Review: Japanese Throwing Weapons: Mastering Shuriken Throwing Techniques by Daniel Fletcher

Japan Report March 2012

Having just returned yesterday from another trip over to Japan I thought I would jot down some notes while still a bit fresh in my mind.

Three Elements to Better Training

Most people think of training time divided between dojo time and (maybe) self training time, I would add a third piece - reasearch / coaching time.

Training Space

In April of 1992 I moved with my wife from Hiroshima to Kawaguchi near Tokyo. I had already lived in Japan for more than a year but I hadn’t done much training yet, Hiroshima was tantalisingly close but still very far away from regular training. It also meant I had moved away from doing the usual jobs for foreigners at the time (Teaching English, Builders Labourer) and taken up an opportunity in my actual profession as a draftsperson.

My Current Taijutsu Focus

Some basic principles I’ve been trying to incorporate in my own training …

The Bujinkan and Me

The Bujinkan, like most martial arts, promises a lot but what does it deliver? I decided to look back and write this article as a bit of a stocktake of my training life. I have been involved in the Bujinkan for most of my life, I have gone through all the ranks, lived and trained for several years in Japan and run a dojo here in Australia. For those that wonder what this is like, here is my experience.

How to Coach Experienced Students from Other Dojo

I found that although when you go out to open a dojo for the first time your image is to be training new students from scratch you quickly find that the dojo equally consists of members with varied previous Bujinkan experience. This presents its own challenges. As much as you desire to mould every member in your dojo to your own image, when someone of ten years previous experience joins the last thing he or she wants is to hear that everything they do is wrong and they have to start again.

Training Alone Part 1 - Taijutsu

Many people ask about a simple training regime for training by yourself at home. In order to study Budo I believe you need to train with a partner and preferably with a good teacher, but self training drills are important as extra homework, when you can’t get to a dojo or if you just want a quick workout.

Dojo Etiquette

For someone teaching a Japanese budo in Australia, to what degree do we include Japanese ideas of etiquette and formality in our classes and why? Martial Arts classes of various forms in Japan are generally known to be fairly formal affairs, even by those with no experience in training themselves. That being said there are many misconceptions, in my opinion.

Interest in the Bujinkan Over Time Based on Google Search Stats

I was having a look at the Google Insights tool as a means of looking at the trend in interest in the Bujinkan from 2004 to the present. The first graph shows the interest over time for Australia.

Japanese Language and Budo

I have to admit feeling a bit of guilt over letting my Japanese slide. Although I speak it everyday, I only do so at home so I find my Japanese narrowing and that I seem to be at a stage where I have now forgotten more language than I remember.

Structure

I was watching an interesting analogy recently on structure and the passage of time. The first example given was a pile of sand, the sand in the pile can be rearranged in many billions of ways and still remain “a pile of sand”. In the second example a sand castle is constructed, in this case almost any disturbance to the sand causes the thing to lose its structure.