The Complex Nature Of Ninjutsu

I had someone say not too long ago that I wasn't really a Ninjutsu instructor anymore because I train in other arts predominantly Kali and Combatives. I never felt it was worth responding too because it's just a bit below me but then I ended up explaining to someone why anyway so might as well put it on Facebook 😂

So over the years I have trained in loads of martial arts, my grandfather was a boxer, I did Shotokan Karate (With David Beckham's uncle funnily enough), Did Judo, Jujutsu, tried Wushu but wasn't into it, did Aikido with Fabiano Lemes but predominantly I have always trained in Ninjutsu and specifically the Bujinkan. 

I say my instructor was Dave Giddings and he was but not necessarily all the time over all the years but Dave made me truly understand the art and master my Japanese. 

Now when I started my original instructor was down here and largely it comes down to associations. You will hear Anthony Cummins talk about this but we have different opinions, one of the organisations he loves was absolute bollocks for me it was like MMA Ninjutsu and left me confused and questioning what it was about. I enjoyed training but the Kotsu (Essence) was missing for me which was why I left them and don't really talk about them. 

Trust me when I say the BWS is significantly better than the BBD from my experience. 

My problem is I question things, I'm not good at just blindly following as I learnt early on from my family that was not smart (Not in a good way!) so I have always been inquisitive. 

When I started training with Dave Giddings and finally truly understood I could see there were SO MANY continuity issues between organisations! One school would do one technique one way, another school another way and they all said they were right and got rather annoyed at my low level ass asking questions. 

When I hit Shodan (1st Dan Black Belt) I wanted to run a Shibu and was training with an instructor in Hinckley. He HATED the idea of me starting my own dojo and it largely came down to not wanting any competition so he could dominate the area. He slandered me online, made me unwelcome at his dojo and all over me asking him to look at a draft of the syllabus I intended to teach at my small dojo. 

That for me nearly made me quit entirely! I had hit Shodan, wanted to learn more and grow the organisation but instead got called egotistic for wanting to run a dojo because I wasn't a 15th Dan which was unrealistic to me anyway. 

Dave Giddings contacted me and said just do it, start your own dojo and further your training! I tried driving to train with Dave regularly but it was two hours away each way and was too much to do twice a week. 

So I started my own dojo and ONLY taught NINJUTSU nothing else! My dojo has always been a Ninjutsu Dojo from day one. 

My first issue was the continuity issues I saw in the art itself particularly the Tenchijin Ryaku No Maki. I took the syllabus from 3 well respected Dojo's, cross referenced them with Dave Giddings syllabus I knew inside out and what Soke Hatsumi did and found what was the direct transmission from Soke and then corrected the continuity issues in the syllabus. 

That was my firsts published book, my attempt to find the direct transmissions from Soke with my limited knowledge even now and it's our syllabus to this day after about 12 revisions 😂

After a few years teaching and a few more gradings I was training with the Kanmuri Dojo in Chester under Shihan Stephen Boulton. I was a 4th Dan at this point in the Bujinkan and it was around the time the Daily Shihan rank was released and Shihan were flocking to Japan to get it. Now but this point I had already paid like £500 for a grading it was getting bloody stupid to continue and the Dai Shihan rank was about £800 for the 15th Dans who wanted it. I started to see a rather "pyramid" shaped marketing strategy happening and I found it disheartening after investing years of my time and money into training. 

I watched 4 Shihan basically go "take my money" to the one who had already been to Japan and obtained his 16th Dan and all I could think of was Eminem and his line about a "Circle Jerk" like what was it I was witnessing here? There was no direct significant notable improvement in ability and now the Dai Shihan rank gave the ability to sell memberships as Dai Shihan heading associations (something that quickly got revoked as memberships always were paid to the hombu). 

Now bare in mind by this point my social Circle was already Tom Edison Peña , Tommy Joe Moore and a few other well respected instructors. I distinctly remember around Christmas 2018 I was watching this in the Bujinkan and talking to Tommy and said I don't get it like these guys are rushing for 16th Dan and put them in the ring and you would smash them mate, I showed him some videos and Tommy said "If that's the top of your tree, You're in the wrong bloody tree mate! " 😂

I was slightly offended because of my personal ego and almost cult like dedication but couldn't deny he was right! The thing is while people are nice in the Bujinkan you have to find the skilled instructors and they are always the quiet ones. The ones who tell you they are the best are often the ones who suck but they don't know any better as you don't know what you don't know. I would always find it funny having a high ranking Shihan tell me they had never had a fight 😂 I worked the doors in Portsmouth and Southsea at about 17 years old, I had seen too much of real violence at that point it's why I did martial arts because I was working Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in clubs. I always thought how could you teach purely on academic study and practice alone without actual application. 

This is often why the best instructors are ex Police or ex military as they know it's not a game and there is a big difference to training and fighting. To put it simply training for competition is one thing, training to stay alive is another as there are no points or judges you either end up in hospital or the ground. 

I then thought right Tommy has a point if these Shihan can't fight sleep then I needed to expand my knowledge to fill the gaps so to speak. 

I kept watching Guro Tom and thought you know what there is something to Kali and Filipino Martial Arts 🤔 So I started attending seminars and trying it out and I found something I was missing, true dynamic flow in my technique something grossly lacking in Ninjutsu. They tend to be a bit robotic or flowery in Ninjutsu where as Kali was no nonsense, your best defence is full offence. 

Then with Tommy's influence and numerous seminars I started looking at Combatives as it's part of LKC anyway just from a Kali perspective rather than a military perspective. 

Over the years I have hosted seminars with countless instructor we generally did one a month as standard for the students which was an organisational nightmare but a lot of fun. 

For example Irish Stick Fighting with James Stewart which is basically Irish Hanbojutsu 🇮🇪

This then gave me a more aggressive approach to using the Hanbo in my Ninjutsu as in Irish Stick Fighting they had fresh ideas and concepts. 

There is a wider point to be made here not just an endless rant 😂 The perception that me training in and teaching more than one art makes me less than a Ninjutsu instructor somehow is quite literally illogical! All instructors are the sum of their overall experiences so being part of one organisation for ever doing one art in whatever form is still only one art, this doesn't make you an authority and it makes you limited as an instructor because you focus on one leaf rather than all the leaves on the tree. 

Even from the philosophical perspective of the Ninja it doesn't make sense as we have Henka (Adaptation/Variation) so you have to evolve with the times. The are 36 arts in the Bansenshukai one of which is unarmed combat and 35 on various other topics between the Bugei Juhappen and Ninja Juhakkei but what's to say there can't be 50 or 100 skills in Ninjutsu or at least my system will be. Even the memes such as "Always a student, Never a master" don't seem to have hit home with many instructors and Shihan. Soke said that our goal isn't to become Meijin (Masters) but Tatsujin (Complete Human Beings) and it seems that people have lost the ability to have a creative and inquisitive mindset in Ninjutsu. 

So ask yourself, am I a Ninjutsu Dojo or not? Or do you just not properly understand what Ninjutsu is about? 🧐🤨✌🥷