learned from a real teacher.

Some people may pass a few of these things and still be someone I would not recommend and others might not seem to pass muster and are good folks. In general, the more they seem eager to sell themselves as a teacher the less I would recommend them. In any case, the advantages of message boards like budoseek is that you can actually ask and see what others on the board think about him or her. Registration here is easy and does not cost anything. It certainly is cheaper than paying for a month of training only to find out that the teacher is far too busy building up himself as a business owner to be an honest student of the art.

I hope this helps people judge a Bujinkan dojo. I know it will please some people and anger others. I actually take pride in the people I have angered because they tend to be people I think are of low moral caliber. I look forward to hate mail from them.
]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?23-What-to-look-for-when-looking-for-a-Bujinkan-Dojo Judo/Takamatsu connection http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?21-Judo-Takamatsu-connection Mon, 17 May 2010 19:49:27 GMT Many people believe that Takamatsu Toshitsugu had a hand in the development of Judo and some stories claim that he trained together with the founer Jigoro Kano before kano formed Judo. These people are well meaning, but can't really point to evidence. A few years ago some of us on the internet tried to figure out where this story began and it seems to have begun with the following web site.

http://members.aol.com/Cunningham/ju01002.htm

It states,

(14) Kukishin Ryu. Kukishin is particularly well-known for its techniques involving staves of various lengths. Kano was a weapons expert, so it is not surprising that Takamatsu and Kano were relatively close friends and colleagues. Takamatsu's favorite empty-hand technique was a technique that most of us would recognize as hiza-guruma. It is from Takamatsu that Judo's hiza-guruma comes.
I have looked into this with the help of friends and we don't believe it. The author, Steve Cunningham, does not give any sources for us to look up. One of the guys I worked with tried contacting him and was not happy with Steve Cunningham's response. So there really seems to be nothing that he can point to in order to back up what he says.

In the minus corner here are the things that lead me to disbelieve the story.

1) I asked two Japanese teachers I train under and they both denied that Takamatsu had a relationship with Judo or met Jigoro Kano. I would expect them to have heard of such an important facet of Takamatsu's life if there was any truth to the matter.

2) Not once have I heard or read Hatsumi talk about the supposed relationship.

3) In the writings of Takamatsu, the DVD and the interview he did for Tokyo Sports News, etc, a relationship with judo or Kano is never mentioned.

4) There are many stories, biographies, comics , movies, etc about the Kodokan in it's early stages in Japan. Not once does Takamatsu seem to have appeared in any of these stories or records.

5) Kano was active in the Tokyo area. Takamatsu was born several hundred miles south years after him. The first couple of decades are filled with stories of him in that area. The Kodokan was established in 1882 in Tokyo. If Takamatsu was 85 when he died in 1972, doing a simple bit of math says that by the time he was 20 or so basics like hiza guruma should have already been well established.

I can't really emphasize #1 enough. Both of the teachers I asked about the matter were quiet fond of telling stories about how great Takamatsu was. In my years in Japan, I heard details about his trips to China and the events of his life. They both really respected him and put him in a good light. If there had been any Takamatsu influence on judo at all, I would expect them to not only know but to tell it to us fairly often.

So, I do not think there is any substance to this belief that many Takamatsu-den members have of a relationship and influence on Judo by Takamatsu. Since the original source is not a Bujinkan member, it makes sense to think that he did not do it to promote the Bujinkan. So Bujinkan members who use him as a source can be forgiven in thinking that it is an objective, valid source. But until some claims actually come from Japan, I can't take it at face value. ]]> Don Roley http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/entry.php?21-Judo-Takamatsu-connection