Demos in the Buj

Starting a new thread to address these questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knee Rider (Post 1074997680) Hey Dunc, Firstly, thanks for your always open debate and for putting both yourself and your material out there and holding yourself up as an example of the average practitioner of your art. I have only watched a few of your videos but I dont have any interest in nit picking through them as a non-practitioner, as they are representative of a specific modality of training which a) doesnt interest me b) the issues around which have been discussed countless times anyway c) can be found in myriad classical systems from both Japanese and other cultures and d) doesnt really speak to my specific questions about the BJK anyway. I do have some honest inquiries if that is ok? All of these are asked as someone who is interested in martial arts broadly and out of intellectual curiosity regarding what I see as the flaws and behaviours within the organisation. It is fair to say I have bias: 1) I have a negative opinion of the BJK as an organisation and of Hatsumi himself. I think he has established a cult of personality around a classical martial arts system for personal gain. 2) I lean towards a specific training modality in my own practice which I believe is the most effective and inherently truthful way to practice a martial art (or any discipline) and feel that without the checks and measures priovided there, a lot of nonsense is fostered, can go unquestioned and can florish. 3) I have trained very, very briefly in the Bujinkan and tasted a session of the Genbukan and was left cold by both. With those biases out in the open I want to emphasis that I dont necessarily see zero value in the base material of the BJK ie the 9 schools. I think there value is simply hard to get at due to issues with Hatsumi's conduct, the way the org is run and the training methodology of the majority of BJK practitioners. I think there value would be a lot more accessible and less obfuscated in something like a classical koryu structure of teaching and learning for example. With that out there, these are my questions: 1) What are the issues with the demos and recorded teachings as you see them? 2) What do you think of the demonstrations of Hatsumi sensie at taikai etc and what place do they have within the structure of the org and the transmission of the art? 3) What do you think of uke behaviour within said demos? My opinion is that these demonstrations seem more like an exertion of Hatsumi's status and an indulgence of his freedom to essentially get away with anything under the conditions of follower adulation and reverence than they are of martial technique or earnest attempts to transmit something of value that service peoples understanding of the arts they claim to study. Although I have no idea why he has arived at that point... could be something akin to the chi masters that buy into their own artifice, deliberate fraud, simply not caring, senility, ego and a love of adulation or that his methods of training and teaching have drifted so far from reality/his source material that they no longer resemble functional representations of the concepts he is attempting to impart. What are your thoughts on that? 4) what do you think of the saki test and have you taken it?