Well, I had planned on writing something else, but I do owe some favors and so I am dealing with the matter of a huge fraud in this first blog of 2015. The guy that is called Juzo Otomo (not his real name) should be thanked for providing the materials and the drive to put this out.

Christa Jacobson may be known to many who are aware of frauds in the martial arts. She has many followers with her lies of being taught the art of Tomo ryu before creating her own style of Budo ryu. Part of the appeal seems to be that she posts many, many photos of her as a slut, which appeals to the typical socially malnourished type that longs to impress others by being ninja without the fortitude to hack real training. She has many videos on youtube and DVD courses.

Christa Jacobson was born Christopher Brooks. Yes, she was born a man and advertises herself on an escort site as a tranny. (I’m not going to really deal with her calling herself a courtesan and selling herself on the internet.) Get over it. As can be expected, she tries to use this for her own gain in trying to portray those that expose her as bigots. This is one of the reasons this task has fallen on me, because I have a long history of going completely bat shit whenever faced with homophobia, racism or any other sort of bigotry. So that dog won't hunt with me. Another reason is my experience in Japan and with the language.

I plan on using this blog to show just how hard it can be for the typical person to tell if an art is real or has a made up history. For me, it is not a problem. But unless you have spent 15 years in Japan studying the art and can read Japanese fluently, it can get pretty complicated. Frauds like Jacobson, Frank Dux and others really put a lot of effort into maintaining their lies and without some background in the subject it is easy to get fooled by the mountains of bullshit they put out there.

The most important thing to realize about Jacobson is that there is no proof at all to what she claims. That should end the debate right there. There is no mention of her school in Japan and no proof that she trained in Tomo ryu under a real person. She has bought certificates and scrolls that she passes off as being from her teacher, but they are of course easily seen to be fakes to my eye.

Let me set the stage for what I am going to say. Christa Jacobson claims to have studied Tomo-ryu. The way she says it is spelled is 戸猛流. The last charecter, "流" is pronounced ryu and means a tradition in this case. So the name "Tomo" as she spells it is "戸猛".

Except….. that is not quite right.

One thing you should know about Japanese is that it has long vowel sounds. This is difficult for those of us brought up in languages that don't differentiate between a short "o" sound and a long one to pick up without practice. But the Japanese can hear it, just as we can hear the difference between "L" and "R" while they need to practice listening for it. So if you say Akushu 握手 you mean handshake. But if you say Akushuu 悪臭 it means "stink" or "evil smell."

Obviously, you don't want to foul up with a vowel that is too long or too short. This is not a trivial matter. When you lengthen an "o" sound, quite often it is by adding a "u" in the phonetic alphabet, and sometimes by adding a "o." But despite this, many times long vowels are ignored in English. The best example is the capital of Japan- Tokyo. If you translated how it is spelled and pronounced in Japanese, it actually would be Toukyou. It has a long "o" sound in Japanese, but so many non-Japanese can't hear the difference. But a Japanese would never spell it Tokyo in Japanese, always Toukyou if they were writing phonetically. Toukyou would be spelled とうきょう, while Tokyo would be ときょ.

Why take all this trouble to explain about long vowels in Japanese? Well, while it is quite possible that Jacobson would spell 戸猛 in English as "tomo" it is not a mistake a native Japanese speaker would make. 戸 is indeed pronounced "to" (think of your big 'toe' when pronouncing it) but 猛 is NOT "mo" and is instead a long vowel sound of "mou" (as in Curly from the three stooges yelling, "Hey Moe!") A better way to write it would be Tomou-ryu if you wanted to be accurate. And I hope that I made clear that a Japanese would not confuse or associated the pronunciation of "Tomo" and Tomou" but people unable to read Japanese could make that mistake.

So, there is no mention at all in any Japanese source I have consulted that says there ever was a ninjutsu style named "Tomou-ryu" with either the kanji Jacobson uses or the way it is pronounced. I have consulted books like the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten, as well as books devoted to the ninja and none of them list a Tomou ryu.

And just to make this clear, this screen shot of a video of 2011 training shows that she uses the characters for 戸猛. If you look for it, you can find it after the English text saying “Tomo ryu Shinobijutsu- Keiko 2011” starting with the fourth character over from the left.

Recently she posted the following claim of works that listed her style as being found in historical records.

If she was an inheritor of a tradition that came from the Ban family, then her possession of these works would be just a matter of course. But she was forced to admit that what she tried to portray was a lie, and she instead bought these from a company called Sakura Scrolls that produces reproductions of historical documents. Well, at least until they gave up the business. I got a very nice copy of the Ninpiden from them, and it is a shame that they went under. The picture below is taken from their site on facebook. As you can see, they are the same works, which Jacobson did not tell folks. But it is a fact that Jacobson claims to be an inheritor of the Ban family tradition, but had to buy the items she claims as proof from someone in the UK. As for Sakura Scrolls, you can still find their presence on facebook to confirm this if you want.

Of course, by now you should realize that the character for "Ban" can indeed be pronounced Tomo, but it is not the same as the pronunciation for the way she used to write it. Her claim, caught by a screen shot and sent to me, is that the merely changed the characters used for a word that sounded the same in both cases. Take a look at these photos if you like. They are exact copies of what Jacobson tries to pass off as being historical works. If she really was an inheritor of anything, she would not had to but them as she tried to conceal. Here is the ad for the reproductions from Sakura Scrolls. Even a quick comparison shows they are the same.

Here is where the confusion comes in. Jacobson supports and helps sell books by a guy named Antony Cummins. While he writes a lot about ninjutsu, Cummins can't actually read a Japanese newspaper. He has no real ability in the Japanese language, but has attracted a lot of people like Jacobson, Ron Collins and other frauds/criminals who all seem to support each other's  claims despite things like time behind bars, sex offenses and the like.

So, years after Jacobson stated that she taught Tomo-ryu, and gave the kanji as 戸猛, Cummins made a video talking about the reproductions of the scrolls of the Ban family, which could be also read as Tomo. The charecter for Ban (伴) can also be read "Tomo", but not as "Tomou".

So, Jacobson seems to have changed her story a bit. Now she claims that she has a tradition that comes from the Ban family and that it was merely a change in the characters that changed it to the second spelling.

The problem with explaining why this is a lie iscomplicated. Quite simply, she did not get these scrolls from her teacher as a real inheritor would. She bought reproductions off of a company called “Sakura Scrolls.” She tried to conceal that fact, but was called on it. When told the truth that it was not the same as the the way she spelled Tomo ryu, she tried to duck the issue with the following.

But this is a lie. No Japanese would make that mistake. The long vowel would get in the way of something like that. Go ahead and find a Japanese student at your local university or elsewhere and run this blog by them. They will tell you the same thing. They look at Tomo (伴) and Tomou (戸猛) as NOT sounding the same.

Oops, big lie on Jacobson's part. Easily exposed and confirmed as false by independent sources like exchange students on your own. The question is, did Cummins say this because he was willing to overlook the truth, or because of his incompetence? Or is it maybe a bit of both?

Is this the only lie Jacobson has been caught in? Are you kidding me? Of course there is more and I am going to point them out.

Take a look at the following.

Yep, she tried that claim. Also, she has tried to pass off scrolls that were for sale on a Japanese site as being passed along to her.

Take a look at these screen shots also sent me and see how the scroll she put in a video saying it was from her teacher can also be found on a yahoo Japan auction site.

(For those that want the original screen shots, as well as proof of other lies, check out this site. I ti s hosted in Japan since Jacobson tries her best to shut down those that expose her by claiming things like copyright infringement. http://ninjer.blog.shinobi.jp/ninjers/for%20all%20critics-%20these%20are)

Obviously, she is a fraud and a liar.

As for her abilities, well…. not that great. If you aren't experienced in martial arts, what she does might look good and fancy, but after 15 years studying real martial arts in Japan, she is a hopeless incompetent. In my last blog, I ranted about those that start their own styles and are never able to learn more. Imagine the case of those that start their own styles built on a foundation of lies? A person who teaches, but does not project the image of a teacher, when their mistakes are pointed out to them can come back to their students and tell them how they were wrong so they can not make the same mistake. A person who thinks of themselves as a teacher will be be hesitant to show their weaknesses. But a person who claims to have mastered a system under a fictional character can never admit that they were wrong for fear of having their entire house of cards come crashing down. Soon, they spend a lot of time trying to deny and cover over their mistakes, building their lies higher and higher. At no time can they admit a mistake, learn from it and grow. Christa Jacobson is a fairly weak martial artist and no matter if she spends the next 50 years at the game she will not get any better. Nor will any that follow her.

If you want more about Jacbson's lack of morality, here is a video about her plagiarism.

Now, some people might say what does false history have to do with why we should listen to her? I have heard that a lot when the matter of frauds come up. Let me quote something that Ellis Amdur wrote on the matter.

"Over the years, I've had lots of teachers. And some of them weren't exactly people you'd bring home to mom - some were outlaws, some were wildmen. But all of them, upright citizen or outlaw, were stand-up men and women, and all of them could be trusted. I knew who they were, and from whom and where they came. All martial arts revolve around questions of life-and-death, and this includes a life-worth-living, and a death-worth-dying-for. Liars don't figure into that equation for me - except as people to avoid.

A "combat-tested" knifer who claims he served in 'Nam with the Navy Seals but was really a stateside cook; a guy who asserts he learned silat from a tribe in the wilds of Sumatra when he never left Vermont; a "street fighter" who had three schoolyard scuffles in junior high; or a guy who claims his ryu is sworn to secrecy because a Chinese Taoist taught the Japanese master and made him swear not to write it down are all the same - pathetic, morally weak, lying poseurs.

And it doesn't matter if they can kick your ass because it's not about the paper. It's about being a man or woman of integrity. It's about being a person of one's word. Without that, a teacher has nothing - absolutely nothing - that can't be acquired elsewhere and far better."

As shown here, Jacobson has no integrity. Thus she has nothing worth learning from.

My main purpose in putting out this blog is to show the lengths some people will go to in order to protect the lies they make. Think about what Jacobson can do if everyone knows her lies. Her job is mainly teaching martial arts, so she would have to fall back on taking money for sex for the most part. Her social circle all revolves around her being a ninja master, so she would loose her social position. (Really, is she going to tell the folks at her kids PTA meeting that she advertises as a tranny on escort sites?) Her entire life is built on a lie and she will defend to the death that lie.

But another reason to put this together is to show just how hard it can be to tell the truth from the bullshit. I can read Japanese. I know Japanese customs and history. I can spot these fakes from a long distance off, but if you think you can in this day and age, you are fooling yourself. The key to finding out if someone is a fraud or not is asking them to confirm their own experiences. If they are alive, they can answer questions about the claims they make. It might be stories about being in the special forces, Frank Dux's silly claims of being in a secret death match or having a teacher that taught them the secret art. In Jacobson's case, she claims to have been made the 21st inheritor of a tradition but can't provide proof that others can confirm that her teacher actually existed. No one can contact him, no independent source can say that they knew him and in short, there seems to be nothing of value to her claims. If you do not have the experience I do with the language and such, then merely look into the personal claims as I have outlined here and if they fail, walk away.

Edit- Jacobson wrote the following. To be complete I have to show why it is a lie by her. This is what she wrote,

“According to kuden, the 17th Soke, changed the name from the family name (Tomo-ryu; 伴流) to a poetic name Tomo-ryu (戸猛流; Door of the Fierce). I have always stated (from the beginning) that the Tomo-ryu (戸猛流) is the existing lineage from the Tomo-ryu (伴流) samurai family.

This name change at this time period seems to be a very popular thing, as many koryu schools has changed their name through out history. Maybe it was because the samurai arts were not allowed to be openly taught after a specific date in Japanese history? However; we also see something similar from the family name Toda (a.k.a Toda-ryu) to poetic name Togakure-ryu (Hidden Door) from Toshitsugu Takamatsu within the same time period.”

Nope. Toda is a fairly common name in Japan. It is about as common as “Stevens” or “Martin” would be in American. It is not surprising that there is more than one school that uses the name. However, while the Togakure-ryu is said to have passed down through the Toda family, there is no relation between that family named Toda and a style named Toda-ryu, nor can “Toda” have it’s reading changed to “Togakure.” The Toda family spells its name, 戸田. The Togakure ryu spells it’s name 戸隠. So the first character is indeed 戸, which is “to” and means “door.” However, the second character in the Toda family name is 田, which can be “Da” as in this case, and it can be “Ta” as in the family name “Tanaka.” It can also be pronounced “Den” in some cases. But that is it. 田 can’t be pronounced “Gakure/Kakure” and 隠 can’t be pronounced “Da”. Don’t take the word of a blog. Run this by a native Japanese speaker. You can probably find an exchange student at a local collage willing to look it over. Here is a screen shot by me of Jacobson trying to cover over this mistake on her page. I am told she is desperately trying to delete every reference to this blog posted on her page since I went public with it.

And I want to emphasize once again that there is no reference at all in any Japanese source that a 戸猛流 ever existed. There is nothing in Japanese, it is all Jacobson’s word. How good is her word? Watch the videos at the end for more examples of her lies.

I'll leave you with a series of youtube videos by others on the various claims Jacobson makes that have been shot down by others. (Sadly, “Juzo” was born looking like the elephant man and hides his face in every video.)