Bujinkan on Asahi Television

I was given the privelage of demonstrating Bujinkan Budo on Japanese Television. From the beginning, I knew that whatever I did, it would be difficult to give a good example. This was because we were at the mercy of the Director and the editorial department, not to mention my own nerves. Also, the television show we were to be on was a very light hearted “variety show” aimed a comedic entertainment.

Regardless, I took the opportunity to learn first hand what Soke often talks about in regards to public demonstrations for the mass media.

Alongside Dimitri and Daniel, I demonstrated many aspects of budo.However, due to time constraints, they only recorded us performing senban nage and kyoketsu shoge.

This was dissapointing. However, I knew this would happen.

Soke advised me on this type of thing before I went to the studio. However, like most things in life, you never understand the words of wisdom you recieve from your teachers/parents until you experience them directly.

This was one of the main reasons for exploring this avenue of training.

Public demonstrations are very different to normal training. This was something that Senouh Sensei mentioned to me. It has also been mentioned many times by Soke before various Embu.

Many people just perform in front of the camera with no thought of this. They stand and just train as they normally would in the dojo. This is not the idea.Unless, this is what is asked.

Soke, when the camera is running, has often said ” sit or stand like martial artists. When you train, train hard and make it look good!”

So, this is the way I went into the filming. We all did our best and hopefully for those that saw the show, our small part was not too embarrassing. It was a fun show and we flowed with the feeling the best we could.

The footage that was used to introduce Ninjutsu was from Russia. Unfortunately, the Dojo filmed was not Bujinkan, and did not give a good feeling.

It was ( as I said ) unfortunate that we were not given enough time to show the public more of ” true Bujinkan/Ninjutsu ” training from Japan to visually put the wrongs, right.

But, that`s showbiz!

Banpen Fugyo.