Do You Want To Train With A Japanese Ninja Master?
Well you have come to the right place.Whether it was destiny, luck, or pure determination you found our website.
Not only can you take an adventure to Japan once a year to train with the Masters, but when you join the Tanuki Bujinkan Dojo, you will learn from someone who used to live and train in Japan for 3 years under the Masters; Christopher Carbonaro Sensei.
Carbonaro Sensei speaks fluent Japanese, and continues to travel back to Japan at least two times a year to train with his teachers. To find out more about these Japanese Masters please read below:
Massaki Hatsumi (Soke)
During his childhood, Masaaki Hatsumi studied several popular martial arts. After teaching martial arts to American soldiers stationed in Japan he noticed that the larger and stronger Americans had an advantage in battles when using the same techniques.
He began to question the legitimacy of modern martial arts training and started to search for one where persons of equal skill truly were equals, even if the other one was stronger. It was after this time, while studying ancient Japanese weaponry, that he learned of ninjutsu and a martial artist named Toshitsugu Takamatsu who still knew it.
In 1957 he and Fukumoto Yoshio began making regular trips to train with his new teacher (who resided at the time in Kashiwabara, in Nara), taking a 15-hour train ride from his hometown of Noda in Chiba. This training continued for 15 years until the passing of Toshitsugu Takamatsu in 1972.
Masaaki Hatsumi focuses the training of the Bujinkan on the “feeling” of technique, or perhaps more accurately, what he terms the feeling of real situations.
While technical knowledge of an art is considered important, the direction of this feeling-based approach guides the practitioner towards a “natural understanding” of what links various martial lineages as well as what is most effective in real situations.
In addition, Bujinkan students do not participate in martial art tournaments for it is Hatsumi’s belief that martial arts are not about winning or losing but about surviving.
Tohsiro Nagato (Shihan)
Every time Soke Masaaki Hatsumi leaves Japan to teach a seminar, he is at his side, like a bodyguard. He looks the part. A giant, well muscled, the type of person you would hire as a bouncer if you owned a night club.
His muscle makes you fear him, but when he’s moving, it seems that he does not use his strength at all. He moves so gently and smoothly that it becomes unclear whether he is fighting or dancing.
When he was eight, like most Japanese school children, he took part in the compulsory judo lessons that are as much a part of the educational system there as gym is to American children. The young Nagato enjoyed his judo training and his unusual size and strength helped him win third place in the Kodokan tournament for junior high school students.
As far as Nagato was concerned, this was to be the end of his career as a judoka, but the Kodokan masters thought differently. They decided to send Toshiro to the U.S. to teach judo at the University of Ontario in Oregon. While teaching there he was also studying, all the while dreaming of something else.
He had heard the name of the Judo master, Hatsumi Masaaki and, while in the states, had read Andrew Adams’ book Ninja: The Invisible Assassins. Nagato wanted to be a true martial artist, not just a judoka, and ninjutsu seemed the way to go. He decided then and there that when he returned to Japan he would seek out this art.
Things didn’t quite work out the way Nagato had planned as circumstances led him into the professional kickboxing ring. He began entering competitions in Tokyo to earn badly needed money.
Where size had always been his ally, it now became his adversary.
A giant at 90 kg (about 195 pounds), he was far heavier than any established division in Japan.
He then undertook a strict diet that would eventually drop him to 72.5 kg- still the heaviest division for competition.
In three major events in Korakuen Halls, he won all his fights – all by knock-out. These victories made him champion of the Shin Jin – the newcomers.
Despite his victories, kickboxing was no fun for Nagato. “Too much beating up, too bad for the health, bad for my face and also, it was not a martial art.”
Nagato found Hatsumi in Noda City. Ninjutsu was completely different from anything he had yet experienced in the martial arts. “It wasn’t a sport, but I was glad because I didn’t want to fight any more. I didn’t go there to fight. Lately, though, I feel that I miss the fighting a little bit, but it’s nothing. “
Hatsumi immediately saw talent when Nagato came to him. He saw the man’s fighting spirit right away. There is no wonder in this, however, as street-fighting was common in the neighborhood that Nagato grew up in. His background in judo and kickboxing was a big asset as well. Nagato rose through the ranks like a rocket. He put a lot into his training and, before he knew it, he was a master teacher.
