Bujinkan Ninjutsu

[Matrix0978]

https://www.ninjutsu.com

[JusticeZero]

It is Van Donk's style, yes. They use forms, but they are extremely short - one or two movements. In essence, it's just a different form of jujutsu, there's nothing especially unique to it, and it's roots are jujutsu.

[CQC]

Thanks Justice, after researching I'm pretty sure I don't really want to do this art. I take Jujitsu and weapons classes now, so I doubt that I'd benefit greatly from this.

However, I am extremely interested in the "sneaking" aspect of Budo Taijutsu (which I'm told exists), which is why I became interested in the first place.

Do you learn any of this in the classes (for those of you who may practice the art) or is it basically over looked/is not existant?

[Dragn]

I was lucky to sit in on 1 of Soke Hatsumi's closed door sessions for his black belts, here in Japan.

It was very interesting. He demonstrated the kind of grace and effortless movement you expect to see from someone holding the title of grandmaster. He taught some very interesting concepts and I got alot out of it.

However it wasn't a MA that I would chose to do.Thats just my personal preferance.

They did alot of 1 step technique drills which I felt were too animated for practitioners of that level. And no free sparring of any kind. Something I strongly disagree with.

Of course alot of the material was for serious maming and killing, often with the use of rather obscure weapons, making sparring in the techniques somewhat difficult. But still I felt the lack of free sparring had given the students a distorted view of combat and it showed in their technique.

Plus both Hatsumi and his top students were eager to put down and ridicule the methods of other martial arts which they had no experience in.

I think any half decent MT or MMA fighter could have walked in and wiped the floor with any one of them.

But the Bujinkan is a pretty big organisation. No doubt there are some guys out there teaching the material in a more realistic mannor.

[CQC]

Great post, and I completely agree with you.

Honestly I think a good sensei would see the importance of sparring and testing out learnt skills in as close as a combat situation as possible. Because this didn't happen in the above case, I agree that the students would probably get schooled in a real combat situation, even in a tournament styled setup.

I have 2 short stories relating to this.

We have a girl in our dojo that's a blue belt. She's very skilled with executing punches, kicks etc..however when it comes to sparring, she flinches and turns away everytime someone throws a punch.

Another girl (call her Kate) in a different dojo was set to spar against an opponent in a tournament. The fight started off okay, until the other girl landed a few hits on Kate, mainly towards the face. Kate didn't even block after that, she just flipped out and started screaming and wailing her arms.

I'm not saying that this would be the case in all inexperienced fights, but sparring definately gives you fighting experience and helps with what one might encounter in a street fight or even a tournament fight.

In the end, I think it all comes down to who's teaching the class and how effectively/methodical they're doing it.