CHAPTER 1
PRESENT DAY NINJUTSU OF SOUTH AFRICA
In today’s life ninjutsu is devised to suite almost everybody’s lifestyles, whether it be, the ordinary man looking for a good applicable self-defense system or a police officer usually catering for the every day confrontation, whether it be verbally or physically, or even security personnel or any other institution that would require a need for the use of a self-defense system, which could arm the respondent with the knowledge to serve and protect.
Today the doors of ninjutsu are open to any individual who is willing to learn this interesting yet deadly art of combat no matter what race, age, sex or creed or nationality.
Although my followers and myself honor the traditions and arts of the Japanese, we even abide by their basic etiquette, I have even taken up learning the Japanese language lessons to enhance the correct pronunciations of the Japanese terminology used, but never the less, we are Westerners and we as well as the Easterners should accept the facts that we do have different cultures, different values and many other different insights, there is a proverb stating, “you cannot change a scorpion into a monkey”.
We as westerners do things different, but the fighting style and the abilities still remain the same.
My personal feeling is that we don’t have to reach out for ancestral search to progress our mental state of mind, to achieve the ultimate warrior way of self-defense, yes you do have to practice self control, and therefore have to strive to be a well balanced human being. After all, one has to be disciplined in not to go beyond oneself, to counter act certain actions taken against you.
There are so many qualified yoga instructors available, even Zen masters, in teaching you self control, and these are not religious institutes, they are there to teach you how to be disciplined and to be in control of ones self.
For the religious person, your sole believe in yourself that god will prevail and give you the strength to support and help you in any given situation will be more than enough to get you up and going to defend you and your loved ones if deems necessary.
It is usually the case when someone gets introduced into the art of ninjutsu, that they might have to sit around candles, make “funny” suggestive moves with their hands and call out mantras or even get introduced to Japanese shrines and be enhanced to collect Eastern calligraphy, with which supposedly it will help to encourage their training skills of ninjutsu.
This is all not necessary, hundreds of years ago there weren’t any electricity or such,
people trained and gathered in candle or lamp light to being able to see each other, also then ninjutsu is refined to believed to be a Japanese combat art, so it’s only obvious you would see Japanese calligraphy all over their premises, as also their philosophies are much more deeper in insight to the western community, hence their historical believes and culture, and a great part of their religion.
In our modern society all around the globe, people come to realize that to survive, you need money to pay your way for immediate necessities like food; clothes; housing; paying of bills and most likely your martial art training, that also means you have to work, or create some means to have an income. This takes time of day, giving you less time to devote your entire days to practice.
Even in Japan people must spend time to work to create an income, you can’t just arrive at a Japanese master’s house and say you want to be trained by him, research must be done for availability, and it will cost you a lot of money.
All this comes down to, that the scenario that what you would see in the movies, does not exist. Today you have your training schedule in a very domesticated training hall, so you do not creep or move around in secretiveness to gain access to your training hall.
And most probably your training facility is a monthly hired hall, whereby you cannot decorate the walls with pictures, armory or calligraphy, or anything stipulating the art you are teaching, for they do not want their halls decorated, for the items might either be stolen or damage by other time schedule users of the hall.
CHAPTER 1
RECOGNITION OF NINJUTSU TODAY
Through many years of training and running a “dojo”, I’ve found that not many people, even other martial artist seem to recognize or even want to accept that “ninjutsu” is very much alive and in existence today, whether it be “Koga-Ryu” or “Togakure” or “Bujinkan or any other form of ninjutsu.
I believe it’s due to the misinterpretation of opposing fighting academy’s and also the untrue propaganda of movies and novels in books, published by the misinformed author or publishers. However some do it intentionally, just to color in their story, then again some are just not worried about the truth, and publish what they feel instead of what they know.
It must be kept in mind, due to it’s history of military strategic warfare tactics, the art of ninjutsu was practiced and kept in secret for many hundreds of years, it was only up until the recent years that a Japanese ninjutsu master named Dr. Maasaki
Hatsumi (34th Grandmaster of Togakure style) opened up the doors of knowledge to western society, from there on many other masters followed pursuit on sending out books of the shadow warriors.
However some of the so called masters have some question marks upon their authenticity.
Myself included, who knows me, where did I come from, if you’re not recognized by other great grandmasters you remain in the dark.
Most common ideas of recognition is that you must be a fighter, you must create a name by entering in tournaments, demonstrating your skills and only if you are a constant winner, will you be seen and recognized by the rest of other martial artist.
What good is it to be a “ninja” if you are known all over where ever you go?
The art of ninjutsu’s most important factor is of being unknown and unseen.
Therefore it must be respected, that knowledge does exist and is passed on from one person to the next, my opinion is, once a secret is told, the secret does not exist anymore, look at your websites, so many sites on ninjutsu, so many techniques discussed and even fed through to answer the thousands of questions of people seeking advice about self-defense.
What usually happens is that a individual would state a certain technique coming from a certain style which would then cause a reaction of the authentic teacher to counter and rectify the technique, in that order you have a constant flow of gaining insight into the realms of techniques passed on through the net.
Unfortunately, there are not so many literature about the “Koga-Ryu” ninjutsu, most probably for reasons of it’s military background, as with all things there are politics involved as also, the disputes of who is the head Soke, and over sear of the Koga-Ryu still remains.
That is most probably why it is always said that the Koga-Ryu system has died out.
But if you search through the internet, you would see “for example” the “DUX-RYU” run by the Legionary Frank Dux of the movie “BLOOD SPORT”,and the BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY in full swing of things not to mention the late Soke Tanemura Soto’s son who has taken over his empire all proclaiming to teach the Koga-Ryu style of Ninjutsu. And further more the “KOGA RYU NINJUTSU SOCIETY” whom is the over sear to the teachings of the late master Seiko Fujita teachings, is still in existence, currently run by a panel and not a person claiming to be the one and only.
In recognizing ninjutsu today, we look at the fact that even today ninjutsu combat skills are being taught to various security personnel as well as to lots of specialized government security forces all over the world, one for instant, South Africa’s own South African Police Services, Special Task Forces units, as also the S.A.S in the U.K.
I myself have given demonstrations of the basic self-defense system to the South African Police Services, Special Guard Unit in Cape Town, at the Bishop Lavis Police training facility, by which very good comments was passed on, regarding the good flowing of old simple techniques, old to the Koga-Ryu system but, new to the spectators, which was used to the old basic “karate” form commonly practiced.
The simple but deadly and effective techniques really means nothing if the basic knowledge of body mechanics and maneuverability is not taught or understood, unfortunately the institutions do not have access to these internal knowledge and therefore will always have a lack of physically combating against the criminals.
It is stressed, that it should be essential that law officers arm themselves with professional knowledge of combat, to fight against ever inclining criminals.
The other side of the concept is that, the majority of folks seem to think that ninjutsu is some sort of demoniac cult or worshipers of the devil, maybe it’s because of the black traditional “gi”, only they who criticize will know.
All students in my federation are presentable and are of good nature, with their own creeds and religion. They have joined to learn a skill which could enable him or herself to defend against a unwarranted attack either for his or her loved ones sake.
They do not walk around in black clothes, showing off or any of such sort, but ask them for advice on a technique, they would most certainly help you, for they know that, just probably, that shown technique could save your life that next minute.
CHAPTER 1
MISLEADING CONCEPTS OF NINJUTSU
We live in a modern civilized society, where one has to bear in mind that, we have to abide by certain government and municipal regulations, rules and laws. Within mind, students don’t learn the art to manipulate people by using the skills taught.
It would be naïve to think that this type of behavior does not exist, it is so that, when a follower full heartedly believes and does everything that which his instructor tells or demands of him, the follower would of cause do everything in his power to satisfy his instructor.
Through my early years of training from a “would be ninja master”, I’ve seen some of the fellow students, getting fanatic about the whole ninja teaching, so much that to my mind the one particular student became a unstable character, allowing himself to believe and do all the most silliest things required by the instructor.
In one case it was rumored that students were to exercise bare on top of table mountain, (Cape Town RSA) how weird can you get…?, or march in a group all geared up in ninja garments and hoods, into a doctors consulting room right in the heart of Cape Town Central City RSA, sitting down neatly in a sitting posture then, to demand literature and charts of human body structure.
As mentioned there are a lot of propaganda and misleading stories of the art of ninjutsu to be read, just to glorify ones own being in trying to gain and keep students but, be careful you’ll bump your head, by then it’s usually to late, because you’ve come to realize your whole ninjutsu school or training and preparation was a farce, and this of cause breaks down your idol idea of training to be a ninja.
Another bad point is of, off-spring instructors who break away from their federation thinking that they are now ready to take on the world, and not long after to encounter that there was still a lot to be taught, reality, students start moving out, or you see the short comings and the school closes, leaving you the student in the mist.
Seeking an authentic instructor or a good caring martial arts master is not an easy task. To my knowledge as it is with all good martial art instructors, the advice is, to dwell into the background of the intended martial arts instructor or school to see his authenticity and even how long he has been established, look at the amount of high ranking students, ask the students, how long they have been training there and what their views are on the training received. And what type of person he is.
An instructor of a martial art will always try and say his school is the best, so it’s best to talk to the students, they give a good picture of what’s going on in their training facility and what they think of their instructor.
CHAPTER 1
STATE OF THE MIND
To tread on the combative field, one cannot afford to be edgy, to be either scared or over confident, you must always accept the fact that, you could get hurt in the duration of battle, both either physically or mentally. So if you want to fight you must react with full intent, and use what ever skill you have, if you don’t want to fight, try and get out of the situation as soon as possible, by either running or by using dialogue tactics.
In many situations you have to fight for survival, now this is were your state of mind, your mental attitude comes into play, it’s a question of fight or flight, meaning fight or run for your life.
Usually the ordinary individual would feel quiet tensed up, or in most cases, scared or frightened or in a state of shock, all depending on the type of confrontation or the situation he is in. It’s usually the big hearted person looking for trouble, and you just seem to be the right victim for an occasion by which the assailant can prove to his buddies or even himself, that he is “Mr. Mean and dangerous”, or…
Well let’s see how this works, we’ll take an ordinary scenario…
Mr. Mean passes by and on purposely bumps into you, he would then turn around and confront you by saying “ hey, don’t you say sorry”, and if you were not a fighting or aggressive person at all, you would start getting this nasty horrible tensed up feeling in your stomach, telling your mind that there’s trouble in paradise, you start trembling , and the words don’t seem to appear, when you start to speak, you stutter and mumble and jumble, well this is what is called anxiety. If this happens to you, you are doomed for sure.
On the other hand, same scenario, you get all tensed upon confrontation, hands start curling into fists, realizing “Mr. Mean” is out for a fight, you make your stand and of cause one thing leads to another, the fight is on but, nothing seems to be going your way… why… ?
During my years as a police officer, working in gang infested areas where you just could not afford to even look scared or frightened, not being an aggressive person of nature, I have had to learn to stand tall to many opponents, I am only 1.74m tall.
Just imagine how the public would react to a police officer, who refuses to apprehend a suspect for reasons of, he is afraid, a police officer is there to serve and protect, no matter what the dangers are.
Well you can’t learn one thing without the other, if you learn fighting skills, you must also learn to balance your state of mind, now in the life of a police officer, it usually works like this, one minute you are apprehending a suspect in full hand to hand battle, and the next moment you’ll be helping an old lady with utmost courtesy to cross the street, not everybody can be a police or peace officer, but through the years of tantalizing mind play, and giving self-defense classes, and through working with various different people, be it, clients or criminals, students, rough meek or mild, I’ve come to see that by shear practice, you can learn to cultivate the required mind state for that particular given situation.
To react impulsively or on the other hand to react slowly, could lead to serious mistakes or injury. You must learn to relax, relax your mind…
CHAPTER 1
RELAXING
Almost everybody has heard of the term, “count to ten” when, confronted with a tense or aggressive situation, and if you allow it, it really does work.
You first start to relax your fingers to a half bent position because, in a confrontation your heartbeat accelerates, causing more blood flowing through your arteries then to your adrenalin glands which causes your muscles to contract, in turn, causing you to form an involuntary fist (see Fig.1 and Fig.2), this on it’s own account, causes tension.
(Fig. 1 – tensed) (Fig. 2 – close-up of tensed situation)
After the fingers have been slightly straightened, control breathing to a slower pace, and turn diagonally away from the threat, if right handed keep right foot to the rear, if left handed, left foot to the rear, legs slightly buckled but not bent (Fig 3). Feet are shoulder width apart.
(Fig. 3 – relaxed, open fingers,
surreal look)
A little secret, don’t stare at opponents eyes or face, use “Peripheral vision” ( using an overall way of looking at opponents top body structure), to look at your opponent, and place a slight frown on your forehead, this in some cases puts a slight hold on the aggressors approach.
The idea of holding an open hand posture, is very simple, when a person is either in the offensive or defensive mode, holding the hand open relieves tension by letting energy flow freely all round the body, instead of blocking it of by the clenched fist structure. Being able to use this method in combat or any given confrontation takes a lot of practice, but eventually it will give you the advantages of being able to apply quick well calculated defensive moves.
A person could achieve much more in a relaxed state of mind than a tensed one,
I have a saying, “open hand, open mind – closed hand, closed mind”.
So you could find a benefit in incorporating a little self control and relax.
CHAPTER 1
MEDITATION
There is a lot of misconception about meditation, especially relating to martial arts.
So many people ask me if I teach meditation skills, I suppose after seeing a couple of ninja movies or reading novels of the black cladded figures and smoke encircled beings, I suppose that the people would feel it’s part of the system.
Well if I teach it, the answer would be yes and no…!
In the sense of me being an instructor in the art of an esoteric combat form “ninjutsu”, I have myself never been instructed to the art of meditation. In my dojo I teach the students a mild form of meditation, based on relaxing and controlling the mind to a state of “thinking of nothing”, “switch off” I would say to the students, don’t think of the blow coming your way, don’t think of the pain or injuries that might occur, you must just do it…
It is essential that one learn to control your body, mind and soul.
The purpose of meditation is to clear your mind of all thought, which in turn would clear the path for action to be taken. What ever you do, with the help of meditation the action would be a pure and clean flowing move or action, free of anticipation or hesitation.
I don’t teach meditation like you would be taught in a “yoga” or “Zen” meditation class. But there are ways to calm and sooth the mind to a state of an acceptance.
As I said earlier, you can’t practice one without the other, so to enable one to take responsibility for ones actions, you’ve made or are going to take, you must have a clear mind, and the only way to do it , is by practicing meditation, but it is not necessary to try and practice meditation in order to do astral traveling, body alleviation or such, even chanting is not really necessary.
Remember we are westerners with different cultures and beliefs, doing things beyond your own belief is most probably not such a good thing, so why do it.
For those who don’t know, even Christians practice meditation.
The art of meditation should not be seen as a religion but, as a method of controlling ones mind, opening up to your self and contemplating on ones own, ways and means.
The following illustrates a little insight into how meditation works in combat,
Ask a partner to stand horizontally in front of you, place your left arm (extended) on top of his shoulder, so that the wrist is resting on the shoulder, fingers straight as if holding a hose-pipe, now ask your partner to use both hands and try pulling your arm downwards off his shoulder… (Fig.4, 5, 6 and 7)
(Fig. 4 – squaring up) (Fig. 5 – laying arm on shoulder)
(Fig. 6 – close-up hand on shoulder) (Fig. 7 – pulling arm down – no
resistance)
The arm should be able to bend and break away freely…! now hold the exact position again, this time, as soon as the partner attempts to break hold, imagine hosing the garden, and extend your arm as if hosing over his shoulder at this stage something amazing will take place, your arm should be as strong as a pole, and he will not be able to bend your arm, (Fig. 8).
(Fig. 8 – using the diversion mind hold, arm can’t be bent)
As I said, if clearing the mind does not work for you, use a diversion, above was a clear example of using a diversion thought of mind to strengthen your hold, which of cause was a clear form of using meditation in combat.
Another good example is…
You are sitting at the doctor’s consulting rooms playing with a pin, your company tells you he is going to prick you, and very abruptly you shove him aside, because you know it’s going to hurt…
Going into the doctor’s office, he says that he needs to draw blood, you first look at him, but automatically you allow it, and blood is draw without a fuss.
What’s the difference…?
It’s to your mind, not correct to be stuck with a pin but, the latter is a doctor and it’s his job to draw blood with a needle, no matter how thick the needle.
In your mind it’s acceptable to be stuck by a doctor.
This is to my knowledge and experience, the essence and basis of ninjutsu, it’s no mind over matter or any sort of magical skill, it’s, just purely putting your mind in the right perspective.
Just remember no meditation can take place without the correct way of breathing.
To practice meditation, one should be in a quiet place, a place where nobody can disturb you. Upon proficiency you should be able to apply combat meditation almost instantly when needed (using the simple examples above).
As solid as the rock
As flowing as the water
As unseen as the wind, the void will accept it all, then all fire breaks lose.
This is the way the ninja works. To practice patience to wait for the right moment then to strike!
(Shihan - PAUL BOTHMA)
CHAPTER 1
BREATHING
Breathing plays an integral part of your life. If you don’t breath you can not receive and manufacture oxygen to run through your body, which in turn gives you life.
However if you breath wrong, you can deprive yourself of the correct amount of oxygen, needed to feed your organs, muscle and bone structure as also your nervous and motor function system.
In our martial art, you learn a breathing method which accommodates both mental as well as physical matter and movement.
For example…!
Breathe in, to strike, breath out as you strike, breathe in to receive a strike, breathe out upon impact of strike.
Breathing enhances blood-flow, whilst breathing inward you collect oxygen filling the blood with oxygen in turn fills the veins, arteries and muscle structure. By striking out you release energy, created by the high oxygen intake causing a coil-spring release action.
Upon receiving a blow, same explanation, by collecting oxygen to the muscle structure, you’ll be filling up, creating a cushion effect causing softness to the tissue, at receiving the blow all oxygen is pushed out causing the muscle structure to be fl