Martial Arts Ninjutsu!

anyone do ninjutsu? if so what style and what do you think of it?

 

i dont actually practice ninjutsu but im interested in learning what its truly about as it obvious that hollywood and Toei and other such studies have truly destroyed what it really is.

 

i can teach you the little that i know, or i can refer you to some people who know more at martialartsplanet.com. look for silentnightfall or kurohana, they are both pretty knowledgable about it.
it is mainly about survival. it started as just a new way of looking at war, and defending oneself. they discarded the "honor" of the time for a set of morals that leaned more towards doing the right thing than serving a master. things like running up walls, melting into walls, walking on water, and disapearing while a log takes the hit all have a base in reality, and are exactly what appears to have happened when they are done right.
now its just as useful as it was in the 1700s, as almost all of the weapons have a modern counterpart- yari-pointed stick
shuriken-broken glass/heavy ashtray
katana/hanbo-bat/stick
throwing spikes-pencil
kusarifundo-wallet chain
and the fighting art hasnt really lost anything over time.

 

oh yeah and ive been doing Bujinkan ryu at home for 3 years now. it is made up of 9 schools, 3 of which are ninjutsu schools, and 8 have been historically verified.
Togakure ryu ninjutsu
Gyokko ryu koshijutsu
Kukishin ryu happo hikenjutsu
Shinden fudo ryu dakentaijutsu
Koto ryu koppojutsu
Takagi yoshin ryu jutaijutsu
Kumogakure ryu ninpo
(ninpo is a higher order of ninjutsu)
Gikan ryu koppojutsu

since i only know the stuff from Hatsumi sensei's and his students books and videos, i dont know the ninth one, it isnt in his books for some reason

 

Nope, but I know a bit of Jujitsu. Do I get a prize?

 

yes. now youre a little more able to defend yourself

 

well i could have taken free lessons if i live there but my cousin he's a teacher and have his own classes teaching Ninjutsu. I was only able to go to one class when i went back for vacation.
So is Ninjutsu mean survival then or something? It does have somehting to do with Ninja right?

 

ninjutsu, literally translated, means either "art of endurance", or
"art of stealth". for the ninpo philosophies, however, the first one is the one that is usually used. (ninpo=spiritual, ethical, and mental aspects of ninjutsu)
they rarely assassinated, and while they did sometimes take jobs for money, it was nothing they didnt agree with anyway. and yes, ninjutsu is the art of the ninja. it basically focused on avoiding detection and the need to kill, and how to survive once detected. if the school is Bujinkan, Genbukan, or Jinekan, it should be good. it should have direct connections to, respectively, Masaaki Hatsumi(Bujinkan), Tsunehisa Tanemura(Genbukan), and Fumio Manaka(Jinekan). it should be able to trace its lineage back to Tosh1tsugu Takamatsu. Bujinkan means "warrior god training hall" or "warrior man training hall", Genbukan means "illusion warrior training hall", and i dunno the translation for Jinekan. you may hear these three reffered to as "the xkans", since they all came from Takamatsu-sensei.
if you want any more info, just ask.

 

its rreally refreshing to here something about Ninjutsu that logical. for the most part the people around here are convinced that what they see in hollywood movies and Toei animation is true. honestly, i know very little to nothing about Ninjutsu. the only thing i do know about is the swords, to the point, that the so called "ninjato" is not a real sword. there is no where in recorded or word of mouth about a black, single edged, straight bladed sword with squared fittings.

 

well, i'd say that a sword like that was used at one point, but it was rare, and only by those who cant get anything better. as you know, a curve is preferred if you intend to cut. the square tsuba is useful, although the fact that it's square isnt. they were usually larger, to be used as a step to help climb walls.

most purely ninja weapons were not reccorded as weapons, i believe. look at the bashigoyari. it is a yari with holes to put in ladder steps. i doubt it was recorded, except in the ninjutsu hiketsu bun or the other ninja history books. there werent many of those either, since if their home was raided, they usually wouldnt have much trouble escaping, but they didnt want to have to sneak around gathering their histories first.(not to mention all their tricks and secrets).

 

well, think of it this way. someone would have seen these weapons at some point yes? and something as unusual as that would have been remembered and written down. or passed on by word of mouth. although im not saying its impossible, rather just highly improbable that such a sword existed. first of all it seems highly impractical. as you put, a curved sword is best for cutting. probably the most famous example is supposed to be Musashi Miyamoto's daito. his daitou was supposed to have had an extremely deep Sori imparting incredible cutting power to the blade. Also, the curved blade makes it possible to draw the sword and make a cut in one fluid motion. this style of fighting was called Iai-jutsu or more accurately, Battou-jutsu. Obviously a straight bladed sword would have made this ultimatly, impossible. Also, having a straight bladed sword would seem, perhaps, outdated and ineffective against modern swords. The first sword of purely Japanese design were first made in 694 A.D. they were straight and double edged like the Chinese and Korean Swords brought over in the years previous to this date. as time passed the swords began to change to suit Japanese taste and soon they became single edged straight swords. this style lasted for several hundred years until the "Tachi" became the common daitou. like its predicessors, it was single edged and was put on hangers edge down, but unlike its predicessors, it was curved, very deeply at first, but as years went on this curve became a little less deep with the coming of the Uchigatana. The Uchigatana lacked the "Obitori" or hangers that were used on the Tachi and were stuck through the "Obi" or waist band edge up, unlike the Tachi which were edge down on Obitori. the Uchigatana was the common Daitou for some 300 years until it was "Reincarnated" in the most famous style we know as the katana*. this style, also known as Buke-Zukuri, was curved, deeply, in come cases, and thrust through the waist band like an Uchigatana, but it lacked some of the parts of the Uchigatana, namely the scabbard rings and the large buttcap. thus, seperating it from its distant relative the "Uchigatana". then on 1877, Janurary 1st, there was a ban put on all swords stating that no one except he military and the Kenkakukeikantai were allowed to carry swords. from this point on all swords were based on German and French Military sabers. only the swords of World War II would see the old style of sword, although only in appearence would they capture this truly magnificant style. unfortunetly, unlike the swords of Japan's history, the swords from World War II were stamped swords, meaning, instead of being hand forged, they were just stamped from a piece of metal sharpened and then given metal fittings. there were several forges open at the time that created many hand forged swords for the war. these swords stand out against their poorly made sister blades, as true works of art.


*Katana actually means nothing more than sword. there is no special sword called a katana. this is merely an american translation.

 

okay, we discussed this on AIM and i thought i should post this to clarify this subject. the "ninjato" isnt what it is called. it is the shinobigatana. it is pretty much just a machete with a handguard. it was almost never used for fighting, because it couldnt handle combat. it is used as a prybar, a cutting tool, and sometimes a step to get up walls. the reason many see it as the "ninja sword", i believe, is that in ninjutsu, all items are seen as tools. they see a bisen-toh (massive halberd) and a shinobigatana both referred to as "tools" so they assume tool means weapon. it doesnt. ninjutsu teaches that all items are tools, but that dosnt mean they are fighting tools. a bisen-toh is a battlefield fighting tool, but a shinobigatana is a prying tool. so i believe a tool like that did exist, but not a sword like that, since, as he has said, a sword is for killing.

 

a completely different stance than a samurai. his sword is his life and his soul wheras a ninja see it as a tool and something to be used like a tool. which i find pretty interesting. i have always learned in the way of the samurai, so ive always learned that my sword is very sacred and to be honored. so the idea of using my sword in any other way is a very new concept.