Overview of the Martial Art

The martial art is made up of 9 schools of Japanese budo (ie skills/philosophy of warfare). 3 of which are schools developed by ninja and 6 are schools associated with the samuari. They are:

• Togakure-ryu Ninpo Taijutsu (Ninjutsu - 34th Generation)
• Gyokko-ryu Kosshijutsu (Specialising in the muscular system - 28th Generation)
• Koto-ryu Koppojutsu (Specialising in the skeletal structure - 19th Generation)
• Shindenfudo-ryu Dakentaijutsu (Specialising in natural movements - 26th Generation)
• Gyokushin-ryu Ninpo Happo Biken (Ninjutsu - 24th Generation)
• Kukishinden-ryu Dakentaijutsu Happo Biken (Samurai school - 28th Generation)
• Gikan-ryu Koppo Taijutsu (Specialising in the skeletal structure - 18th Generation)
• Takagiyoshin-ryu Jutaijutsu (Samurai style jujutsu - 17th Generation)
• Kumogakure-ryu Ninpo Happo Biken (Ninjutsu - 14th Generation)

Any one of these schools is a martial art in its own right and would be sufficient, however this gives us a very wide a base of understanding to work from. The formal history of these arts can be traced back over 900 years, but they were in existence long before that. The schools were inherited by Masaaki Hatsumi from his teacher Takamatsu in 1972. Unlike many martial arts in the West, Bujinkan Budo has not been converted into a sport or academic exercise in modern less turbulent times and is still taught in its entirety.

To put it in perspective: Londoners are 5 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than New Yorkers (Statistics for 2001). In London 2.5 people in every 1,000 become victims of violent crime each month, which means that 3% of us will experience a violent crime each year. Just under 10% of these crimes involve the theft of mobile phones.

It is my personal belief that there are very few true martial arts taught in the world and there is a real danger that practitioners of martial arts which have lost their original focus (eg sports orientated martial arts) often place themselves at more risk in a dangerous situation than someone who has never practiced any martial art at all.