New Book
Sorry, I have been out of it for a while. Lots going on here, but my commitment to the blog is fudoshin.
Soke has been speaking recently about the new book that he will be releasing. Looks like I will be facing a mega translating project. Soke has given me a prelude of what is to appear in the new book and I want to share it with the blog readers here.
Soke hopes that this book will eliminate the need to collect techniques. So he has told me that the book will have a step by step of all the waza in our art. Why should anyone need notes anymore when it will all be here? This book is to be somewhat of a reincarnation of the original taijutsu book that is now out of print and considered a rare find.
Soke is an artist and therefore much thought is put into the production of the book. His other books have been written in the densho form, so I assume that we can expect the same or better of this new book.
A big focus for Soke goes into the photos in the book. He often comments that “photos of Budo should be taken be real Budoka, only true budoka can capture the essence of what is happening”. Soke often makes comparison of the photos taken in his books that were not taken by Budoka to those that have been taken by Budoka.
This is also related to the videos that are being taken at training. Soke sees this as an ongoing diary of our training that can be referred to in the future. These videos are being taken by Bujinkan members who are able to understand what content is important, what angle the video should be taken. Therefore, the videos can be seen in the eyes of a Bujinkan memeber as you are watching Soke in real life. A note here: When training in Japan please remember that you may appear in these videos and you may not be aware of it. So please be considerate of your appearance while viewing training and possibly appearing in the video. Mistakes will be documented for eternity.
As the book develops I hope to add more comments.
July 16, 2007 at 2:54 am
“When training in Japan please remember that you may appear in these videos and you may not be aware of it. So please be considerate of your appearance while viewing training and possibly appearing in the video.”
Absolutely. Simply wearing a proper uniform ought to take care of most problems. For those who might not know it, a proper uniform includes a black gi with a black or dark colored t-shirt underneath. Cloth or leather tabi. No rubber soled tabi.
It is hot right now, so many people forego the gi top. That makes it doubly important that your t-shirt needs to be black or some dark color. Advertisements for other dojos arent really appropriate, nor are sleeveless muscle shirts nor shirts with vulgar slogans. Thanks.
July 19, 2007 at 9:33 am
I would like to make a suggestion that I hope you will pass on to Hatsumi Sensei.
Taking step by step photos will be much better if you just use video to shoot the techniques. Then make photos from that video. You can adjust the video frame to get the right point for the next photo. The past few books have been great in text and not so good with photos. Unless the intention was going for Blurry-jutsu then they were great. Again making the photos from videos is the way to go. The frame rate on video is far better then with any still shot camera. If the intention will be to make the photos truly clear then please pass along my suggestion.
Can you ask Hatsumi Sensei if he plans to include the ura waza or just the omote forms? If it is just the omote waza then I am sure the intention of the book will fail. The “collectors” know the ura waza are written in the densho.
Do you know which Ryu Hatsumi Sensei plans to include? All Ryu, all Kata, and all weapons? Are we talking about volumes of books? If not, that will be one heavy book probably better used as a weapon in and of itself! LOL Maybe call it “Nyoi-Bō Book”
July 30, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Hopefully Doug won’t mind me adding my two yen here, but my understanding is that the ‘blurry’ pictures used in the recent set of books is quite deliberate and was done to try to communicate some of the dynamic of movement that exists in budo.
Static pictures as featured in most instructional martial arts books are lifeless and dead, in a sense, but the action shots in the recent kodansha series really do give a sense of what the movements depicted look like. That’s my impression at any rate.
I can see that the books would be easier to learn the techniques from if the pictures were static, but I would guess that might also be part of the point Soke wanted to make.
Hope that’s helpful.
August 13, 2007 at 7:05 am
Excellent Doug! Looking forward to Hatsumi Sensei’s new book…eagerly awaiting…..