Title: Keiko27 - Mats Hjelm - Taijutsu and Hanbojutsu
Instructors: Mats Hjelm
Theme: Taijutsu and Hanbojutsu (Japan kanjou)
Recorded: Recorded in Stockholm June 27'th 2009
The instruction is in Swedish!
Format: NTSC (US/Japanese system), Region free. DVD/R- (it might not work on old DVD players! check your manual first!) 70 Minutes playing time.
Shortly after his second Japan trip this year training with Soke and the Shihan, he held this seminar.
This video contains Taijutsu techniques with variations including the Hanbo (short staff). Also Hanbojutsu basics with Taijutsu applications. You can see how similar the Taijutsu techniques can be done with a weapon, and how easy it is to do a weapon technique without a weapon.
Note: This DVD has an iPod file included (open DVD with the computer and find it in a zip file in one of the folders). You can also buy this video as a iPod download file (exactly the same movie, but just the iPod video (lower resolution but good for watching on mobile devices). Click on the button on the right side to pay and download this movie. Payment of $8.99 is through PayPal and download is done from Payloadz. You will get instructions after you pay how to download this movie. Click here for more info... http://budoshop.se/download/
About the instructor
Mats Hjelm started training in Bujinkan for the first time around 1983, but it wasn’t until 1986 he had the opportunity to start training more seriously under a Shidôshi. He attends around 20 seminars, go to Japan 2-3 times every year. Since he started training he never had a training break. He takes his budo training very seriously!
If you want to sponsor a seminar or course, please don’t hesitate to contact him. For more information see Mats web site http://www.kesshi.com
Shortly after his second Japan trip this year training with Soke and the Shihan, he held this seminar. This video contains Taijutsu techniques with variations including the Hanbo (short staff). Also Hanbojutsu basics with Taijutsu applications. You can see how similar the Taijutsu techniques can be done with a weapon, and how easy it is to do a weapon technique without a weapon.
This movie was filmed June 27′th in 2009 at Kaigozan Dojo. This training was taught by Mats Hjelm, Bujinkan Shihan Kugyo Happobiken.
NOTE! The instructions is in Swedish, but there is not so much talk but more action.
On a Windows PC you can watch it in iTunes or Quicktime player (these programs is available for free on apple.com. VLC is another good program that can play these files.
How long does it take to achieve mastery? Well, according to research cited in his book “Outliers”, by Malcolm Gladwell, it is 10,000 hours. This seems to be true regardless of the field of endeavor. Whether you are a professional…
1. I assume Chûdan no kamaeand plan to make the opponent open up his left side…
2. I move the left foot forward to the left and enter in to the opponent’s right side. I angle the body in a way to draw the attention to my left hand and hide the right hand sliding back to the end of the staff.
3. I step forward with the left foot and thrust in chudan-tsuki to the opponent and force him to move. Since I enter on his right side I pretty much force him to move to his left.
Note: If he is not moving I strike through his guard and get him. If he put force into the block it is better for me, but I’m not waiting to feel it (physically) then it would be to late for the next step.
4. I quickly move the right foot forward and strike his left elbow with dô-uchi.
5. Then another quick kote-haneage strike from under to his right arm to completely disarm him. The kata officially finish here, but it is easy to keep going and take control of the space and the weapon he just lost.
6. Then I jump back to Seigan no kamae and assume zanshin (because the next kata starts from here which makes it easier to remember the next kata).
After you and your partner have learned the kata, try to work on a better defense with the sword. Try to be more offensive and gradually make it more difficult to attack with the staff, instead of moving backwards move forwards and be more offensive. The swordsman’s distance is shorter and he need to be on a safe distance or closer where he can get the opponent with the staff quickly. The person with the staff need to be outside the swordsman’s reach or be completely covered. You can practice this technique with more freely distance and timing, but keep the same sequence of attacks (keep to the kata). If you do this I suggest you use safe weapons (padded weapons) and maybe protections, or just be very careful.
There is also kuden; things taught personally from teacher to student, so please find a good teacher and study with him/her.
I changed the Menu, I hope it looks better and works on all systems, if not please contact me!
I also added two new more pages under “Bujinkan”, it is Kukishin-ryu Dakentaijutsu and Bojutsu. I plan to add pages for the other schools and weapons later.…
From the Budoka's perspective a weapon can actually be deemed as limiting and dangerous, and we therefore must strive to cultivate the mindset and freedom that allows us to not be bound by the concept of a weapon, or controlled by its ...…
Recently, a Budo inspiration came to me. I realized that when playing and wrestling with a two year old child, I had to be extra present with my hands in order to avoid inflicting injury. I noticed that from my training it seemed that ...…
The first boom was in Japan during the 1960’s, they produced a lot of ninja movies then. The producers asked Takamatsu Sensei and Hatsumi Soke for advice and help. The first “Shinobi no mono” movie had Hatsumi Soke as advicor, it turned out to be really cool movie, they made eight movies between 1962-1968. There was also many other ninja movies.
Then in the beginning of the 1980’s the second Ninja boom cam, and it became really big in the west. The Swedish “Ninja Mission” hit big in the US, it was more popular than the new Clint Eastwood movie at the time. It had Bo Munthe who then was a 4′th Dan in Bujinkan (the highest ranked in Europe at this time), and many of his students did stunt work.
There was also plenty of ninja movies and TV series from Hollywood at the time. People came from everywhere and wanted to study this mysterious art Ninjutsu. In Stockholm the dojo had several hundred meters of people lining up to start training. In other countries which hadn’t so well established Bujinkan dojo’s there was charlatans who saw the opportunity to make money. The choice of American filmproducers how they displayed the art was not in favour for true Ninjutsu practitioners. It was often kung fu, tae kwon do, karate, kendo practitioners who got the stunt cordinator job for these movies, the biggest star of this era was probably Sho Kosugi.
He claims he learned Ninjutsu from a “strange neighbour” when he was 7 years old. I believe the neighbour was strange, but I don’t think he knew much about Ninjutsu. How the film industry portaited the Ninja was not good! I wish they (Hollywood industry) spent more time on research than listen to someone who was taught Ninjutsu by a crazy guy when he was seven years old.
Now 54 years later Kosugi still have too much influence in Hollywood, who apparently decided that there will be a third Ninja boom to cash in money on. They still prove they are too lazy to do proper resarch. The forth coming Ninja Movies (see below) this summer and autumn of 2009 will probably not be as successfull as in the 80’s, but they will certainly enforce the stereotype of what a Ninja and Ninjutsu is, which is not true at all.
He previously worked with films such as Matrix, V for Vendetta, and is currently working on the new X-Men to be released in 2011. In this movie the old star Sho Kosugi is playing Lor Ozunu. The main character Raizo in this movie is played by Rain, who is a big pop star in Asia.
The film stars Scott Adkins as a westerner named Casey, who is studying Ninjutsu in Japan when he’s asked by the Sensei to return to New York to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, an armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja. Somehow, cops, the mob, and a rival ninja enter the picture. Much death, sword slashing, and ninja ass kicking ensue.
A Japanese Ninja movie, the ninja movie boom never really went away in Japan.
Recommended reading
If you as an practitioner or teacher in Bujinkan Dojo is getting interviewed by journalists, this article “Ninjutsu and the media” by Mike Hennessy is really good.
For people who doesn’t know much about Ninjas and Ninjutsu apart from what is portrayed on movies, comic books, and games, there is a few things you should know.
There was a Ninja master who died in the 60’s, his name was Seiko Fujita. He wrote books about Ninjutsu (only available in Japanese, and if you are lucky). There is many people who claims that they was taught by him. As far as I know they are all lying. Fujita died without a successor. Basically everyone that claims to teach from the Koga-ryu are all fakes, so please be careful about who to trust.
There was another Ninja master called Takamatsu Toshitsugu had many students in his life time, but at the end when he died in 1972 he only had one true student, and this was Hatsumi Masaaki. Before the first Ninja boom in the early 1960’s there was no other known master of Ninjutsu other than Seiko Fujita (who died without a successor), Takamatsu Toshitsugu and his student Hatsumi Masaaki (Yoshiaki at the time).
Hatsumi Soke is still alive today, he has many, many students all over the world. Hatsumi Soke is the last true Ninja…
Hatsumi Soke had two older students that only once met Takamatsu Sensei that broke off and formed their own organizations, namely Genbukan and Jinenkan. Hatsumi Soke still have students that still trains with him weekly in Honbu Dojo that also meet Takamatsu sensei on the same occasion. Anyone else living than Hatsumi Soke claiming to have been a direct student to Takamatsu Sensei is not telling the truth at all. Unfortunately there is people claiming this.
Organisations that is more or less still teaching Ninjutsu is the following…
- Bujinkan Dojo (headed by Hatsumi Masaaki)
- Genbukan (headed by mr. Tanemura Shoto formerly student of Hatsumi Soke)
- Jinenkan (headed by mr. Manaka Unsui, formerly student of Hatsumi Soke)
- Toshindo (headed by mr. Stephen Hayes, formerly student of Hatsumi Soke)
Unfortunately there is bad examples everywhere, so please don’t judge a whole martial art based on a few rotten apples. Keep an open mind.
There is also a few Japanese Ninja Museum’s, some of them also have coreographed demonstrations (rarely with no authentic Ninjutsu training at all). Please keep in mind these are Museums, and they are not Martial Artists!…
Sorry for not posting anything for a while. The trainings here in Japan is great, at least for those who have been training for a while. For beginners it might be hard and difficult. It is not said right out but I guess it’s expected that you know the basics well before you come to training in japan. There is plenty of good teachers everywhere, somewhere around 150 “true” master instructors in Bujinkan Dojo. You don’t need to go to Japan for good basic training if you are under 4′th dan!
Soke says that it is time for us to throw away the basics. He said we should throw away Sanshin no kata, Kihonhappo and everything else we know at the moment. This reminds me of a famous story about a zen master, I will quote the story from memory (so please don’t take it literally)…
Once an experienced samurai visited a zen master and said that he knew everything about the martial arts, but he have not yet reached enlightenment. So he is coming here for advice about how to reach it. The zen master offered him to sit down and have a cup of tea and talk about this. He put a cup on the table and started to pour into the cup. The cup was filled but the master kept pouring. The samurai said, can’t you see that the cup is already full?
The master said yes, and it is the same about you! You have to empty the cup (mind) before you can fill more into the cup. The samurai understood and later on finally reached enlightenment.
This is the meaning of 器 UTSUWA. It can mean a bowl, vessel or container. But it can also mean ability, capacity or caliber. When you have learnt all the basics and all the techniques there is the cup will be full. In order to pass beyond this stage you need to empty the 器. See other posts about the theme of this year and 才能魂器 (sainou kon ki / sainou tamashi utsuwa).
Everytime you go to training you should throw away everything you know, “empty the cup”. Then eagerly try to take everything in like a sponge with a playful and artistic kind of mind. This is the 極意 GOKUI essential point passed on through many generations in Gyokko-ryu that we study in Bujinkan Dojo. Keep the mind of a three year old kid that want to learn everything. Even if you think you know everything (see my previous essay) throw it away. The one who gives away everything has it all.
Keep this in mind when training. Also keep in mind that there is 20 years of 面 omote-training and then 20 years of 裏 ura-training. I might come to this in a later post. …
Click on the button on the right side to pay and download this movie. Payment of $8.99 is through PayPal and download is done from Payloadz. You will get instructions after you pay how to download this movie. Click here for more info... http://budoshop.se/download/
