I am looking through my old magazines at present, and can't help but laugh, and sometimes be amazed, at some of the stuff I've forgotten over the years that various people have written in these mags. The following posts are from one of them. I'll post more in the future. If anyone has anything to add, please do. Passages from the magazines are in quotes, my commentaries are not.
Inside Kung Fu presents The Complete Guide to Ninja Training, May 1987
The Mysterious Path of the Chinese Shadow Warrior by Randall
Brown.
On the fictitious Lin Kuei.
“It is not uncommon for a kwa shy warrior (the clan’s elite force) to spend nearly two years in the forest. During this period of seclusion, his only human contact will be with his instructor. Upon returning to the class the individual will astonish his associates with seemingly inhuman abilities.”
Chi Li (Seven Powers)
1. Lin Li (Forest Powers)
2. Chan Tou Li (Combat or External Powers)
3. Syau Li (Thief Powers)
4. Nei Pu Te Li (Internal Powers)
5. Sin Li (Mental Powers)
6. An Te Li (Dark Powers)
7. Shin Mi Te Li (Mystical Powers)
Blood Sport - The Ultimate Martial Arts Movie
Review on the movie and the star.
“Frank Dux was 13 when he first took up martial arts training. The determined little American boy caught the eye of the Japanese master Senzo “Tiger” Tanaka who was looking for a sparring partner for his son Shingo whom he was teaching ninjitsu [sic]. But he was killed in a car accident. Frank appealed to Tanaka to prepare him for the initiation in Shingo’s place. Tanaka agreed. The training was rigorous, the final test brutal, but Frank passed and emerged as a ninja.”
Frank Dux - An Exclusive Profile by Michelle Klein
“But this (edit: the tv miniseries Shogun, Sho Kosugi’s movies and Chuck Norris’ The Octagon) was old news to a handful of students in California’s San Fernando Valley community of North Hollywood. They had made this discovery two years previously, with the help of Frank W. Dux, a distinguished Vietnam vet, security expert, kumite champion and koga yamabushi ninjitsu [sic] master. His school was the first open school of the Koga Yamabushi ryu ever, and arguably the first school teaching the legendary art of stealth of any tradition in the United States.”
Dux was a jujutsu student in the 1960s. Senzo Tanaka took notice of him at a tournament. Tanaka was inspiration for the role of Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice. Senzo died in 1975.
“One of his first students was Michael Morgan, a man who in his young lifetime had acquired three black belts, one with Tak Kubota of the International Karate Federation and one in shotokan as well as the black belt he later received in Dux ryu.”
Shihan Gordon Richiusa, head instructor at the North Hollywood dojo.
The koga yamabushi ryu agreed to let Dux break off from their organization to form Dux ryu.
“The hand-to-hand combat combat style draws not only from traditional Koga taijutsu (unarmed combat) but from such diverse sources as kung-fu, jujutsu, Korean and Okinawan karate-do and the empty-hand techniques of kali/arnis/escrima. The weapons style owes much to the Filipino arts in that one master pattern applies to all, and that the escrima sticks are the first weapons taught, but the weapons taught in Dux ryu include traditional weapons of ninjutsu like the bo and jo stick, swordsmanship, nunchaku, knife and shuriken throwing, sai and kama, as well as modern weapons like firearms and knife fighting techniques that go back to Dux’s experiences in Southeast Asia as special tactics instructor and exchange officer to the British Special Air Service and the German Anti-Terrorist Unit, GSG9.”
“The training has a spiritual dimension, of course, “We stress equally the development of body, mind and spirit,” offers Dux, but certain elements of the Mikkyo esoteric traditions so prominant [sic] in the Iga system are not stressed in Dux ryu.”
“I don’t believe in pushing a religious philosophy here. In the Iga system, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on Shingon Buddhist traditions. I feel that any belief system that works toward a common good is fine with me . . . It doesn’t clash with anything we’re teaching here. But obviously something like Devil worship, Satanism and so on isn’t going to harmonize with the basic orientation of the Koga tradition, I disapprove of that, certainly.”
“Unfortunately, there are those who have taken the concept of the ninja and perverted it to either generate profit or for worse ends.”
“The press needs to learn to separate myth from reality when they write about the practitioners of ninjutsu today. Instead of going to those who know about ninjutsu, who actually practice the art, they go to so-called experts who really don’t know the first thing about us.”
Ninjutsu’s Emerging Leaders Speak Candidly by L. R. Ferolino
R. G. Bowling and the American Ninjutsu Federation. There are a few pictures of Bowling included, one with Tanemura, one with Hatsumi, one in a ninja museum, etc. Mr. Bowling does not look happy in any of them.
Bowling spent a week traveling through Japan, meeting and training with Hatsumi, Tanemura, Okuse (former mayor of Iga village), and Yunoki (former mayor of Koka village).
Bowling “instructs a class with over 100 students at the Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa, Japan and heads the largest American Ninjutsu Federation chapter in the world”.
“A former student of the late Toshitsugu Takamatsu (as was Hatsumi), Tanemura chose to break away from the bujinkan [sic] system.” (edit: No mention of Tanemura being a student of Hatsumi Sensei.)
““Yunoki and Okuse said that Hatsumi only studied bo from Takamatsu for three years only [sic]. Takamatsu died and Hatsumi claimed to be full ninja,” Bowling said. “But everyone here says the true ninja is not Hatsumi, but Tanemura - that there was no art of togakure [sic] ryu until the 1950s when Hatsumi started it. The Japanese believe soon the martial arts world will turn away from Hatsumi due to his ways.””
“Tanemura, Bowling stated, wants to come to the U.S. to teach - once enough students express interest in learning the art.”
“The original intent of the ANF was to promote the concept of sport ninjutsu,” according to Dr. Jerry Beasley, founder of the American Ninjutsu Federation. “According to my research, a form of sport ninjutsu would follow the introduction of traditional ninjutsu as a natural course of events.””
“Beasley further stated that, after the concept of sport ninjutsu was introduced, a combat ninjutsu system was developed under the director of former togakure ryu ninjutsu instructor Cliff Lenderman of Tacoma, Wash.”
Real Ninjutsu: What it Was, What it is Now by Yukishiro Sanada
His version of reality, “holds high qualifications in a variety of martial arts including aikido, kenjutsu and others”, martial arts action coordinator and actor for Japanese TV and movie production companies, authored the book Ninja Training Manual - A Treasury of Techniques.
“I am a plain-spoken person that does not suffer fools gladly.”
“The lowest level of ninja (also called kusa) were little better than criminals.”
“From now on, if you want to say you are training people in ninjutsu, you must come up to our standard or find another outlet for your ego. For a start, you should be proficient in jujutsu, have mastered at least five basic techniques and their variations, plus sword, kama and manrikigusari as well as escape and espionage techniques. And I don’t mean just waving weapons around, or just talking about restraining holds, any instructor should be able to cut two-inch bamboo with a sword and one-inch bamboo with a kama easily. He should also be able to demonstrate running break falls on a hard floor, safely, while carrying an unsheathed sword.”
“If you are currently claiming to teach ninjutsu and you can’t do this as a minimum requirement, you have two choices: Start working hard to acquire this ability or find something else to do with your evening. If I am given the opportunity I will set the standard that I feel should exist so that readers can compare real ninjutsu with the plastic version that everyone has been teaching so far. This is not just to satisfy myself and my friends, or to restore the pride in the martial arts that we study, but also to make sure that if someone wants to learn ninjutsu they will be offered the real thing and not a figment of someone else’s imagination.”
(There is no mention of the author’s experience in “real” ninjutsu. There are some techniques depicted which follow the article, but there is no indication as to whether these techniques are related to the article or not. If they are related to the article, they are very poorly executed, and there is no taijutsu involved.)
No mention of the term ‘soke‘.