Word is in that the them for this year is ken (sword) and nagamaki. Yes I trained in both in Japan. The nagamaki can be found in the picture at the top of the page.

I might teach my students a bit of sword this year, especially if any of them are going to Japan and need some foundation. But I am not going to teach nagamaki. Because while I am certain that I am better than just about anyone who now is going to start doing seminars on how to use it, I personally don't think I know it well enough to try to teach it to others. I prefer to stick to things I know well and can pass along with very few errors to my students.

This is something that bugs me about martial arts in general, and the Bujinkan in particular. People teach things they know shit about. When you start teaching people, you take partial responsibility for what they learn and how well they will do if someone tries to kill them. While you obviously can't be responsible for mistakes they make on their own, if you pass along something shitty then that could get them killed. So only teach what you know and know well. Why do I even have to say this? It is just fucking common sense. But as the saying goes, common sense is so rare now days it is like having a super power. (Really, find a jar of Planters nuts the next time you go to the supermarket. See what they warn you it may contain.)

A lot of people in martial arts don't bother to learn something completely before they start teaching it to others. They are known as fucktards. They pick something off of youtube or a DVD and after a few viewings go off to teach it. Some people make up entire styles after amassing a large DVD collection. But there are many in the Bujinkan who do this as well. They didn't go through months of training under an instructor in Koto-ryu before they teach it, they watch videos instead.

Nowhere is this more evident than when some Bujinkan fuck picks up a weapon and tries to teach how to use it. Honest to Cuthulu, there are more people doing fucked up sword and such than doing decent stuff. It isn't that most of the guys doing bad sword are morons or lack ethics. The simple fact is that there are certain unethical assholes that will watch DVDs (if even that) and then rush out to teach what they think they know. The guys that I respect tend to put off teaching stuff until they get good instruction and spend a lot of time drilling it. By the time they are ready to teach, the assholes have passed along their shitty techniques to thousands of people and it is the accepted norm. Watch and see how many people start teaching nagamaki at seminars, put out DVDs and the like in the next few weeks for an example of what I am talking about.

To be fair, some people are going to try to pick up the nagamaki because it is the theme and try to teach themselves. Let me be gentle, you are idiots. Don't do it. Seriously, stop it.

I realize you are only doing what everyone else is and so you don't see the problem with it. Let me show you why it is wrong. In fact, let me rub your nose into why it is so seriously bad.

One of the things that make me want to take most of the Bujinkan and put them through a cheese grater is the way they think that if they just "try" they can be forgiven. Well, if you need to get a kid to a hospital and your car breaks down in the middle of the desert, I could probably be forgiven for trying my best to fix it right then. Of course, I know pretty much nothing about auto repair. So, if you had no dire need and there was a chance to get the car to a repairman and yet I still started taking apart the engine, everyone would call me a moron. They would know that the chances are of me doing more harm than good.

In the same way, consider that we are talking about a traditional weapon. Where the fuck is the need to teach it without proper instruction first? For that matter, why teach anything until you are much better prepared to pass along it in the correct manner? Are you really sure that you know all you can to help your students? Weapons are the most visible example of this, but it really is a case that people that are the least qualified have the most confidence in what they do. If you don't know something, don't teach it. If you think your students need something, go out and get instruction months, if not years, before you plan on teaching it to them.

I have seen guys pick up bows and shit and start teaching it in Bujinkan class. Were they taught it? Hell no! The excuse these morons give is that they are using it in a Bujinkan manner and so it is probably valid. No.

Each weapon has it's own particular strengths, characteristics and tricks you can use with it. You might not suddenly start doing Taiji footwork while changing weapons, but if you have not been instructed in the find points of a particular weapon, you can't say you know even the starting point. Let me take spear for example. You use it's length. That should be obvious, but take a look at all the youtube videos where the advantage of length is never used! Then there is the fact that the spear needs to be pulled back after a thrust in order to prepare it for another and to keep it from being grabbed by the other guy. Where in all the taijutsu stuff we do are you supposed to learn that? This is just a small example that can be explained. The stuff that can only be passed on through physical instruction is even more important but obviously can't be dealt with here.

There are a lot of things that sound like they are a good idea, but aren’t and vice versa. Some things about weapons and such are counter intuitive. You may try to come up with something that makes sense, but misses this reality. These types of things have been found out through experience, blood has been spilled finding them out and have been passed along. You need to find these things out instead of making up stuff you think makes sense, but does not.

By the way, some weapons like sword can be used quite nicely without pulling them back after a thrust. Each weapon is different, and unless you know not just how they are different but why they are, you don't know shit.

How are you supposed to learn weapons? Not from Masaaki Hatsumi. I know that sounds like blasphemy, and those who are going to make their living off of selling DVDs and seminar tours will probably try to use it against me. But who hasn't heard him say that he is teaching to the tenth dans and such? What does that mean? Well I think it his way of saying that he is going to teach the stuff only he can teach. He knows his time on this Earth is limited and there are some things only he knows and can pass on. He will leave everything else to others. In all the times I have gone to his class, I have not seen him go through how to throw a basic punch or hold a sword. Why should he? There are tons of senior Japanese teachers that can and will show you if you only go to them instead of skipping their classes to go drinking.

Seriously, I went for years to Someya Dojo and served as the translator. He is the guy that has menkyo kaiden in sword from the boss. I can't count the number of people that came in who had been teaching sword for years and gripped the sword wrong and could not even do a basic cut. Let me stress this, these guys had been teaching sword for years despite their inability to do even a simple cut. And I have to give them props for showing up and asking to learn. The guys that think they are too good to train with anyone but the soke of the Bujinkan are the ones I want to slap silly.

So if you want to learn nagamaki, go to someone that will show you how to do basic cuts and such before you go to the boss' classes. Well, for most people they probably have to go to Japan and go to both at the same time. But if you avoid going to the shihan and having them show you the very basics, don't be surprised if I slap you across the room if we meet in person (And I have slapped people silly in the middle of the old honbu dojo.)

Oh, here is another wrinkle. You won't get everything the first time around. No matter how good you are, there will be some small but important points you miss after you get home from class. So, you probably will want to ask the shihan to go over AGAIN what they showed you before you leave Japan. It is much easier for those living in Japan in this case. When new groups come in needing to be shown sword, most of the time they start from the beginning. So while the visitors might get only one class on cutting, the guys living there go through the same instruction each visiting group gets. That is when the shihan can come over and notice if you missed anything the first seven times you saw it. (And it happens.)

So, guess what I think of people that go to one seminar or one trip to Japan and then come out with their own DVDs on how to do things? Do I really have to answer that?

Another thing that irks me is that things take time to digest. Seriously, how long do dancers have to practice something before they are thought worthy of turning around and teaching it? Compare that to the people that come back to Japan and the next weekend have a seminar on what they learned.

Again, weapons really are the most obvious example of this. There are folks that do this with Koto-ryu, Shinden Fudo-ry, etc. They see it once and then run out to teach others. But since those things have been widely taught for decades, it is hard to tell if they picked things up earlier or not. But I remember living in Japan when the theme was jojutsu. My old instructor in America (whom I do not respect at all anymore) announced he was going to do a seminar on it at the end of January of that year. I know he hadn't been to Japan at all, and even if he had how much could he have picked up? People were not teaching jo much, if at all, prior to that year. So how could he get the instruction? Of course, by the end of the year he was joined by dozens of other guys who were doing seminar tours. In Japanese there is a saying, Tsuke-yakiba. It refers to the tempering process. Unless a Japanese sword is beaten well, no matter how shiny the outside it, it is a crap blade. From there the term has come into common usage to refer to people with hastily acquired and shallowly understood knowledge. Picking something up quickly may allow you to make your living off of selling seminar tours, but it comes at the expense of real knowledge. And of course, by teaching stuff you really don't know you fuck up everyone you teach.

Don't even get me started on trying to take something from another art and passing it off as Bujinkan. This was pretty obvious a few years ago when the initial theme of the year was the tsurugi- an ancient double edged sword Japan used in the very early days. We were supposed to come up with our own ways of using it, based on our knowledge of Bujinkan. The idea was abandoned after a few months because there were so many incompetent fucktards running around teaching seminars on the tsurugi who had no clue and had pretty fucked- up taijutsu. Since the sword somewhat resembles the Chinese jian sword used in taiji, people looked to and borrowed moves from them. Now I have studied the jian in taiji class. I could recognize the moves some of these morons were doing and I could see the flaws as well as their lack of understanding of the "why" behind many of the moves they were teaching. And that is key. As Hatsumi wrote in "Ninpo Wisdom for Life" (Still for sale if you can find it) "If someone keeps training without knowing the foundation and how it 'blooms into a flower' then it is certain he will have a 'hollow mind and eyes.'"

All too often, people pick up weapons from other arts and try to use them as if they were Bujinkan. Boy, are they morons! The most common has to be people picking up some moves from filipino martial arts and passing it off as Japanese knife work. Well, good arts from there are very good. None of the guys using them as if they were Japanese are worth a damn. FMA evolved under different circumstances and developed different solutions to the problems they faced. Their culture was different, and armor wasn't something they were worried about. Heck, they didn't even have to deal with how people dressed in Japan in winter. So the way they built things up from the ground was geared toward what they faced and did it very well. If you do FMA as it is supposed to be done, it is awesome. But if you try to take something from it and glue it onto a real mainland Japanese art, it is a disaster. The guys doing it have no idea because they are incompetent morons. Try not to follow their lead. It could be the dual stick they use in kali, nunchaku, sai, or even certain types of sticks- but I have seen people try to use these weapons as if they were Bujinkan and in all cases it is a total fuck up. Don't be a fuck up. Don't try to pick things up from other styles that use nagamaki and things that look a little like them.

If you really want to learn nagamaki, go to Japan and see if you can find a shihan that will show you how to do the basics. Of course, you are probably going to class with the boss and learning what he shows. Take good notes and practice that a lot as well, but realize you won't really understand it until much later after a lot of practice with the basics. Try to show what you already learned to the Japanese and pray that they will jump in and point out mistakes you missed. When you get home, don't teach it. Instead get together with the folks you went to Japan with and try to practice what you were shown among you all. And if you go back to Japan next year, go to the guys that showed you in the first place and beg them to look over what you think they showed you once again.

Of course, if you are a person that makes his living off of teaching, and/or the image you have a need to project to the world is one of being a master of martial arts, then you can't do this. You will have to do the exact opposite, go only to classes where you can be seen with the soke of the Bujinkan, avoid any situation where people see you being corrected because they might lose confidence in you and as soon as you are back start doing seminars and putting out DVDs. For that matter, why even bother to go to Japan before you start charging money for what you know about the subject?

Just one thing, if you do follow the latter course, be wary about coming face to face with me. Because I have slapped assholes like you around in the past.