HI
I am no wannabe ninja I was when I was a teen age but
times move on, but it was those times that got me
interested in all forms of budo.
to be brief and answer quickly your question about the
terms shuriken etc. The term shuriken is not exclusive
to say Masaki Ryu which is featured in the book
mentioned.
I have a friend who studies Katori Shinto Ryu IN Japan
unde Otake sensei, I have a friend in the kUkishinde
Tenshin Hyoho and they call them shuriken, witht he 4
pointed star being refered to as a teppan.
Negishi Ryu for one is also a Shuriken schoola nd
mainly throws bo-shuriken.
Shuriken seems to be the main term used for all forms
of throwing blade with it again broken down further in
to sub groups such as Shaken - teppan - senban- bo
shuriken etc
personally i dont rate Hayes, anyone who does not have
permisson of the rank to issue menkyo and does is to
be avoided in my opinion.
As a member of the bujinkan I have found 'serious
martial artists' quite different to me. initially
those in koryu who are familiar with hatsumi sensei
may take a step back at first then they usually accept
me as I dont partake in any of the ninja boom or ninja
madness. In fact I shy away from that. This old ninja
is doing quite well with invites to some of the more
famous ryu in japan than the average wannabe could
possibly imagine possible.
I am wondering what makes a serious martial artist
from your comment. Belive me when I tell you I am more
serious about what I have studied and what i do study
more than the average martial artist in any dojo. I am
not one of those who turn up train and go away till
next lesson.
paul
--- Silk Road School <
silk.road.school@...>
wrote:
---------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:06:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Richardson Paul <
umaryu@...>
Subject: Re: shuriken vs. shaken
Hi
the book was writen by Charles Gruzanski. He is dead
now but his son Robert has all of his material amd set
up this site
http://www.robertg.com/
the book was based on masaki ryu and had a lot in it
about Nawa Fumio who is still alive (in his 90's) and
only recently retired from teaching. He will be the
last soke of his ryu as he has split it into 4 shihan
lines. At leas 2 photos in the book feature Hatsumi
masaaki who left the ryu and later gained fame as a
ninja dude - Bujinkan Dojo.
Thank you for the reminder - and the link. I'll have
to check it out and
see what I think of it thirty years later. It's
unclear from this, though,
whether you regard Gruzanski's information as
legitimate or not; nor on what
basis you make your judgement.
Dont worry about being a wanna be ninja - it got the
bets of us hooked at one time or another
I'll assume you don't intend that to be insulting.
But I'm no wanna-be
anything, Paul, and your comment is not calculated to
go over well with any
serious martial artist. I earn my meager bread as a
teacher of
international sword arts (as well as naginata, spear,
assorted peasant
weapons from Europe and Asia, Chinese weapons,
archery, empty-hand, and
knife and stick styles - I even teach crutch
self-defense from time to
time), and I'm pretty serious about my accuracy. I
also come from a family
of academics, so bad research is a very sensitive
subject for me. I've been
teaching one style or another for about thirty years,
pretty informally
until the last ten years or so; and I've been
practising longer than I can
remember offhand. I got hooked, as you put it, on
Japanese combat arts at
an art house that screened Inagaki's "Chushingura"
every year back in the
late '60s and early '70s. Musashi's _Book of Five
Rings_ had a hell of a
lot more influence on me than the ninja craze that hit
a few years later.
(And of course, my mother had Hiroshige and Hokusai
prints around the house
from the time I was born.)
A few years ago, someone asked another teacher in the
area, "What does it
take to open a Ninjitsu school?" The teacher thought
about it a second and
said, "A black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a business
license." Which pretty
well sums up my attitude to 90-plus % of what is
called Ninjitsu today.
I've talked with Steve Hayes, and one of my old
students ran Frank Dux's
second school back in the '80s, before he got
disillusioned with Dux's cult
of personality. Neither of them impressed me much
with the quality of his
background. (Dux's fighting skill was remarkable, but
it was mostly
military; and "Bloodsport" represented neither his
style nor his
wish-fulfillment history with any accuracy.) As far
as the craze for
Ninjitsu goes, in fact, I have seen precisely one
"Ninja" film - some Sho
Kosugi silliness that turned up on late-night TV a few
years back - and my
comment to Nate was precisely in hopes that I would
_not_ be lumped in with
this sordid batch of bad research and willful
myth-information by the
serious minds on this list.
So if being a ninja wanna-be got "the best of us"
hooked, then I guess I'm
not one of the best of you. And if that really were
the best of you, I
wouldn't be on this list.
the spikes and the stars are all known as shuriken.
That is certainly true: at least outside of Japan:
but then a great many
things are "known" inaccurately. (Witness the person
who found a web-site
claiming the 47 Ronin killed the Shogun!) So permit
me to ask if you have
positive knowledge that the term 'shaken' is
incorrectly applied to the
stars, etc., and likewise that 'shuriken' is correctly
applied to them. As
I say, I'm pretty serious about my accuracy, and I
always desire to learn
more and to refine my knowledge.
the spikes are better know as Bo-shuriken
Again, I'm interested in learning the sources for this
information. No
offense, but what I have is your word on one hand, and
Gruzanski's
Masaki-Ryu information on the other (and I do thank
you for providing me
with that footnote). If what you say about Masaki-Ryu
as the source for
_Spike and Chain_ is correct, then why should that not
be regarded as
accurate? Have you reason to believe that Masaki-Ryu
is not a legitimate
style, and that its terminology is therefore to be
dismissed? And if so, on
what grounds do you make that claim? Another style's
terminology that you
prefer, perhaps, or a genuinely superior knowledge of
standard Japanese
martial terminology? I'm prepared to adopt new terms
and thank you for it -
but I'll need some documentation beyond what you've
said here. You've said
what your "correct" terms are without saying why the
terms I cited are
"incorrect".
Havent we discussed Shuriken etc in the recent past -
maybe worth looking at the archive onthe yahoo site.
Yes, we have. I believe I mentioned the same thing
about shaken vs.
shuriken then, but nobody responded to it that time.
Look forward to your
response now.
Paul
Gereg Jones Muller, Master-at-Arms
The Silk Road School of Sword and Self-Defense
Home: 831-335-1395 Mobile: 831-234-5216
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