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Baio
30th December 2002, 11:55
How do you deal with people who claim "Ninjutsu doesn't work" or "I saw a ninja lose in UFC # blah blah blah". If someone cam in your dojo would you say alright thanks bye bye, or would you show them it works. When I was in my goju ryu dojo a few years ago a guy came in saying this karte stuff is crap my sensei let him put him in a head lock the guy said "no one could escape from" so the guy left limping and probably feeling like a complete idiot. How many of you actually take that approach or feel the need to defend you art?

Dave Pawson
30th December 2002, 12:53
This has only happened on a couple of occasions, thankfully to me.
Normally I let them talk, and then try and explain where they are wrong in their interpretation.

On only two occasions has this not worked, and I advised they were better leaving until they were more receptive to other peoples ideas, in the same way I had just been in listening to what they said.

When this didn't work, it came down to a mild demonstration, in both cases I was able to show without hurting them physically what I was talking about.

It is not the art you defend it is your position as an instructor in front of a class that is defended. You show all the positives of your system, intellect by discussing, compassion by allowing them a way out and if all that fails technique by controlling them with only as much effort as is required.

If you loose, then hopefully you have learnt something new to study in your own training.

Rantings are a personal view and will change dependant on the challenge.;)

BigJon
30th December 2002, 13:43
"I saw a ninja lose in UFC # blah blah blah".

Well this is a perfect example of what happens to neos. The 'ninja' in question was Robert Bussey's brother.This is what happens when you break away and think that pure Bujinkan arts have no value! I have heard stories of someone bringing two BJJ guys to "meet" with Nagato sense, let's just say Nagato dropped into classical Ichimonji...and **POW** The second BJJ guy left before he got hurt!

Don't let these comments bother you, people always say things like that after taking class for a year or less...then they go around bad mouthing the art...especially if they get into fights all the time.

Jon Gillespie

Jason Chambers
30th December 2002, 14:14
Gee, I didn't know Steve Jennum was Robert Bussey's brother...:confused: ;)

R Erman
30th December 2002, 14:36
Actually Jennum did pretty well. It was Scott Morris who got demolished--one of Michael Bussey's students.

kirigirisu
30th December 2002, 14:42
Um, I think Jon was referring to Scott Morris, supposedly Bussey's "top guy." Got himself nuked in the first round.

Jennum was billed as a "Third Dan" in "Togakure-Ryu Ninjutsu," actually WON UFC III, and I think was also a member of some offshoot of Bussey's thing. Didn't see too much "ninjutsu" in whatever it was he did to win (typical ground 'n pound, if memory serves me). Pretty much his only NHB match of note. He was pretty "injury prone" for the rest of his fight career. I believe he's some sort of evangelist or Christian Martial Artist or something these days.

Could be wrong though, don't pay too much mind to that sort of thing these days.

BigJon
30th December 2002, 15:26
Gee, I didn't know Steve Jennum was Robert Bussey's brother...


Gee, never said he was. I did make a mistake about Scott Morris though.(as his relationship to Robert Bussey) He got beat by Patrick Smith, Kickboxer from Colorado.(Who was involved in the brawl at the '93 Sabaki challenge...I was there front row...:) )


Jon Gillespie

Kreth
30th December 2002, 17:15
Originally posted by kirigirisu
Jennum was billed as a "Third Dan" in "Togakure-Ryu Ninjutsu," actually WON UFC III, and I think was also a member of some offshoot of Bussey's thing. Didn't see too much "ninjutsu" in whatever it was he did to win (typical ground 'n pound, if memory serves me).
Don't forget that Jennum made it into the finals without having fought a match, due to a quirk in the tournament setup that allowed him in as an alternate when another fighter (I forget who) was unable to continue after winning the previous round...

Jeff

Jim_Jude
30th December 2002, 17:48
Now don't shoot me if this is wrong, but I think that Jennum was slated as alternate for Royce Gracie, & when Royce dropped out for blood sugar/sprained ankle/dehydration/what-evah, Steve Jennum got his 15 minutes...

kirigirisu
30th December 2002, 18:21
Originally posted by Kreth

Don't forget that Jennum made it into the finals without having fought a match, due to a quirk in the tournament setup that allowed him in as an alternate when another fighter (I forget who) was unable to continue after winning the previous round...

Jeff

Okay, I suppose THAT was kinda stealthy :D

Whatever it takes, I suppose...

Onmitsu
30th December 2002, 22:09
My answer to someone with this attitude is that there are no superior martial arts only superior martial artists. I've seen novices do some amazing things armed only with a can of 'Whupass".
A Martial arts instructor that I respect once said that Ninpo doesn't work in a real fight. I never took it personal. I just took it as the Ninpo that HE had seen didn't work from his perspective. Over a period of time of a few years I had the oportunity to train with him and he was able to see bits and pieces of the Art. He once asked me about a technique I used to escape from a takedown. I told him it was that "Ninpo stuff that doesn't work".(*with a wink and a smile)
He softened on his position after a while.:)

Jim_Jude
30th December 2002, 22:49
Yeah, I love it when that happens.
I usually say I train in Budo Taijutsu or Japanese JJ, & then drop the Ninja bomb when they're squealing from me hittin' them kyusho or the occasional skin grab or oya gorosh'.

Kamiyama
31st December 2002, 03:16
Jennum was billed as a "Third Dan" in "Togakure-Ryu Ninjutsu,"

kamiyama, he had to be ranked by someone with a menkyo in Togakure ryuha to be ranked in that system.
Who ranked him?
Robery B. has done a great deal for martial arts and for his god with his martial artist skills. But he was only a shidoshi-ho when he left the Bujinkan Dojo or Hatsumi ryu. I don't believe this would be correct to say he can rank anyone without a senior shidoshi supporting him at a black belt level. I believe this is the guidelines of the Bujinkan dojo. If he did he did it on his own in his own system he made. I don't believe he is the founder of Togakure ryuha.
This goes for anyone in his system I would believe.
So the R.B.W.I. is what system again?

kamiyama, ralph severe

Mike Passow
31st December 2002, 08:25
Mr. Severe:

I had understood second-hand that Mr. Jennum received his Sandan while still part of the Bujinkan. Couldn't this be looked up somewhere by somebody?

--

I'd like to know more from the "I have heard stories" type folks about Mr. Nagato making two BJJ people tremble with fear so they run away. (Or so was the implication.)

What were their names/skill/years in training in BJJ and whom did they train under?

A nameless BJJ person with a couple months experience getting their hat handed to them by arguably the most talked about living Bujinkan 'fighter' is not that impressive. A nameless Bujinkan fighter effortlessly taking out, say, Rorion Gracie. Now that would be impressive.

When did this all happen? If you can't give us more details it seems to be trash-talking BJJ as an art (because you made the losers faceless representatives of BJJ) without cause.

--

As a general question I'd like to ask everyone - why are all these stories always about Mr. Nagato? Never about yourself? Never about anyone else?

--

BACK TO THE TOPIC of the thread (dojo challenges and personal challenges). I think that Mr. Pawson is absolutey correct in saying:

"It is not the art you defend it is your position as an instructor in front of a class that is defended. You show all the positives of your system, intellect by discussing, compassion by allowing them a way out and if all that fails technique by controlling them with only as much effort as is required.".

I agree with that. Instructors need to practice what they preach.

Do you advise your students to run around "proving" their martial arts skills to everyone they meet? I'd hope not. :) The more I learn about martial arts the more I learn about how fragile the human body is.

That said, there are other ways to 'prove' aspects of your training without a challenge match. Friendly sparring/randori for one thing. Discussion of certain principles and friendly training to examine them. ["Friendly" training, to me, doesn't me dying for your partner when he lays a hand on you, but it simply means not going out of your way to hurt him or her, but still training with some realism and some resistance against what they're trying to do.]

<soapbox>
A quite seperate beast from the "your stuff sucks" brigade is the "my stuff is really good but I never need to test it by training with a partner that isn't preprogrammed to die just how I like him". Now if this person is ONLY standing up in front of a class and catching some soft slow punches by a robot attacker, and defends in a start-stop motion... then that person probably would be wise to do some friendly sparring/randori with folks from other styles or approaches.
</soapbox>

---

Baio asked:

If someone cam in your dojo would you say alright thanks bye bye, or would you show them it works.

Well to show them it works you're probably going to have to chase them down, drag them back into your school, and then just pound on them, which wouldn't be legal or moral, and wouldn't really be proving any self-defense skills anyway. Most of these talkers will do ANYTHING to get out of actually training with you.

It has been my fortunate (and humorous) experience that almost every member of the "That stuff sucks and it'd never work" crowd, is NEVER going to actually get out there on the mat with you and train.

One BJJ instructor I know had a young man come in and talk a lot of trash on the side about how martial arts didn't work. The BJJ instructor introduced him immediately to some paperwork regarding liability, invited him out on the mat and, unsurprisingly, the young man walked out the door and never looked back.

I would suggest that you never agree to actually "FIGHT" someone. If he attacks you, defend yourself of course, but invitations to train in a friendly way will almost always result in the heckler leaving.

Probably THE BEST thing I ever saw was a guy sitting on the side (aren't they always?) watching a class I was in one time, and bragging to the people near him about how he had been specially trained in 7-second-kill techniques and one-touch-unconsciousness techniques and so forth. A woman sitting next to him (as it happened - the instructor's wife) was quite sick of hearing this, so she said, "Hey, why don't you go out on the mat there and train! I'm sure my husband would love to learn those techniques from you." As you can imagine, the guy left, and we never heard from this young guy again.

--

I think a lot of this depends, too, on your own personal skill level and time in training.

If you can get the person to agree to some friendly training or safe sparring, then maybe you can show them how they are wrong or they can show you how you are wrong. Either way, someone wins there.

--

A seperate issue from "challenge matches" (which I generally disagree with engaging in. in these litigous days) is cross training with other folks.

Cross training with friendly martial artists from other styles is a must. So many of us want to be humble, but nobody wants to be humbled...



Sincerely,

Kamiyama
31st December 2002, 08:42
Mr. Severe:

I had understood second-hand that Mr. Jennum received his Sandan while still part of the Bujinkan. Couldn't this be looked up somewhere by somebody?


kamiyama, I do not know Mr Jennum.
You would have to know who he trained with to find out his ranking level in the Bujinkan Dojo.

kamiyama, ralph severe

Mike Passow
31st December 2002, 08:48
This is back from when the Bujinkan was very small. The rank was from before Robert Bussey left the Bujinkan, from what I understand second-hand.

Aren't records kept somewhere, like I know there is a book of "Jack Hoban's Students". If you're suggesting all the records are organized by instructor - then maybe Mr. Nagato is the place to start asking if someone is really interested in this.

In any event, the topic of this thread is challenge matches to yourself or your dojo. Sorry for any thread-jacking to the author of this thread.

Yours,

BigJon
31st December 2002, 14:49
I'd like to know more from the "I have heard stories" type folks about Mr. Nagato making two BJJ people tremble with fear so they run away. (Or so was the implication.)

He didn't make them tremble with fear until he had kneed one in the jaw, and invited the second to "come on." This is told by many shihan in my dojo. I will try to find out exact details for you.It appears a gentleman in the Bujinkan at the time brought two BJJ guys with him. He was one of those people in the art who still says the techniques won't work...I will find out his name.(Give me a few days, we don't start training until after New Year's...)

I think it is ok to "Threadjack" to a point, as long as some eyes are opened. I think that R.B.W.I students do a mixture of Togakure, and Hapkido, at least...I have never seen a Bujinkan guy kick like that...

-Please feel free to fill in the corrections, I am usually wrong a little bit.

Jon Gillespie

Mike Passow
1st January 2003, 02:01
Thanks for your reply, Mr. Gillespie. I appreciate the additional details. :)

Yes, I will agree that the RBWI crowd went in a very different direction from traditional ninpo/ninjutsu/taijutsu, eventually (IMHO to their detriment).

I have always felt that a traditional approach such as found in the Bujinkan has great value. What *precisely* constitutes traditional training is a cause for much consternation and discussion, of course.

The principles of cross training with other martial artists and applying techniques against resistance seems to have been a traditional fundamental value of Mr. Takamatsu, if the stories are true, don't they? I think Mr. Richard Ray covered quite eloquently how one goes about 'live' training in some previous posts.

p.s. because someone asked - my avatar picture to the life is my cat wearing a santa hat.

Sincerely yours,

tenchijin2
1st January 2003, 02:28
This story about "Nagato vs the BJJ guys" is very typical of internet gossip. I heard about this incident a couple days after it happened.

I will leave the names out as it is only a rumor. I heard it from someone who supposedly was there when it happened, but in any case I don't trust the conveyance of stories in the manner of internet-den.

I will correct a couple points of which I'm fairly certain: the "BJJ" guys were, in fact, a certain Bujinkan member who cross trained in BJJ and one of his students. The encounter was during a class, and the supposed "BJJ" guys were questioning Nagato's approach to fighting, and agreed to some kind of demonstration.

The rest is conjecture, and subject to the biases of the observers, NONE of whom are commenting on this thread. As such, it should not be discussed by people with no knowledge of the event. It only makes us look like jerks.

R Erman
1st January 2003, 06:39
Another point to make is that Nagato-Shihan has the background of a combat athlete. I've no doubt that his training in ninpo only increased his arsenal, but he hails from a resistance training background, which I would say gave him his primary attributes as a fighter.

His training/competing in kickboxing and grappling(judo in his case)is the typical MMA recipe. So I don't know if it benefits those defending ninpo taijutsu's efficacy by pointing to an individual who competed proffesionally in judo and kickboxing.

The bottom line is, if you do not have a resistance element to your training you are fooling yourself about developing usable tools. I don't believe dojo challenges are the most intelligent pastime--whether on the issuing end or the receiving end. But, if you are teaching/advertising methods of self-protection that involve hand to hand conflict, yet are unwilling to test their effectiveness against a resisting opponent what does that say about your confidence in your chosen system?

tenchijin2
1st January 2003, 18:53
Originally posted by R Erman
Another point to make is that Nagato-Shihan has the background of a combat athlete. I've no doubt that his training in ninpo only increased his arsenal, but he hails from a resistance training background, which I would say gave him his primary attributes as a fighter.


Mr. Erman, while it is true that Nagato has this background, you should perhaps not leap to the conclusion that this is what gave him his "primary attributes". Have you asked him? His opinions on the matter are quite interesting.

Ninpo training until the early '80's was quite different from what we see today, from all accounts.

R Erman
1st January 2003, 19:56
That's true--I've heard the same about training in the "old days". I do also remember an interview from the eighties in which he(Nagato) said he missed competition. I'll be the first to admit I don't know him at all so I don't know if his opinion has changed.

tenchijin2
2nd January 2003, 02:52
Originally posted by R Erman
That's true--I've heard the same about training in the "old days". I do also remember an interview from the eighties in which he(Nagato) said he missed competition. I'll be the first to admit I don't know him at all so I don't know if his opinion has changed.

"missing competition" is a LONG way from claiming that his fighting attributes came from sport training. It might be fair to suggest that the mindset that drove him to be competitive is the same mindset that gives him fighting attributes. But that, too, is just a hypothesis.

R Erman
2nd January 2003, 04:40
Originally posted by tenchijin2


"missing competition" is a LONG way from claiming that his fighting attributes came from sport training. It might be fair to suggest that the mindset that drove him to be competitive is the same mindset that gives him fighting attributes. But that, too, is just a hypothesis.

I wasn't really saying that--but I know it could have very easily been read that way. For the most part I agree with your pov, but I still feel that progressive resistance training is what develops attributes. Certain "ways" of training are more conducive to this, as I'm sure you know. From all reports training before the mid-eighties was like this in the Bujinkan, and I think it is starting to return in certain circles(may have never been gone in other circles).

Thanks again for your input.

p.s. did you receive my PM?

tenchijin2
2nd January 2003, 16:19
In fact, I didn't realize that one was sent until you mentioned it. I have replied to it now:)

Your above post clears up a lot for me, and I think I agree with it! I've noticed over the years that everyone seems to have a different deifinition of 'resistance', or 'attribute', or what have you. My views have also evolved in this area.

Hatsumi sensei has written for years that the "intent" of the uke is critical to the training. I believe that "intent" is manifest in being a good uke who responds appropriately to the techniques and offers the right level of resistance/response to the situation.

I think this is often what's missing in Bujinkan training. The uke role, which is the harder of the two roles IMO, gets relegated to "grab me here" or "punch me here". The uke then offers no thought to his theoretical agenda, nor his desire NOT TO LOSE! Being uke means that if the tori performs correctly, you will lose. But it doesn't mean that you WISH to lose, or that you should particularly PLAN on losing. IT's a paradox in a sense.

Tamdhu
2nd January 2003, 16:28
The uke role

Well said. This topic should have an entire Internet forum of it's own! It is one of the most important and oft-neglected aspects to successful training, I think, learning to be a good uke.

kagetetsu
2nd January 2003, 18:58
Hi Guys/Gals,

I ran my own school in England for 10 years (The schools is still going, I just married a Californian lass) in another system not Bujinkan and had the pleasure of meeting a so called Sandan one night whilst I was teaching.

He asked me if we could spar full contact. I looked at him and then asked who he trained with and for how long. I was told by the gentleman (we'll call him Shaun) that he had trained under Hatsumi Soke for many, many years. The thing that gave it away was that Shaun also told me that his instructor trained him in his shed at the back of his garden...

Anyways we sparred. He moved in a really bad Ichimonji stance. I hit his front hand alot until he couldn't use it anymore...

Now here comes the fun part.
I actually new a Bujinkan instructor in the area and told him my story and described Shaun to him. Let's just say I watched a fantastic class by the instructor and Shaun made a very entertaining uke. So much so I became very interested in Budo Taijutsu. (Man its addictive...)

I'm a firm believer in defending onesself, not the ego. But there are time when people can be such bricks.

Regards
Patrick Pace