Frequently Asked Questions

Following are some of the questions most frequently asked about the warrior arts of the Bujinkan and about the San Francisco dojo, with some brief responses.

• What is the Bujinkan?
• What is the basis of the training?
• Why is a moral foundation necessary?
• Why is historical perspective important to your school?
• What kinds of things are included in the physical training?
• Does the training include kata or forms, as in karate?
• How is it that the kata are the "starting point"? 
• What really distinguishes Bujinkan budo from other martial arts?
• How long does it take to learn these arts?
• What about belt ranks - kyu and dan grades?
• Who is the instructor for the San Francisco Dojo, and what are his qualifications?
• What is his current rank?
• What other qualifications does he have?
• Why are these things relevant to a study of feudal-era arts?
• How can I join the Bujinkan?
• Is anyone prohibited from joining the Bujinkan?
• Does the San Francisco Dojo have any further restrictions beyond these?
• Then there is no training available for children?
• Where is the San Francisco Dojo located?
• How difficult is it to train in Japan with Hatsumi sensei?
• What's with the tartan and dirk site design?

Q: What is the Bujinkan?
A: The Bujinkan or "Divine Warrior House" is an international training organization based in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is headed by Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, the current generation head of nine ko-ryu or feudal-era traditions passed to him by his teacher, Toshitsugu Takamatsu.

Q: What is the basis of the training?
A: That requires a complex answer, divided into at least three areas: moral foundation, historical perspective, and physical training.

Q: Why is a moral foundation necessary?
A: It provides a framework for appropriate application of the skills we develop. Hatsumi sensei often says that "The purpose of martial art is to live". This can be taken on different levels: staying alive through physical danger, or as a path through which one can have a vital and satisfying existence. The Bujinkan approaches the study of actual feudal battle skills (bujutsu) as a spiritual life path (budo).

In the San Francisco Dojo we begin with the premise that the most basic value is life, without which nothing else is possible. This value manifests biologically in the natural drive to protect oneself (and one's family, etc.) from harm. This in turn means that actions one takes to preserve life (another’s or one’s own) in the face of something directly and immediately threatening it are among the most fundamentally moral human acts. It is this "dual life (protection of self and others) value," rooted in natural law, which sanctions and sanctifies the warrior's training. It may seem strange to consider, but this life-protection value extends even to protecting an attacker's life if it is feasible to do so.

This physical/moral foundation also identifies the difference between a fighter and a warrior. One may become a very proficient competitor in any number of martial arts, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. This person can be said to be a good fighter; but what he does is for himself. The warrior trains to act on behalf of others first – loved ones, innocent victims, one’s community, one’s nation – and self last. We train people who want to be warriors.

: Why is historical perspective important to your school?
A: In the broadest sense, it is necessary to understand the pressures and influences which led to the creation of these arts in order to understand the arts themselves and how they might be used today. The arts of the Bujinkan were developed and refined through centuries of political upheaval, social repression, and internecine warfare. Some were used by Japan's hereditary professional military class, the samurai. Others were used by clans and families of intelligence and unconventional warfare experts, the ninja. There is not as distinct a division between the two as some would have you believe: Ninjutsu, historically, was essentially a military subspecialty dealing with intelligence and unconventional warfare, and the families and groups in the Iga and Koga areas who were most known for these activities were of the samurai class themselves or were trained and led by people who were.

In a narrower sense, historical perspective helps to understand technical distinctions between the different ryu of the Bujinkan. Differences in social status and in mission requirements dictated different ideas about combat effectiveness among the different ryu. Such factors as whether or not armor was typically worn, whether the norm was "open" battlefield combat or the need to escape and report vital intelligence, etc., all influenced tactics and characteristic ways of moving in combat among the different systems.

Q: Well, what kinds of things are included in the physical training?
A: These arts developed in, and survived through, periods of warfare in feudal Japan. As such they are weapons-based arts, though the physical methods are designed to work in fundamentally the same way, with the same movement dynamics, whether the practitioner is armed or empty-handed. Even the empty-hand methods take weapons into account and affect the way we approach things. For example, in a purely empty-hand sport art such as boxing a practitioner might be willing to absorb a couple of blows in order to get to a point where he can do something really decisive to his opponent. The Bujinkan practitioner would tend to move as though the attacking hand held a concealed knife or other weapon which he simply had not yet seen, and would deal with the attack in such a way that the opponent would be unable to use a weapon effectively if there was one.

Training is conducted in a supportive, "family" atmosphere. Since these arts rely on proper structural alignment, positioning, and use of “tactical space” rather than on upper-body strength, they can be learned as easily by women as by men.

Q: Does the training include kata or forms, as in karate?
A: Not quite like those. In the old arts such as ours, kata are generally performed by two (or more) partners and are quite brief, reflecting the reality of combat encounters. They teach an art's basic concepts: typical attacks and common ways of dealing with them. Kata may also refer to a class or set of waza (techniques), especially groupings which embody a particular principle or group of related principles. Kata are the starting point for learning the arts.

Q: How is it that the kata are the "starting point"?
It seems that in most arts, the formal techniques and kata either are considered to BE the art or, alternatively, are considered to be a way of putting various techniques together without much relevance to actual combat. Do you mean "starting point" in this latter sense?

A: In the first case above, the approach is not so much that of traditional arts at the time they were being developed and used, as it is of the end of feudalism when kata became highly formalized and rigid as a way of preserving some semblance of an art in the face of pressures pushing it into disuse. . .not unlike (if you will pardon the imagery!) a virus going dormant and awaiting an opportunity to become active again. The second case seems to derive from the first, where the fighting methods used bear little or no relationship to the forms. Both indicate that the understanding of the kata has died.

The approach to kata training in taijutsu as taught by Hatsumi sensei is very different and reflects the Protean fluidity and dynamism needed in real, life-protective combat. First, the basic "transmission" form as recorded in the densho scroll is shown, and the student will have some time to simply work on the mechanics of the movements and the aspects of timing, distance and positioning, balance-taking, etc. which the base form presents. From that point, various "problems" will be introduced for exploration. Some examples would be: How might the kata change when a different distance is used? When you can't move to a "required" position within the form because of some obstacle? When the form is done with a particular weapon or weapons instead of unarmed? When you have a weapon and want to use it, but it isn't in your hand? When the opponent has the weapon and you need to keep him from using it, or want to use it against him yourself? When multiple opponents, or multiple opponents armed with a variety of different weapons (all with their own unique characteristics), enter the picture?

Part of the object here is to require the student to take continually more complex sets of relationships into account, while still maintaining the essence and "feeling" of the transmission form. In this way the student grows to truly understand and incorporate the principles of the form and can freely adapt them in actual combat as needed, instead of being hampered by a "fixed" sequence of movements -- or feeling that form is useless, irrelevant, and should be abandoned.

In a sense, one eventually learns to "transcend" forms by incorporating (literally "bringing into the body") their underlying concepts and principles. This is the difference between learning a particular system (which is what most people do) and becoming the art in one's own person.

Q:  What really distinguishes Bujinkan budo from other martial arts?
A: One thing is that as a comprehensive or “total” life-protection  system, it does not “specialize” in particular kinds of applications as many arts do. That is, it does not “emphasize” primarily grappling and throwing as in judo; striking and kicking as in karate; or any particular weapon as in kendo. Everything is used freely, including unconventional weapons; unconventional applications of common weapons; and concealed weapons. This is one aspect of the Bujinkan’s happo bikenjutsu or “secret sword” methods.

Much more significant, however, is the fact that the physical training is approached via a completely different conceptual paradigm from that of other martial arts. In other systems the focus is on learning particular techniques and applying them against an opponent. In Bujinkan budo as Hatsumi sensei is teaching it, there is a very different way of viewing one’s relationship with the opponent. Just as in a Japanese Zen garden the shapes of the spaces between objects are every bit as important as the nature and positions of the objects themselves in the overall composition, so in our martial art perceiving and controlling the shape of the space between yourself and the opponent is critical to mastery.

One way of thinking about this is that if you try to deal with an opponent’s weapon (fist, knife, gun, etc.) the person himself may still kill you. It is more effective to try to control the opponent himself, because then you control the weapon also; but in that case you still will have a fight on your hands and the outcome is still in doubt. If you control the space your opponent wishes to use, however, he is totally neutralized and all his efforts are ineffective. Senior U.S. Bujinkan instructor and former Marine officer Jack Hoban, has expressed this idea eloquently in military terms: Your unit can try to outshoot an enemy force, but it can be a grueling ordeal with heavy casualties on both sides. . .and you may be defeated. But if you control the terrain around the enemy so that you can reach him easily, while he cannot fire on you and cannot maneuver without exposing himself to your own fire, his defeat is inevitable. . .and you may save lives on the “enemy” side as well as your own. Whether the opponent lives or dies thus becomes, in a very profound sense, his own decision.