The Human Weapon

[bushido_man96]

That's the same thing I thought when that guy dropped his weapons and went hands with Jason. I yelled at my television "Bad idea, buddy." Sure enough, the guy got thrown.

I think I said the exact same thing!

[The BB of C]

I have a feeling in the back of my head though, that those people were going way easy on them. I have a friend who knows a tiny bit of Ninjitsu and I cannot fight him for the life of me. I can imagine a thirteenth and fifteenth degree black belt would have picked them apart piece by piece even if they weren't trying to kill them. Especially ones who trained in Japan under the last Ninjitsu grandmaster. What do you think of that?

[NightOwl]

It does- up to fifteen. Also, Budo Taijitsu doesn't do sparring as a policy or weapons sparring. The challenge at the end was made up at the spot so the fact that they didn't do that well against Bill and Jason isn't too surprising since they never really trained that way before (also, unarmed combat has more emphasis in the system). I still haven't seen the episode yet though...looking forward to it!

[bushido_man96]

I have a feeling in the back of my head though, that those people were going way easy on them. I have a friend who knows a tiny bit of Ninjitsu and I cannot fight him for the life of me. I can imagine a thirteenth and fifteenth degree black belt would have picked them apart piece by piece even if they weren't trying to kill them. Especially ones who trained in Japan under the last Ninjitsu grandmaster. What do you think of that?

They may have been easy on them, but it is hard to say. Like NightOwl says, that challenge idea was come up with on the spot, kind of, so it put both parties on pretty even ground. Even with that said, if you don't have any weapons experience, then the weapons-experienced are usually going to pick apart that person.

[NightOwl]

Finally saw the NINJA episode! What are my impressions? Check it out after the link:

So what did I think of it? I was simultaneously horrified and elated with a joy that only ninjas can bring. Joyful, because it was a pretty fun episode if I do say so myself- horrified, because it was about as historical as my 'Report' on the great carrot famine of 1789 that I wrote for the 5th grade (trust me, you didn't want to be around for that tragic event).

To sum up the episode: They start off stopping by the bunjinkan, do some knife, shiruken, and sword training, some other quick bujinkan stuff, a ninja house, an obstacle course, and the challenge. Pretty much all of this is fun to watch, and it might even be one of the more entertaining episodes. Now, if you all only interested in whether it fills the entertainment quotient, you can stop right here. However, there are some deeper criticisms that I have, the first I will address is of the history.

Mind, Human weapon's history and factoids have always been a bit sketchy- I remember cringing when they mentioned the 'hitting the nose to drive it to the brain' myth in a previous episode. But in saying things like: 'Ninjitsu influenced all the martial arts from Jujitsu to karate', and calling the rolled tatami mats a 'traditional ninja training dummy', I shook my head while watching more than once (I mean, come on- Karate isn't even Japanese!). Another thing is that most of the episode isn't even bujinkan. The so called 'ninja masters' that teach them the weapons are actually from completely different samurai derived arts. For example, the shiruken training is actually from a system that I might study a bit called Meifu Shinkage ryu. This is a modern system focusing on shiruken, however the founder first derived it from the traditional samurai koryu school of Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, which teaches shiruken as one of its weapons. Shiruken despite the common western name of 'ninja stars', were used by the samurai and often were in a nail shape since you assumed that you lost the weapon as soon as you used it, and thus having a complicated design would cost too much to constantly produce. The knife and sword training as well, had no correlation to the bunjinkan, and for the record, the word ninja means 'one who perseveres'.

The only actual bunjinkan training was pretty much the rolling (which I do an almost exact version of as an ukemi in judo) and the shoulder lock. I am surprised that they spent so much time on weapons, as the bujinkan teaches mostly unarmed stuff. The obstacle course is actually just a structure in a park in japan, and has no relation to any martial arts affiliation. The challenge was...interesting. The bujinkan has a non sparring policy, so they kind of made it up on the spot (the blog of one of the head trainers involved mentions this in his review of the show http://henka.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/human-weapon-aftermath/ ). Thus the criticism of how the hosts did quite well for zero experience against a 13th and 15th dan doesn't really apply since they haven't really done too much (relative) weapons training either, especially not in a live setting.

So that's that...my thoughts on the episode. Feel free to put in your input as you please.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for the review, NightOwl. Man, you are good at reviews! I wish I could do my book reviews as well as you do...

[Cybren]

Wow, that was interesting. One of them got knocked out and the other blew a knee.

[NightOwl]

I recently saw the TKD episode- hoping to put up a review of that soon!

[pittbullJudoka]

I just watched the TKD episode(long live tivo). I'm not a fan of the Americanized TKD but I found this show very interesting. Bill taught everyone a very important leason. Keep your hands up. Hopefully Jasons knee will heel up ok.

[bushido_man96]

I have missed this episode. When was it on?