Is that straw I see? Yes, Mounds and Mounds of Straw.
[QUOTE=ninpolives;2521063]And I’m still waiting to hear from the house ninjas as to EXACTLY how anything ive said disgraces the art. Just because I dont agree with all of you doesnt mean Im a disgrace.[/QUOTE]
Don’t worry about it, this is a community of trolls and single-minded morons, so expecting constructive discussions here is tad naive’. From what I’ve read (and there was some wine involved) thus far into the forums, you haven’t done anything to disgrace any of the x-kan organizations. You’re new and some feel unqualified to make any defense of taijutsu threads in general, probably justifying so, but you clearly have been paying some attention to who you train with and you’ll probably do fine in your time there.
I think the title of your thread probably rubs people the wrong way, and you did post this in the general humor section of the forums (what you’ve read so far is what this community thinks is clever, 24/7). The x-kan don’t call it ninjutsu, as what is trained today is generally missing 90% of that historic training, and too many charlatan indies cropped up using that as their advertising centerpiece.
Now my response from thus far on will be flamed and ridiculed, but as I’ve said, I don’t value this community as anything except trolls and man-boys with juvenile humor. The rest of my response will be used to call me a LARPer and a liar, but this is a place where 99% of the people have never used their training to survive outside of a few dojo man-humps or fake gladiator rings.
Yes, stealth has a place in survival training. Very few legitimate x-kan teachers teach stealth techniques they’ve learned from Japan though. I personally grew up in a military family born into a tradition of martial arts, and I was taught when I was very young about stealth and evasion (it was probably old military manual training much more than anything x-kan), and I used to make this dumb game of sneaking out of the house and running around at night scaring my neighbors, getting the cops called on me and then having a fun little adventure of sneaking back home without them catching me. I never got caught, or shot miraculously, and when I got older and used to jog at night during hot summers, the numerous times I got jumped by several guys who were only brave because of the favorable odds (and likely weapons), they never caught me. Many of these 1 vs 1 mat monkeys have never been faced with bad odds to understand the value of stealth training, or watch too much TV and think you can only obtain such training by being a spec ops soldier; but the majority are probably just trolling you by pretending they can’t imagine a scenario where stealth would help you survive on the streets.
There are several instructors who are active military and police in the x-kans, so don’t even bother with trying to prove to the sport nerds that some x-kans use alive training. Never mind that half of the people in the x-kans used to (or still do) competition based arts as well. My old mentor and x-kan teacher had a black belt in four martial arts, two of them x-kans, and that was what he actively taught us. He was a SWAT operator and we used to bring in the local cops to trains with us in a very dangerous precinct. It did just fine keeping their asses safe. My teacher in Nevada was a former Ranger unarmed tactics instructor who then went on to be bodyguard and third party hostage rescue specialist in the private sector. From the intimate nature of the conversations we had, I got the distinct feeling he had used his taijutsu a couple of times in combat when interrogating enemy soldiers. He also used to teach all the special forces taking his unarmed classes taijutsu.
I’ve used my taijutsu several times in street fights, most of it as a bouncer, and never once had it go wrong or get me in trouble. However, I cross-trained a lot, with a lot of grappling arts, and I was careful who I fought and how I did it. When I’ve gotten into trouble in the past by fighting someone who was a far better stand-up fighter than I am, I’ve always gone back to my Judo training in my youth. I’m of the opinion you should never fight a striker with strikes or a grappler with grapples, which was a taijutsu lesson instilled in me in my youth.
You’re new enough that the scope of the quality control problems in the Bujinkan are probably hard to grasp right now, but know that there are far, far more people running around the world teaching Bujinkan that I would rather not train with than those I would. If you want a mature discourse on real Bujinkan discussions, I don’t know of any place besides MAP for it, which has strict moderation of behavior. The Bujinkan really does get so damn many LARPers and crazies trying to associate with it that the troll bait will never cease.
Oh, and don’t try to argue the history of the art with these buffoons. It always comes down to Hatsumi not letting the scientists remove his documentation from his home to be verified, and them refusing (or likely being unable to) do the necessary assessments in his home. If people argue that the ninja never existed, reference the grave of Hatori Hanzo, the most famous historical ninja. The trolls will probably still say Jimmy Hoffa is buried there.
Good luck in your training. I hope you have a good teacher and learn to ignore the fashionable metro gladiators.
Hugs & Teddy Bears,
Antiherozero
