There used to be ninjutsu schools. Now there is only Chuck Norris.
Yes, sorry. I shouldn’t have said “Samurai” when I was only talking about sword arts.
I think you have the wrong starting position here, too. Any serious Budo sport / Martial art teacher will tell you right upfront that in order to master the art / get good at it you need to invest years of training. Any serious teacher* will also add the philosophy behind the martial art, instead of just teaching kids to break boards and nothing else.
So a kid who says “That’s cool, I want to do that” is a waste of time on both sides, because once the initial enthusiam is over and it’s hard and frustrating work of the beginner trying to master the basics for weeks and weeks, a kid only interested in coolness and the costume** will leave again.
- Apparently there seems to be a different culture in the US regarding this - there is no overhead body or organisation that certifies all budo clubs and makes sure that teachers know what they’re doing, and who send senseis who don’t belong to the specific club when taking the exams for belt grades? So anybody can open a club and “teach martial arts” without previous knowledge, certification or proper atttitude? Sounds very dangerous and bad. Also can lead easily to the Cobra Kai attitude of the Karate Kid movies where bullies learn how to punch hard, but nothing about the philosophy of not being bullies and avoiding fights.
**Black gis (training suits) are not limited to Nin-jitsu dojos. The club doesn’t sew the suits themselves, after all, but orders them or tells the parents to order, at one of a handful of suppliers, where they come in white or black and different sizes. In my old club, children sizes were white, but adults got black suits for some reason. It is a bit of a handicap though because most clubs prefer all white, so I need a new suit.
Considering that many ninja were female, and essentially prostitutes, getting parents to sign the consent forms would be a nightmare.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, no one who is sane spars with edged weapons with basic or intermediate students in any blade-based martial art unless there is something very unusual going on. I have been doing fencing as a martial art for years now and have never used a weapon with an actual edge or point on them except as a carefully staged demo, or solo practice faaaaaaaaaar away from everyone else.
Occasionally I meet someone who talks about a “real” duel they had with sharps, or some other sort of real full-speed practice with edged weapons, and depending on the person I either think, or tell them, “wow, you must have been colossally stupid back then.”
Apropos of the thread, I’ll note that the term “strip mall ninja” was used derisively as far back as the late 1970’s in my school, typically referring to the sort of kid who desperately seeks attention by taking 3 months of Tae Kwon Do and then performing such stunts as standing up in a lunchroom to perform katas or wearing his gi and coming barefoot to school (yes, I witnessed both acts).
Isn’t this question more along the lines of “Why aren’t there classes to teach kids how to spy and kill people if necessary, convenient or economic?”
I think, in the U.S., we wait until they are 18 and can join one of the armed forces. I hear they have programs that result in the desired outcome.
First rule of Ninja School, don’t talk about Ninja School…
I have to respectfully disagree constanze. My starting point is that parents want to get their kid involved in an activity that gets them to get exercise, and be social, while hopefully learning some useful life skills along the way outside of school and the home. I highly doubt the army of five year olds I see in every karate studio made a conscious effort to say “Yes, this is a martial arts discipline I choose to take over all others because of the style and inner peace it brings to my being prior to nap time”. More than likely, it looked popular, was affordable, and some of the kid’s friends take it, so they were signed up by the parents. That said, if I were to run a karate studio, I would have to advertise heavily because there are hundreds of others in the city competing with mine. Maybe they have better teachers, better times, or are cheaper, but there is tons competition.
With ninjutsu, I don’t see any competition out there…anywhere. Every martial arts movie is doing a lot of advertising for me since ninjas are everywhere. And I think word of mouth would spread pretty quickly if it was anything even remotely real. The fact that there are no governing bodies would make it easy to set up, so that’s not a barrier to entry. And to everyone who thinks all the principles of the class would focus on assassination, I think it could be what you make of it. That’s no different than the movie “The Karate Kid” mentioned earlier. I would teach stealth as a skill, but why does it have to be to sneak up on someone to kill them? Maybe as a defensive skill, it is so you can escape a bully by hiding in a pile of garbage, while also grabbing a pipe in case he attacks you. I think kids would really enjoy the act of disguise and stealth, as well as teaching improvisation in both fighting and escape. And again, let’s not forget the coolness factor of the uniform. Hell, I can remember when I was a kid and the big attraction to joining the cub scouts was that you got to carry a knife. I don’t remember anyone joining because of the thrill of getting a merit badge for helping the elderly.
Well, except for that one creepy kid…
Who now works at the old folks home.
A friend of some friends of mine runs a ninjutsu dojo near Orlando, FL. The head dude certainly was a martial arts beas, with numerous belts and titles. He was also built like a monster. He definitely had a large interest in ninjutsu, myth and reality. The walls were literally covered in Japanese ninja and samurai-related weaponry.
Anyway, I went to one session, and from what I gathered it was just a nice well-rounded MMA style training system infused with lots of quasi-ninja terminology. For example, there were no belts, but you trained progressively in 5 levels, earth water wind fire void IIRC. Earth was learning how to roll without hurting yourself, then some strikes, joint locks, etc. I think I would have enjoyed it more if not for the hour drive from my place, and the fact that the attendees were mostly military-esque fitness buffs. The 30 minute intense physical warmup followed by 90 minutes of very intense rolls and falls left me with a panic attack in the car afterward. Still, if it was closer and not so expensive I might have stuck with it.
Sorry, I am no longer sure how relevant that story was, but at least it shows there are ‘ninja schools’ out there. Oh, and in Japan there is one ninja school in one of the homes of historical ninjas that at least claims itself to be authentic.
In high school, a girl I knew wrote, and had performed, a play based on an oriental folk tale. She used the “invisible” stagehand convention, but since western audiences wouldn’t know it, she had the Narrator explain it in the prologue: “I’m wearing black, so I’m invisible.” (gestures to the stagehands) “They’re invisible too!”
The stagehands largely WERE the stage setting; when the central character was to sit on a limb, they stood in a tableau holding branches to symbolize the tree, and so on.
I think Shaq Fu has been discredited.
In my defense, I was responding to the OP, who did ask about “being able to throw objects accurately at a bully and make use of objects around them as weapons if needed”. I was pointing out the problems with having a bunch of kids throwing shuriken around.
So what age group exactly are you talking about? From your OP I pictured at least 10 year olds, who know who Ninjas are and may already be obese. Now you’re talking about 5 year olds.
In the OP you also talked about the kids wanting it because it’s cool. Now you say the parents sign them up (and pay for it). Do you think many parents will want to sign a kid up for Ninja school, if it called itself that?
Moreover, no matter what sport the parents pick, the problem is that after an initial “this is cool/ fun” phase, there comes the frustrating hard phase. A lot of kids lose motivation at that part.
If the selling point was “This is cool” from the start, I think they will be disappointed much more than if you tell them “This can be cool if you put work into it” or “This is a sport, you will have to stick with it”.
Anybody who takes Ninjitsu halfway seriously - that is, who has learned the secrets from the ancient masters - will tell you that 90% of Hollywood depictions of Ninjas is flat out wrong. So they don’t want kids who come in with wrong ideas.
That would indeed make a rip-off - creating a fake art that fits Hollywood Ninjas and selling it as ancient secret - easier. I can only guess that most parents don’t want their kids to become assassins, and for the rest, as said upthread, you join the Army and go to special Ops.
In that case, you’re not looking around enough, or the dojos aren’t in strip malls, but elsewhere - but Ninjitsu (the fighting part of Ninja art) is being taught in Europe, and I assume at least in some locations in the US.
I can only WAG that the association of sneaking around = criminals for parents or moral guardians is not positive. Or that children interested enough in it can practise sneaking around on their own.
Improvisation in fighting comes after you’ve mastered normal weapons.
What you need to consider is the time frame. In ancient Japan, Ninjas and Samurai started their kids at kindergarden age and then there was continous training for 10 years at least, every day, to get really good.
Today, kids may have time for a ninjitsu class three times a week for 1-2 hrs. So they can learn fighting, or sneaking, for a few years and get a bit proficient, but not both in a couple of months.
For real knifes, the Boy Scouts would be a better choice than a Ninja school, because any responsible sensei will let them train with dummy/ wooden weapons first. (And any sensei who lets them throw shuriken after 3 weeks is so irresponsible that accidents will soon happen and you shouldn’t enroll your child there).
[quote=“DrFidelius, post:17, topic:618617”]
Badgers? We don’ need to dress like badg…
There are 1 mil. stories in the naked city. Some need to pet a furry creature. My name is Friday, i carry a badger
With all respect, there are no “ancient masters.” None. The ninja didn’t necessarily study combat and don’t exist any more. They seem to have slowly ceased to be after the creation of Tokugawa Shogunate, whence they were no longer needed, but their leaders were still considered Samurai* and enjoyed the patronage of the Tokugawa themselves.
“Ninjutsu” as practiced today is a completely modern invention, with a few silly tricks no sane martial artist would recommend, sold to gullible people as a packaged Hollywood invention.
Historically known and definite ninja actions included some pretty cool events, but they were only half-martial in character. Ninjas might be hired to open the gatehouse, or in one memorable incident, snuck a whole armed band in and ran about setting fires until the army arrived and cleaned up. Fortunately for ninja, Japanese castles absolutely sucked for security. (And in that last event, the ninjas may have literally walked in and announced they were reinforcements for the defenders :smack: .) It seems most ninja did nothing more than scout ahead of the army in peace or spy on the neighbors, skills employed by states and armies around the world.
*For people who don’t know way too much about Japanese history, Ninja and Samurai were not incompatible identities. One was simply membership in particular clans skilled it the raid-steal-and-vanish style of warfare common in a couple isolated, mountainous regions of Japan. The other is simply a social class, and often a pretty loose one until the Separation Edicts. Most ninja were basically mountain bandits, including the local lords.
Why are you considering teaching your kids martial arts anyway? I hope it’s so that they’ll know how to defend themselves from attackers?
If this is the case, don’t bother with the “cool martial arts”. In the real world and in street fights, boxing and muay thai rules.
You can start by teaching your kids some very basic hand to hand combat moves. This is a good place to start - http://www.h2hcombattraining.com/hand-to-hand-combat-moves
There have been here, just as in most online forums, unending debates as to boxing, MT, BJJ, generic MMA, etc etc… You’re not right, but neither is anyone else.
I had the pleasure, years ago, of attending a few classes taught by a friend who was a Bujinkan Ninjitsu instructor. He was a good guy, and I had no idea he was into Eastern Martial Arts at all until it came up that I was looking for a new school. While I don’t think there was a governing body, it seemed that his instructor, whom he met with weekly for his own training, traveled to Japan regularly to train with HIS instructor.
No magic moves, no “Strike from the shadows”… it seemed to be some pretty straight forward martial arts, with an emphasis on surprise and evasion. No belt system at that school either, to speak of.
Sadly, that lack of structure turned me off. Seemed fun though.
As for kids, any martial art school that wants to stay open as a school (rather than, say, a class at the Y or the local gym) will have kids. They are the bread and butter of most martial arts schools, outside of the MMA world.
That being said, any decent school will have adults only classes as well, for a variety of reasons.
I can understand. Although they are often derided, even within the martial arts community, belt systems and similar systems do provide a structure that a lot of people need. I really wish my martial art had such, but attempts to get instructors to do anything similar to that have gone up against lack of interest.