Training
The Bujinkan is the overall name given to the study of 9 traditional ryuha (schools) that Soke Masaaki Hatsumi inherited and now teaches out of the hombu dojo in Noda, Japan. The 9 schools are:
Togakure Ryu
Gyokko Ryu
Koto Ryu
Kukishinden Ryu
Takagi Yoshin Ryu
Shinden Fudo Ryu
Gikan Ryu
Kumogakure Ryu
Gyokushin Ryu
The Art
The schools of the Bujinkan incorporate various components of fighting in a traditional Japanese system. In this way – the training is not limited to a certain type of skill and incorporates strikes, kicks, throws, chokes, locks and holds, as well as knife defense, rope, hanbo and Rokushaku bo.
In Japan, the training is conducted very openly with an emphasis on henka or the ability to adapt and change. For this reason, there is a lot of freedom within the Bujinkan curriculum. Different instructors therefore find different areas for focus and the depth of knowledge in the Bujinkan is very vast, with depth in many different directions. At Bujinkan Kokoro Dojo we do not teach any weapons except those mentioned above.
Our focus is on refinement of the simple principles of movement and balance and their relation to combat. Training is conducted in a learning environment between students with the aim of not only learning how to protect yourself but gaining a better understanding of movement, yourself and your connection to the world around you.
Taijutsu's power source is Natural Body weight in fluid motion
Put simply its kinetic energy,
The energy an object possesses due to its motion. It's the energy of movement and depends on both the object's mass and its speed. The faster an object moves or the more massive it is, the greater its kinetic energy.
A parked car has no Kinetic energy, one rolling down the hill does.
Taijutsu uses this body weight in motion principle to give power to punches and kicks, and also to weapons strikes.
One can test this with a heavy punching bag, Hit it with all your upper body muscle strength and watch how far it moves, Now hit it with a lunge punch and see how much further it moves, It moves further because more energy has been transmitted to the target.
Ideally the fist should strike the target a split second before the leading foot hits the ground, this transmits all the kinetic energy from the back foot to the fist, with the leading foot touching the ground after the strike, If it doesn't energy gets grounded and lost.
This applies in both a forward movement lunge punch , and also a backward block, with the blocking fist striking the opponents wrist a split second before the rear foot lands.
Learning to do this properly allows a smaller person to hit much harder than using muscle strength alone, and the application goes beyond strikes to leverage and taking the opponents balance.
Whilst the schools are separate and have various specialties and emphases, the frameworks are similar and complement each other. The nine schools are not limited in scope and were intended to be used to convey principles of combat including timing, distancing and angling along with balance for warriors in a non-sport environment.