The Bujinkan is an international martial arts organization based in Japan and headed by Masaaki Hatsumi. It is best known for its association with Ninjutsu. The system taught by this group, called Bujinkan Budō Taijutsu, consists of nine separate martial arts traditions.
Masaaki Hatsumi (born 2 December 1931) is the founder and current Soke, or Grandmaster, of the Bujinkan organization, currently residing and teaching in the city of Noda, Chiba, Japan. He is also a doctor of orthopaedics, specializing in the mending of bones.
Beginning in 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 as it is Hatsumi's belief that martial arts are not about winning or losing but about surviving
At the appropriate starting time a bell is rung signaling the students to line up in preparation for the bowing in procedure. With the teacher at the front of the assembly, students are to sit behind in Seiza no Kamae and if desired senior students may line up to the right and junior grades to their left. This is only a traditional consideration, never mandatory and seldom observed in the honbu dojo. Students should assume a meditative state and at some point during the meditation the teacher will recite the Ninniku Seishin poem.
Ninniku Seishin - "Chi haya furu kami no oshiewa toko shieni tadashiki kokoro mio mamoruran" (Heaven will not permit any pleasurable times for those without a happy heart)
The teacher then recites the Kotodama "spiritual prayer"
Kotodama - "Shikin haramitsu dai komyo" (every moment hold the potential for enlightenment
To which the students then repeat followed by two hand claps, one bow and one hand clap. The teacher then turns to face the students and states "Onegai Shimasu" which the students then repeat.
The teacher will then speak of any matters that he feels are important, related or significant for the evenings training or any other meaningful message he wishes to relate.