Frequently Asked Questions
What age is the best to start Ninjutsu?
Under the age of 8-10 doing martial arts are too complicated, it requires too much concentration and discipline. Until then the best excersises are coordination improving skills and the sports which can give good basic skills at that age. Especially swimming and ball sports, creeping-crawling excersises, running and jumping stuffs help them in their improvement phisically and mentally. Of course this doesn’t mean that training in this age is absolutely prohibited. Martial arts include every type of movement and training excercises. Ninjutsu us excellent for everyone as main sport or additional sport as well.
At the age of 12 the „start and stability of personality” is formed in everybody. At this age a person can decide what does he/she like, so he is more dedicated. He/she will come by his own choice and not only because of his/her parents which is not good not for the child nor for the instructor. There are some children which can start training at the age of 5 with large improvements. Everybody’s different.
What body type do I have to have, what will it be if I train here?
For Ninjutsu training you don’t need to have big muscles to be good at it. We don’t practice just a sport but an art, which is about life where everyone is part of it and everything is connected to everything. Nothing can be excluded, and we can’t put things to it which don’t exist, otherwise we’d deny nature. We base our knowledge and trainings on it. Everyone and everything has its rule.
Some sports which can’t be practised if you don’t have the abilities (there is no professional fat high jumper), in Ninjutsu there is no ability required. Everybody can take his slice of the action, you get back as much as you give. Small-tall, skinny-fat, old-young, man-woman, amateur or professional also can achieve the abilities for his personality and body type, which is not good only for training but he can use it for his life as well. The changes you will feel for sure, is the better phisical and mental state, the increased self confidence and the way you feel yourself.
How does a training look like?
It’s never the same. Ninjutsu is such a diversified art, that one training is not enough to show everthing. It depends on the number of the people, the training place, the group’s phisical and mental state, and rank the actual training, everyone needs different treating. You will se at every training: warming up, Taijutsu (unarmed combat) and/or weapon training, at the end of training strength and streching and a little talking. There are some trainings, where warming ups take 5 minutes and all the time we do Taijutsu. We always do what’s actual.
How does first training look like?
On the first training we’ll show simple, practical and effective techniques and principles. We need you to see this is how we work and this is what we do. It’s important if the teacher, this art and the way of his teaching is sympathic for you. If the answer for all three questions is „yes”, then we can continue. You have to know yourself if this is your „sport”.
What clothes do I have to wear?
Comfortable trousers and T-shirt, which is okay if you sweat in it, it’ll be dirty or ripped if so. Come in trainingclothes fot for inside or outside trainings! Inside socks are enough or inside shoes. After 2 months you have to wear black karate/ninja gi. People who want to learn only Streetsmart (street-tactical self defence) he/she will get a uniform T shirt, trousers are your choice.
Do I have to have sport/martial arts experience to train here?
Of course not. As an amateur or professional you’ll have fun be welcomed. However there some martial art styles which can make you learning slower, but there are some styles which can help each other (Karate and Aikidoval work well together, Modern Wushu works well with Tai Chi until a certain point, after that your body „will be formed” to wushu or tai chi abilities. Kenjutsu and Judo have opposite principles, they"ruin each others quality", it’s harder to learn them both together, it makes you slower to study them.
It’s also important to know, that you have stopped your early practiced arts, or you want to practice them with Ninjutsu. Your previously learned principles and experiences can be put to your studies now, or if it’s disturbing to you, we can help you change it. We also work ont he balance between the arts. We have to work hard on that. You don’t have to learn how to hit again probably, but getting out of the line, protecting/guarding/blocking techniques and attacking back will be much harder than starting from zero. We have to delete you early practiced reflexes to rewrite them.
Do you do sparring at the trainings?
The term ’sparring’ has different meanings. If we talk about Taijutsu or muto dori (armed attacker agains unarmed defender) excersises in slow motion, then yes, we have sparring at every training. If you are thinking about fighting with gloves, then no. Only when the practicioners reach that level when they can do Taijutsu safe with speed without causing injury and if people want to practise that way. Officially this fighting form is not included in the educational syllabus of Ninjutsu.
Do you have exams? If you do, what do you have to do? Is taking exam necessary? What grades do you have?
We have exams, but taking them is not necessary. A student gets better because of practicing, not because of the exam. As said above, everyone can get his slice of the action. If somebody wants to be professional or just do it as a hobby, it’s you own choice. The teacher can get you to a point where the students wants to be.
About the exams: at least 3 people will be responsible to check the test, these people will be teachers or top belt students. It depends on the rank and the number of participants, most of the time the summer camps are ideal to take tests. There are technical, strength test, and also written and verbal tests for every rank. Excluding these, if the student wants to make up his/her „points”, he can also do excersises correctly from higher level which he has learned before, but it’s not part of the exam. We add together the partial results and we discuss if the test was succesful or not. The student can choose if he/she wants to do the test in front of his teammates or not and if he/she wants us to film it or not. Filming costs extra fee.
Grades start from 10 kyu (student rank) to 15 dan (teacher rank). You can take your tests until 4 dan in every country in the world. After that you have to go to Japan and take the test in front of the Japanese masters, or there are some high level teachers who have the right to test you authorized by the Japanese. Your exam will be official, when you have paid test fee and your certificate after successful test. Your certificate arrives approx. 3 months by mail to the address you have given.
How much time it takes to learn Ninjutsu?
As a saying says:”A good priest learns until death”. Even if we look at the whole practical and theoratical side, we still can’t say anything specific because there is always something to work on. It depends on the student how fast he/she’s can improve and learn. In our style we don’t have katas (forms), we don’t have much strength training and sometimes technical stuff is ridiculously simple (however it’s very effective), you can learn it faster than usually compared to other martial arts. Ninjutsu is typically not the art you have to study for more than 10 years to start to know something. There are some principles which they teach it also elsewhere, but you learn them sooner than in other martial art because there is too few things or nothing which is required to learn it.