Category: Bujinkan

Author koryuPosted on Categories Bujinkan

The organization Bujinkan Dojo is founded by the great master Masaaki Hatsumi in honor of his teacher Toshitsugu Takamatsu. This is international organization with its seat in the city of Noda shi, in the province of Ciba ken in Japan. Bujinkan Dojo means „Warrior Spirit Training Hall’’ i.e. „House of the Divine Warrior’’

Today in Bujinkan are taught nine traditional warrior schools. Six of them come from the samurai warrior arts, which the legendary ninja warriors has used them and brought to perfection and the other three are pure ninjutsu warrior schools. All the nine styles have been improved over the centuries by number of warrior generations while protecting the lives of their closest family members. Carried from generations to generations, from father to sun, from master to student, all the nine schools are being succeeded by Masaaki Hatsumi sensei, from his great master Takamatsu.
By founding the organization Bujinkan Dojo, soke (head) Hatsumi has united all the nine schools in one art, naming it Bujinkan Ryu (school, tradition) i.e. Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu.

Sensei Hatsumi has succeeded the nine schools:

–         Togakure ryu Ninjutsu-34 Soke

–         Gyoko ryu koshijutsu-28 Soke

–         Koto ryu koppojutsu-18 Soke

–         Kukishinden ryu happo Bikenjutsu-28 Soke

–         Shindenfudo ryu dakentaijutsu-26 Soke

–         Takagiyoshin ryu jutaijutsu-17 Soke

–         Gikan ryu koppojutsu-15 Soke

–         Gyokushin ryu Ninjutsu-21 Soke

–         Kumogakure ryu Ninjutsu-14 Soke

Even though all of the nine schools have been practiced as one unified art, each of them has its own history and tradition, its characteristics, its techniques and strategy, its secret weapons. By this the schools i.e. the arts can be studied and practiced separately.

Author koryuPosted on Categories Bujinkan

Toshitsugu Takamatsu was born on 10 March 1887 (the 23rd year of Meiji) in Akashi, Hyogo province, Japan and died on 2 April 1972. He is well known throughout the world as a martial artist who taught and formed many next generation Grandmasters of various martial art traditions.
His real first name was Hisatsugu but he changed it later to Toshitsugu using the same kanji but different pronunciation. He was also known under different martial arts names and nicknames : Jutaro, Chosui (Pure Water), Nakimiso (Cry-baby), Kotengu (Little Goblin), Moko no Tora (Mongolian Tiger), Kikaku (Demon Horns),  Kotaro (Young Tiger). His house (a motel/tea-inn) was in front of Kashihara Shrine, in Kashihara City (Nara Prefecture).

Takamatsus grandfather (on his mothers side), Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu, was a well known martial arts instructor who owned a dojo in their home town. At the age of nine the weak and shy Takamatsu, often called a cry-baby by his peers, was sent to his grandfather to Kobe to strengthen up. The training was efficient, and by the age of 13 he had become a master that no longer had a peer in Kobe. From his grandfather he learned several martial arts, including ninjutsu, and inherited the position of Soke for the following Ryu (school):

Shinden Fudo Ryu
Koto Ryu Koppo-Jutsu
Gyokko Ryu Kosshi-Jutsu
Togakure Ryu Ninpo
Gyokushin Ryu Ninpo
Kumogakure Ryu Ninpo

From the martial artist Mizuta Yoshitaro Tadafusa he became Grandmaster in:
Takagi Yoshin Ryu Ju-Jutsu

(age 17) and from the martial artist Ishitani Matsutaro Takakage he became Grandmaster in

Kukishin Ryu
Gikan Ryu
Hontai Yoshin Takagi Ryu
Shinden Muso Ryu

He traveled through Mongolia to China at the age of 21, taught martial arts and delivered many battles on life or death. He was the bodyguard of the last Chinese Emperor Puyi and became Tendai Buddhist priest in 1919. In 1921 he was permitted to copy the Kukishin Ryu scrolls (+ Amatsu Tatara scrolls) of the Kuki family. He was also a good friend of Jigoro Kano (Kodokan Judo) and took care of his younger brother. They both lived in the same region.

During the Second World War (1945) the original scrolls were destroyed and lost. In 1949 he presented new scrolls to the Kuki family which he had rewritten based on his copies and memory. He was deaf on one ear also due to one of his fights. He said that a Shaolin fighter and a shorinji boxer were the most dangerous enemies he ever met. He was buried on Kumedra cemetery in Nara. He used to write articles for the Tokyo Times newspaper. Toshitsugu was well known in Japan as a Grandmaster of Ju-Jutsu and Bojutsu.

In May 1950, Toshitsugu Takamatsu established Kashihara Shobukai in Nara prefecture. In the post-War era Takamatsu spent his time developing successors to his martial tradition. At the same time, he often sponsored Magokuro-kai-musubi tsudoi meeting and lectures about Amatsu Tatara, especially Izumo Shinpo, and reared many martial artists and religious leaders.

He taught and formed many next generation Grandmasters such as Fumio Akimoto (considered the senior student of Takamatsu), Kimura Masaji (It is possible that no other student of Takamatsu has had more training with the Grandmaster), Sato Kinbei, Takashi Ueno, Masaaki Hatsumi and others.

More information in Macedonian version.

Author koryuPosted on Categories Bujinkan

Masaaki Hatsumi, (born 2 December 1931) is the founder and current Soke, or Grandmaster, of the Bujinkan Organization, currently residing and teaching in the city of Noda, Chiba, Japan. He is also a doctor of oriental medicine, specializing in the mending of bones.
He is sometimes called “the last ninja”, as after the death of his
teacher Toshitsugu Takamatsu in 1972 he was the only person in the
world who mastered all the eighteen disciplines of ninjutsu.
Beginning in
childhood, Masaaki Hatsumi studied several popular martial arts. After
teaching martial arts to American soldiers stationed in Japan
he noticed that the larger and stronger Americans had an advantage in
battles when using the same techniques. He began to question the
legitimacy of modern martial arts training and started to search for a
one where persons of equal skill truly were equals, even if the other
one was stronger. It was after this time, while studying ancient
Japanese weaponry, that he learned of ninjutsu and a martial artist
named Toshitsugu Takamatsu who still knew it.
In 1957 he began making regular trips to train with his new teacher (who resided at the time in Kashiwabara, in Nara), taking a 15-hour train ride from his hometown of Noda in Chiba. This one-on-one training continued for 15 years until the passing of Toshitsugu Takamatsu in 1972.
More information in Macedonian version.