Old News archive- 2004
Friday,
December 7th - ALERT!! FAKE SHURIKEN ON
YAHOO JAPAN AUCTIONS
http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n11801628
Someone is selling what they claim to be Kukishin Ryu uchibari, or needle shaped shuriken. Please be warned that these are fake. This has been confirmed by Hatsumi Sensei, and Russ Ebert of Kukishinden Tenshin Hyoho, and one can see for themselves by looking at the Kukishin Ryu section on the Schools page. The blades are actually modelled on senbakoki blades, the hole has been drilled to imitate the real senbakoki design, whch is funny really, since Kukishin Ryu doesn't even use blades based on senbakoki.
Why am I concerned about this? The bid has now gone to 155,000Y, which is more than $1900 Australian dollars - an outrageous price for a set of shuriken which are not even even real.
December
20th
A good friend of mine, Dr. Clare O'Farrell generously translated a
short historical page on Negishi Ryu, from the website of Pierre Simon, a former
student of Negishi Ryu under Satoshi Saito Sensei. Click HERE
to read more.
Jeff Adams, a bladesmith in the US sent me a few more examples of his craft.
December
11th, 2004
Shuriken entry in Wikipedia
- hmmm, needs some work...
November
24th
A smooth transition to the new server means that Secrets of Shuriken
is now in its new home and hopefully looking and working better than ever. Any
glitches or problems, please let me know!
Thanks, Jason 
In the process, I came up with some new info on a couple of schools, and further info on the origins of shaken. More when it comes to light.
Traditionally there has been a certain mystique associated with the shuriken, and to a certain extent, a mythology surrounding the art has grown. This mythology is sustained by stories, so I also added a page for people to send in their stories about their experiences with shuriken teachers, experts or even legends. Eveyone likes to hear stories, so I encourage any visitors with one to send it in.
I also have instituted a forum, or FAQ, where visitors can post in questions, which will be put up on the page, which can be discussed by others, answered by myself and others, and generally be used to stimulate further interest in the art.
I
found a link to the website of Pierre Simone, who learned Negishi Ryu shurikenjutsu
from current headmaster, Satoshi Saito Sensei. He teaches kenjutsu, jodo and naginata
as well.
http://www.oshinkan.com/
(in French)
Finally, there are some important updates to the Australian Law on shuriken.
November
19, 2004 - Secrets of Shuriken is Moving!!!
I
am happy to announce that Secrets of Shuriken is moving to its own home on the
web, http://www.secrets-of-shuriken.com.au
so please update your bookmarks. This process will take about 1 week from
today, provided things go smoothly. These pages, on aikidoaus.com.au, will remain
for a week or so then will finally close. After that, all activity will be conducted
on www.secrets-of-shuriken.com.au, hosted by my new ISP Shiftreload
So what does this mean? Am I selling out? No way!!! It means that this little project of mine is becoming more serious, and it is intended to stick around for a while longer yet. Having a domain name of its own means that the Secrets of Shuriken homepage will become more high profile, and will allow more content, as Shiftreload provides us with ***unlimited*** webspace (yes, unlimited!!!). Also, I have a few new projects on the horizon that regulars will be thrilled to hear about, and will enable everyone to further their interest in the art of Shuriken-do.
Stay tuned!!
Novenber
19, 2004- New Google service
View the Google
Translation Bot version of Meifu Shinkage Ryu website, run by current headmaster,
Yasuyuki Otsuka Sensei
View the GBT version on Mumyouan.com
shuriken page
Short review of a new video, an NHK production featuring Yoshinori Kono Sensei, added in the Resources section
Small additions to the page on Basic Techniques, "Chinese Fist" method of throwing.
Aug
20, 2004
New shuriken Flash game http://www.nin-nin.com/
silly but fun!
Plans for the "Tsugawa Ryu" shuriken have just been added to the Design Page in the manufacture section.
July
11th
Details of the new shuriken book by Otsuka Sensei of Meifu
Shinkage Ryu, called "Shurikenjutsui no Susume", now available HERE
July
7th
Pics of senbakoki added to Senbakoki
Page. Danny Fletcher sent a couple of pics of senbakoki blades filed down
to shuriken as part of an experiment to test the theory of Otsuka Sensei,
headmaster of Meifu Shinkage Ryu, that the blades of this farming implement may
have been used as stock to make shuriken. Otsuka Sensei also has been given
some of these.
I have finally taken the plunge and set up my own workbench for making shuriken. This was sparked by the fact that I discovered a nearby steel merchant who had stocks of soft mild steel in square bar of 6mm, 8mm and 12mm thicknesses. These sizes are ideal to make the blades of Shirai Ryu, Katori Shinto Ryu, Negishi Ryu and other schools, so I am now in the process of making blades of various schools. Initially, I am just testing the technology to find out how easy/difficult it is to make blades of the various schools, then after that I will make blades in various lengths and thicknesses in order to research how change in size affects the flight of the blade in relation to the throw etc. At this stage I am not making blades for sale, so please don't ask. I am just researching at the moment, I am yet to learn about heat treating/hardening and rust protection, so when I feel I have blades worthy of spreading around, I will most probably make some announcement here. I will set up a webpage in the Manufacture section so curious visitors to this site can follow my progress, perhaps try for themselves, and hopefully, offer me some advice!
June
16, 2004 - Meifu Shinkage Ryu Shurikenjutsu video release
Otsuka
Sensei and Meifu Shinkage Ryu appear in Japanese "Hiden" magazine, with
announcement of their new shuriken video. Check it out here http://www.bab.co.jp/hiden/hanbai/index.html#Anchor-47857
(in Japanese)
Added 2 new books to the Resources list.
Bujinkan
Bo shuriken by Keith Sauers and Danny Fletcher
A
new shuriken smith in the US, Keith Sauers, has begun producing blades,
maybe they will become commercially available soon. Check out these
"Chishin Ryu" type blades he is making for some members of the Bujinkan.
May
18th, 2004
Its been 1 year already since the format of Secrets of Shuriken-do
was revamped, - how time flies. And in that time, we have clocked up 25,000 visits!
An amazing testament to the amount of interest the art of Shuriken still holds
with people around the world. Over the last year, most of my focus on the website
was with historical research, and I have accumulated plenty of background information
for visitors to learn about and become interested in the art, in fact I still
have a lot of material yet to be uploaded. This coming year however, I plan to
present more information on the art itself in regard to throwing techniques and
training. I still train several hours a week myself, throwing a variety of blades
with a variety of different throws. Practitioners and enthusiasts I have met over
the net and met in person have shown me and given me details about certain points
of technique and style, which I have been putting into practice. I feel I am improving
and learning all the time, I have certainly learned a lot since I started this
site, so now I am hoping to share some of the finer points of throwing and training
with others of similar interest. - Jason.
Added a page of pictures of the shuriken exhibit at the Togakushi Ninja Village, in Nagano prefecture, to the Archive section. Hatsumi Sensei of Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu apparently donated a number of items from his collection to this museum. If any are actually depicted in these photos, I am not sure. Thanks again to Danny Fletcher for being such a great supporter of the Secrets of Shuriken-do website..
I
also added Japanese characters to the many and various terms and labels associated
with shuriken, in the History section, once again, to aid others
in research.
May
02, 2004
Otsuka Sensei informs me that he is publishing a new book on Meifu
Shinkage Ryu, and shuriken shortly. Should be interesting. Will announce
details here when available.
I added Japanese characters to the titles of the names of the schools on the Schools page, to aid in research. With the new Windows XP Japanese character handwriting input pad in the language pack, entering kanji is a breeze. A very welcome service.
April
19th 2004
Added some pictures to the Archive
of a senbakoki, a possible source material
for shuriken blades during the 19th Century.
April
9th, 2004.
Secrets
of Shuriken-do is to be featured in an Internationally distributed email newsletter!
The
Bujinkan Lincoln Dojo in the UK, run by Sensei Paul Richardson, will do a two-part
feature of the history of Shuriken, using the history material from this
site, in a free Bujinkan monthly email newsletter that is distributed to around
700 subscribers in 51 countries. I gave Paul permission to use material from the
site, and am honoured to have such recognition for such a lowly webpage such as
this is...
The generosity of visitors to this site astounds me sometimes. One reader, Jeff Adams, is a bladesmith and thrower in the US, and has sent me not only 10 of his handmade blades (most of which are now shown on my Collection page), but also photos of a number of the items that he makes, as well as photocopied material of hard to find books on Chinese thrown weapons, and detailed notes on some early origins of blades going back to India and Tibet
The History and the Schools pages have been updated...more interesting material has come to hand.
Thanks to Daniel Lee in Tokyo, the unidentified gentleman in the DVD screenshot in the Archive has been identified as Mr Isamu Maeda. Updated the page with an interesting historical anecdote
Finally received from Buyubooks.com, a copy of Fujita Seiko's "Zukai Shuriken jutsu" the classic work on shuriken. It will take me a while to work my way through the Japanese, so will post a review in the not too distant future.
New
links have been found and added. Nothing of any earthshaking
importance...
March 19th, 2004
Added two short, interesting
articles on Shuriken written by the late Charles V. Gruzanski in 1967. Some interesting
anecdotes are recorded, stored in the Archives
March
14th, 2004
A visitor to this website, Danny Fletcher sent me a bit more
detailed info on the shuriken museum. He sent a few pics, which I added to the
Museum Page mentioned below. Apparently there's
two museums, one in Koga City, Koga, and the other in Iga Ueno City. Thanks Danny!
I found a photo of Fujita Seiko - sorry its only a small one. See link from Archive Page.
February
20th, 2004
New book featuring shuriken. Buyubooks.com has a book called
"Hidden Weapons" by Iwai Kohaku. Information about the book on the Resources
page
February
14th, 2004
Added an interesting photo of Ninjutsu master, the late Toshitsugu
Takamatsu, throwing shaken cross-arm style.See Archive
February
4th, 2004
Added to the History page,
an interesting picture of a Qin Dynasty crossbow bolt, which looks very similar
to the Ganritsu Ryu shuriken, and the Chinese "piau".
Is there a connection between these three?
January
29, 2004
Added to the Archive, information
about an old Indonesian thrown weapon similar to the shuriken, called
paku.
January
12, 2004 - Happy New Year!
Thanks to David of Mindflyte, Terry, Vinnie,
Jose Ramon in Korea, and Ian at ASU who recently sent emails praising "Secrets
of Shuriken-do". I'm glad this site is providing people on the net with useful
information regarding Shuriken.
I picked up a couple of new books from Kinokuniya in Kuala Lumpur while on holiday; Don Cunningham's "Secret Weapons of Jujutsu", Sid Campbell's "Exotic Weapons of the Ninja", and Tanaka Fumon's "Samurai Fighting Arts: The Spirit and the Practice". One would think that these titles would be good sources of info on shuriken, but alas no...a page or two at most in each of them. See Resources for a bit more info on these books.
Takeshi Yoshizaki, who has a webpage called Shuriken Museum (mentioned on the Links page) graciously sent me some info regarding the museum, and an extra photo he took of the exhibit, this one of the kozuka on the bottom shelf that aren't shown on his website. For further info, see here
December
3rd
I thought I'd troll the net again looking for some shuriken
sites. Because I waded through pages of junk that Google found for me before,
I decided to skip right to the last of about 64,000 pages found, and work backwards.
It paid off, as I found some Japanese sites that don't come up easily due to the
language content. Check them out on the Links page!
New video on shuriken released! Budovideos.com has a new title, "Shuriken and Kusari" from the Meifu Shinkage Ryu. Check it out here.
November
14th, 2003
A good friend of mine, Negishi-san, returned from a recent trip to Japan with a few interesting items of shuriken related material. She had arranged a visit to Otsuka Sensei's dojo to watch a training session, and was graciously allowed to take some video. I sent Otsuka Sensei a formal letter of greeting and introduction, which Negishi san passed on for me. Otsuka Sensei very generously demonstrated his art, and showed some basic techniques for the camera. He also presented me with a gift of several shuriken; a set of 5 new Meifu Shinkage Ryu blades, a Katori Shinto Ryu blade, and an old and well used Meifu blade. Images of these blades can be found on my collection page.
She also picked up for me the video I had been long waiting for, the Nihon Budokan production "Negishi Ryu Shurikenjutsu", a short review of which I provide here in Resources
I have added a new section in the Resources page, that of shuriken appearing in films (other than documentary videos) To start the section off here is the first entry: Mention is made of shuriken featuring a fairly substabtial role in the Christopher Walken movie "Shoot the Sun Down". (see movie review and interview of the director on this site maintained by Clare O'Farrell)
October
14th 2003
Added some photos of shuriken to my Collection
page. These appear to be authentic blades made in the traditional manner, and
were very generously given to me by Robert Gruzanski.(www.robertg.com)
Added a new page, called Archive, it will be simply a storage space for all manner of miscellaneous shuriken related material that falls outside the major sections on this site.
October
2003
New DVD featuring shuriken. Robert Gruzanski has transferred to DVD
a lot of rare, old 8mm film footage of demonstrations of Japanese martial arts.
DVD no#1, the
Kyoto Taikai of 1967 features Negishi Ryu shurikenjutsu.
August
2nd 2003
New
book featuring shuriken available...see Here
for details
July
28th 2003
Updated some information on the origin of blades and schools,
separating them into new pages History, and Traditional Schools.
Robert Gruzanski
has a new website starting up http://www.robertg.com
July
11th, 2003
New shuriken video released! A new set of videos on
the Kashima Shin Ryu has been released in Japan, and volume 11 is devoted to shuriken,
as well as yari and Naginata.. Check it out here
A new cover scan of a book on Shuriken uploaded, the original cover of Spike and Chain: Japanese Fighting Arts, by Charles V. Gruzanski
July
10th, 2003
Picked up a copy of the "Art of Shuriken Jutsu" by
Michael Finn (see review), a rather hard to find
title. It has some good info which fills some holes left by Mr Shirakami and others'
books. A good selection of diagrams of shuriken from a wide variety of
Ryu-ha, which will thankfully clear up a few uncertainties. I'll add relevant
details to the History Page when I get a moment.
July
5 2003
Added some more plans to the Manufacture
section.
I found an old page that I had copied from the web on making
bo shuriken, and since it has now disappeared from the web...Now they are
back with a new page here
The Art of Shurikenjutsu http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/shurikenjutsu/
Secrets of Shuriken website is back on top of Google's listings! He he!
June 28 2003
Added some biographical information about Chikatoshi Someya Sensei, which was forwarded on to me, supplied by Yasuyuki Otsuka Sensei, the current headmaster of Meifu Shinkage Ryu and manager of their website
June 27 2003
Added
some more updated info to the History page - some information
has been corrected
Added some more plans to the Manufacture
page
June 23 2003
Added
some pics and information on various Ryu-ha (History)
Added a new page "Manufacture"
June
16 2003
Just received a copy of "Shuriken
Giho" by Chikatoshi Someya, a newly released 2nd edition. It's in Japanese,
so I am working through it slowly, but appears to present nothing that conflicts
with what I have been exposed to so far, rather it has a lot of information in
more detail. Some nice photos and descriptions of different shaped shuriken
that belong to various schools, such as Katori Shinto Ryu, Meifu Shinkage Ryu,
Mou En Ryu, Enmei Ryu, Negishi Ryu, Yagyu Ryu, Chishin Ryu, Tsugawa Ryu and Shirai
Ryu. I'll absorb the book and add details on these pages where relevant over the
coming months. Now if I can just save up for the book by Fujita Seiko...
Found
a pic of the Fujita Seiko book...here
Finally found another decent shuriken website, although its in Japanese, but plenty
of pics, mostly out of the above mentioned book by Someya Sensei. Meifu
Shinkage Ryu Shurikenjutsu webpage
Totally
reorganised the site - hope the navigation is better
Rewrote and added information
to almost all pages of the site...
Added a new page showing pics and some
info about my own shuriken. "Personal Collection"
Added some information to the advanced techniques
page on using the shuriken as a hand-held striking instrument.
Added
some information about throwing shaken to the Training
page.
I keep getting positive email from around the world about this site,
so here are some more testimonials
It seems
I have been bumped off the top of Google's search listings for shuriken,
oh well, #5 ain't too bad!!!
At the request of Diane Skoss, I have removed 3 images of Satoshi Saito Sensei. These images appeared in her book "Sword and Spirit: Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan". They will remain temporarily unavailable until I get either permission, or some replacements. Diane kindly gave me the contact details for her photographer, so I will be making the relevent enquiries over the next few months. Hopefully I won't have to pay too much to put a few pics here!!! :-)
Finally, I recently have had the pleasure of corresponding with Robert Gruzanski, son of the late Charles Gruzanski who was the author of "Ninja Weapons:Chain and Shuriken", as well as being a highly respected martial artist and researcher in the United States. Robert has kindly given me permission to use some images from his fathers book for this website, as well as pics from his own collection. Robert also has a collection of some old weapons and hopes to have them on public display some time in the future.
"Secrets of Shuriken" site tops Google's search listings! This site is placed at the top of the listings for Shuriken by Google, the best search engine on the net. Thats good for publicity!!!
I
have been getting lots of positive email about the shuriken site, here are a few
such messages received recently. Testimonials -
June 2002
Added
a new page on Resources, with new info about books
and videos, January 2002
Added
some new information about other shuriken styles on Introduction
and History, January 2002
Update
September 13 2001 - Added picture sequences for yoko uchi, gyaku uchi, ura uchi,
text to follow
Latest
update July 7, 2001 Added some more links to shuriken sites.