Japanton – Chronicles of Anton in Japan!

Tonight in class we will continue our focus on moving from Kamae to Kamae, and work in a way to reveal where some of the torite goho fit.

— Anton

I was having a discussion with a good friend of mine on the various wings of the Bujinkan.  Things that were mentioned were; the spiritual wing, the publicity wing, the translation wing and the badly undermanned fighting wing.

That’s why I decided that I want my students and myself to help bolster up the fighting arm of the Bujinkan.

There are a lot of different things people try to attain through the martial arts.  I have decided that though I can not speak for others, more than anything I wanted to become strong.  My goal was and is to become a stronger fighter than anyone.

I do not profess to be anywhere close to this goal, but I have a lifetime to chase my objective.  I hope that those whom are chasing different goals still have something they can gain from training with me.  I will just want to be clear about why I train.

This same friend gave me a challenge of his own.  It has created a second goal for me to pursue.  I am trying to create a life worth protecting.  I will discuss this in a later post.

Your life is on the line, practise well.

I have been asked recently to explain the kata of the Bujinkan.  Not to explain how to do each kata, but rather how they are to be studied.  I will try to give a brief contrast between Bujinkan Kata and Karate Kata/Chinese Kung Fu forms.

In the Bujinkan arts the form generally consists of few moves.  The most involved kata that I have seen to date are around 12 moves at most.  In san shin you have as many as 4 distinct moves and as few as 2.

When I compare this to my experience in Karate and Kung Fu, the forms are generally much longer with many parts.  When I was learning the forms, I was taught that each sequence, the series of moves before a direction change is another opponent.  If this is true; which I have no reason to doubt, one of those sequences is the equivalent of a Bujinkan Kata.

Kata in the Bujinkan are treated like bujkai in karate.  Bunkai is when you take a portion of a kata and work it against a live opponent.  This allows you to get a feel for the technique and its variations.

The very nature of Bujinkan kata create an issue when it comes to self study.  It is difficult to practise a kata which relies on feedback of an opponent by yourself.  There is a method to accomplish this.  I will discuss visualization in the near future.

I hope this clarifies the subject of kata in the Bujinkan if even a little.  Your life is on the line, practise well.