Joe Rogan: FAKE Martial Artists? WHAT is NINJITSU?? 

Back in the late 70s, during the big Ninjitsu phase, I helped run a Goju Ryu dojo. One day I was alone there and this guy walked in and asked if we taught Ninjitsu. I told him we did and in fact there was a class going on as we spoke. He wondered where and I told him we were practicing stealth techniques with some of our most advanced ninja ka. He looked puzzled and left never to return.

This is my favorite kind of Joe Rogan Podcast: Serious talk, funny laughs, and diving into martial arts

I am very grateful that in the judo classes I took as a kid the fact that we were learning a sport was repeatedly made very clear and that this was in the context of rules etc etc. Incidentally being able to sweep, hip toss, and shoulder throw people helped a lot with the few real fights I had as a kid.

Truly awesome to get a shoutout on Rogan!!!

Stephen K Hayes went to Japan and acquired a 1st Dan black belt in the art of Bujinkan Ryu. He then went to America and proclaimed himself a skilled practitioner. Most martial arts systems, your black belt is the beginning. Everything leading up to that point is building a foundation, learning to walk. Black belt is where you start to learn and truly understand the art. Sadly Hayes created a terrible reputation for Ninpo in the west. Its the Mcdonalds of the art, commercialized for profit. I think all arts should be open to scrutiny, but first be critical of the instructor before you criticize the art form ^_^ much love to all MA practitioners of all systems!

My friend got married in one of those churches to essentially a mail order bride from Napal and she did the same thing. The person pushed on her head and she just stood there. I was so happy

I've always had a soft spot for Ninjitsu ! I loved all the ninja movies of the 80s and 90s. One of favorite book that I still have was called Art Of the Ninja, that talked about the history and techniques.

I'm so glad he mentioned the correlation between snake handling churches and chi masters "practicing" with students. It's just crazy...

Bujinkan is legit but if your sensei isn't teaching you the esoterics and breathing that fuels ninpo then you're just at another Mcdojo

Don't laugh my cat Ninny knows Ninnjitsu! 💥💕

Joe, you should have Stephen Hayes on your show! He’s lived a crazy life!

Broke my thumb recently in a training session in ninjutsu. Yes, some ninjutsu places actually do spar and roll. Sad so many frauds have destroyed what could be a respected art.

I did ninjitsu for a while. It was good training. We didn't do traditional ninjitsu it was more for real fighting and defence.

Glover is highly articulate which makes him great to listen too.

I took Ninjitsu when I was a kid, and my sensei was really good, it was in Ukraine, not in USA And the level of reverence we had for the craft was deep, we did pretty gnarly conditioning, and it made me a man through it. We used to do "crocodiles" for "warm up" when you ball your fists, like you are going to do push ups on knuckles, but walked across the floor parallel. Everyone would be bleeding, but damn it build character. All kinds of tough conditioning that made other martial arts and basketball seem so soft to me. I remember we used to practice quite a lot of stuff I use to this day if I get in a fight, good defense techniques, and it was very good craft to study. To this day it's one of those martial arts I revere for its' functionality, but it's not the only 1 I took. Ninja's actually used Ninjitsu, and it was mostly defense techniques to allow you escape the enemy. It does have offensive elements, but it was mostly defensive. Ninja's are basically assassin bitches, they stab you and run away lol

I have a friend who went through one of those fake things. He said when the guy said he was gonna fall he fell to avoid embarrassment. I really believe most people think: "Am I the only one who doubts this? I don't wanna be left out. I'm gonna go with it." This was in one of those fake churches that only talk about money.

I know what Joe means. I started martial arts when I was 13. But my sensei was the real deal and we were scared of him but we also didn't want to disappoint him so we did all the crazy shit he said and 40 years later, I'm a better man for it today. 😎

When I was a kid in the 80s their was an awesome comic book called “Ninjutsu”, and it showed you how to do “moves”. It was great.

Awesome Mike Glover.

Late 80s, Kickboxing and Muay Thai exploded in The Netherlands, especially when Ramon Dekkers showed what's up. And then Peter Aerts at K1, with all the other Dutch fighters, it was insane popular. Kids were wearing kickbox pants over their swimming pants, even girls did that. Sadly today fights in the public bring down the whole thing. So called fans. I miss that K1 era, too many names to list. But my top 3 : 1 Dekkers, 2 Aerts, 3 Jerome Le Banner.

I took ninjitsu 1 year in high school. The Genbukan line of ninjitsu here in Milwaukee.

American Ninja 2 was the best one. Michael Dudikoff for the WIN!!

Anyone else send away for the secrets of the Dim Mak touch of death? I did back in the early 80's and they sent me a pamphlet telling me to make a sort of beak shape with my fingers and hit a bucket of sand ten thousand times. There were diagrams of where to hit people with labels saying how long it would take them to die like one hour or three days, etc. They also sent me a sort of knitting needle to fight with until I developed "the touch". I was 12yrs old and thought it was the coolest thing on earth🙄

Those movies were fantastic!

80s legends aside, Ninjitsu is basically Japanese jujutsu with some weapons thrown in, and cool black uniforms. They used to be like the samurai centuries ago. Today's modern equivalent to the skilled assassin ninjas of the past would be military special forces. Wanna be a ninja? Go train as a SEAL or Ranger.

Yo shout out from Fayettenam! Born and raised thank you to the 82nd and all troops y’all be blessed

I studied martial arts in the early ~ mid 70's when it was rife with fraud but I got lucky. My 4th dan black belt instructor was one of the best in the country. He actually set a world record in board breaking for charity over a 24 hour period. I had to drop it in 78 because I moved.

When I was in the Infantry I met a guy that said he knew "Ninjitsu" Turns out he kicked my ass and 3 others in like 5 seconds....

During one of my first days of Navy basic training our Chief RDC hollered out “is anyone here a trained martial artist?” One guy stepped forward and said he was a black belt in karate or something. Chief made him perform his kata in front of the entire division…dude looked like an epileptic ballerina! Funniest thing ever! 1995

Bart Simpson did the death touch, it’s totally a thing.

I took free lessons privately from brown/ black stripe who was aspiring to be a high degree level black-belt that wanted a student whom he trained to be a black-belt in Ernie Reyes Sr's west coast system which is a mix of different martial arts put together with the instruction of Tony Thompson. Never had to do any mystical-sensationalistic nonsense, fake spirituality. Just kicked my butt stretching, training, conditioning, strengthening. Looking back at all the nonsense with martial arts, I was lucky to be a part of that system, which had many useful tactics, including some grappling, hand to hand, defensive footwork, and a lot of kicking which focused on power and speed both. Way before it's time.

I understand hand to hand combat, I was in the marines in late 80s and early 90s, we got judo and a few other things. Today all they do is the MMA, that’s good on 1 on1. But if your camp is over ran by enemy 1 on 1 isn’t going to work. Be cause of multiple enemies, you rolling around Locke up with one another just stab you up. I prefer in those situations a bayonet, and forget the straight jab crap swing it jam and whatever take s enemy out and you live

Mike it spot on about the martial arts places around Ft. Bragg.

i know jewjitsu, thats where my lawyer comes in and charges insane amounts of money

Yoooooo!! I a way at fort Bragg at that time!! Spring lake was a helluva place!! Man the memories and near death experiences!!!

Love the default photo with Teller.

Re: staring in the mirror for an hour: Can't remember the name of the book, but it's about Japanese Archery. An exercise mentioned in the book was literally "watching incense burn". Learning to quiet the mind and listening to the heart. The archer releases the arrow in between heart beats to lessen the chance of it altering your aim.

I'll be 55 in March and I still to this day want to be a ninja!!!

I was a Genbukan student. None of this stuff went down in our dojo.

I think he absolutely nailed it correlating the "chi" punches to the Benny Hinn style "faith touch" phenomenon.

I learned Steven Hayes ninjutsu from my sifu who did train with Steven Hayes.The meditations have might merit. But its a case of how much belief do you have in it. For instance we did a meditation. In which are intention was to focus on are heart beat. Feel it,sense it,hear it. The premise was that if we could move and only hear and feel are heart beat. We would be silent. I think it worked. I was way more aware of my surroundings and how I moved. But did it actually work I don't know.

The first martial art I really took was Japanese sword (kenjutsu) and the dojo also taught aikibujutsu/aikido. I had no context of what aikido was and I found the techniques pretty cool. Anytime I would feed one of my instructors the throw or pin, they would get pissed and tell me to really resist, otherwise I was compromising their actual ability. We also emphasized realistic effectiveness and used strikes and force on the joints for pins and throws. We also practiced some "dirty" techniques. And this was all I knew about the grappling martial art. I remember going to an exhibition that demonstrated aikido from another dojo and I was totally taken aback by how different it was. Everything was gentle, rhythmic, circular, and kind of peaceful. Completely different from the elbow, wrist, and shoulder snapping techniques I had learned and the violent throws and slams and pins I had been used to. Later I saw other dojos and their softer styles and understood why it gets a bad wrap. In retrospect, I would have honestly pushed for even more combat effectiveness. Our repertoire was a bit stifled and limited and honestly I feel we could have been smarter about it. We did pressure test, but we needed to more. We also identified as a koryu dojo, so we didn't peddle tons of belts (I don't think we sold anything, actually). We also kept it very small and exclusive and didn't allow kids since we wanted to maintain a more mature approach. The dojo dissolved shortly after I left for university. I boxed, too, and I've always been a fan of martial arts. I miss it, too. I'm thinking about finding another club sometime.

I never took any kind of martial arts growing up. When I joined the Army at 18, they taught us Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I think they started teaching us BJJ because during combat if for some reason we are unarmed facing an opponent, BJJ is supposed to be the best way to take down an opponent no matter if they are armed or not. The stuff they taught us I will always remember and use.

The fact that you are asking what ninjutsu is, defines nnjutsu.

5:20 it called "passive recessive mode", a basic form of hypnosis.

I'll never forget the one and only Ninjitsu guy in the UFC. He botched a takedown attempt and got obliterated by Pat Smith.

It's a legit martial art, I'm going to a secret tournament tonight. I'll probably win.

I was really hoping he was gonna say when he went to that tent revival that he looked over and saw his Ninjitsu instructor. That would’ve been great.

I love that snapshot of Teller telling a board twice

Somewhat along these lines, back in the 80s, two of my friends were on a local talk show, with this hypnotist. Think pre-Jerry Springer. My friend got picked to go on stage and be hypnotized. The dude did his thing, saying something like "your legs are like cement and you won't be able to stand up", putting them into a 'trance'. When he snapped his fingers and told the group to stand up, my friend shot right up, while the rest of the group just sat there, giggling in amazement. He had a shīt-eating grin on his face, as the camera panned off of him. Hilarious!! A video still exists of it somewhere. The Michael Bey Show I think it was called...😂

That fake touch passing out bullshit at church is part of what opened my eyes to the bullshit. Went to a weekend retreat in LA and they did the passing out thing. I was fully expecting to feel something but ALL THAT HAPPENED is the person touching you is PUSHING your head down while the "helpers" keeping you from "falling" are just ALSO PUSHING you down.

Check out the last remaining ninja in Japan.. ninja was a real thing in ancient Japan , the ninja from Iga prefecture in Japan was well known to fight against samurai. Hattori Hanzo was one of the famous ninja during the sengoku jidai period in japan

That happened to me at church too and I was at the end of a line of 40 people , they all fell down but I didn't and I expected something to happen the only thing that happened is the preacher kept trying to push me over . I believe in Jesus but some preachers are actors , it angered me a bit because he kept pushing my head.

Shout-out to my mom for paying God knows what to the head con artist at tiger palm karate. it was a different world back then.

Once upon a time in Britain it was mandatory to practice archery in preparation for war. Nowadays they'll throw you in jail for giving the finger and calling someone a tosser.

I read a book when I was a teenager called Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. Totally changed my life and got me interested in the martial arts

Steve Jennum was a good midcard fighter back in the day. Dude had legit submissions and was the first person to use modern ground and pound.

I learned, and mastered, the art of shin-kick-su in the army.

Thank heavens for MMA bringing martial arts out of that dark age. This is why during that whole time if you boxed at your local PAL you were way more formidable than just about anyone taking "Karate". The majority of places teaching martial arts were BS. MMA got rid of bs so that now it is possible to learn the best techniques and not get ripped off.

in my first ninjutsu lesson i had to kick a bag in the balls for 40 minutes.

Shout out to Spring Lake!

A ninjitsu guy won one of the original UFC's because he was subbed in due to an injury. He was killed in a robbery because he was intervening as an off duty police officer.

I'm with Magneto: I don't know Karate, But I know Crazy...Lol 🤭

My heart swells with nostalgia 👍🏽❤️

Very strange was everywhere right up through the 90’s. I trained at a very practical school in Colorado in the late 90’s but there were still valid Karate Sensei’ who clearly trained TKD or whatever base system to a high degree but also claimed to study ‘NINPO’. Had ‘Ninjacamp’ in the summer. ($) I never saw one technique of actual Ninjitsu ever. Real actual Kung Fu schools were extremely rare too but there was always ‘the Chinese Shaolin center’ where I met the chief instructor David Sourd ( look that saga up for a fun read ) or his Grandmaster Sin Kwang Te, who later admitted under oath that his fighting system was ‘created’ and not related to any handed down Chinese MA at all. ( I remember there was a guy in Parker , Co who was fairly legit I believe, trained Michelle Waterson who was doing pretty impressive wushu forms at all the local tournements) It was good being in the Denver area MA community at the time because I heard about a strange tournament happening at McNichols Arena and sat ten rows back trying to understand what I was seeing. UFC 1)

The quality of ninjutsu instructors varies widely, even within the same organization.

I had an honest experience once after thinking it was strange but cool so why not? Then one Sunday morning at a church where we saw or did some miracles ourselves, people started falling... I was seated and said well today is the day to see if I can feel it too. I got up and walked a step and a half and a wave of energy weakened my knees. It didn't hurt, it felt like power I could not control but I had to catch myself on a chair or I was going down. I sat down and said YEP! Now I've also been to more religious churches that don't see a lot of miracles, and they definitely pushed people, me included. But it's a neat feeling and something I'd like to have happen again! 😇❤️

The irony Is that Mike’s career is the epitome of Ninjitsu.

Mirrors... Enter the dragon style!, replacement weapons from wrist stump!! YES! BTW, dig the tiger cam bro!!

Mike Glover!!!!

I participated in a ninjitsu dojo for about a year or so. There were some really interesting aspects to it, obviously the weapon training is interesting, they taught every kind of traditional weapon used by samurai. We also did learn how to navigate around in the pitch black silently, those kinds of techniques. The hand to hand striking component of the martial arts was really just karate, and the grappling was really just judo and jujitsu, there really were no differences there. Not everything about the dojo was top tier or the best training you could get, but it was interesting, and we did do a lot of sparring, including the full contact stuff with gloves and headgear. I did freestyle wrestling at a club afterwards, and I'd rank the stuff from the ninjitsu dojo higher as far as being useful as self defense education. No doubt there are a lot of ninjitsu dojo's that are frauds, but just like with HEMA, studying old styles of fighting is a legitimate hobby as well.

I read the book true path of a ninja and it exploits the facts that ninjas were not the same as movies make them out to be. Real ninjas were more like cia agents and undercover agents of today.

This entire podcast was hilarious

It’s the form of martial arts that Steven Seagal uses when he fights sitting in an office chair.

Joe is talking about Sho Kosugi, the villain of Enter The Ninja and the hero in its sequels.

Man I wish I could learn how to fight. I have major heart issues so I can't do high contact sports

my theory on why the people who fall down do so. Its like if you've seen stage hypnosis, some people get hypnotized and some don't. Some play along as though they are, all the time or just after coming out but wanting to stay on stage. There is a percentage of people that are "go along" types. Taking on classes of people my guess is that many people prob do leave after realizing its all crap. But eventually you'd be whittled down to a whole class of go along guys, and can throw them around at will. That's when its time to do those not at all fake looking videos.

TBH until UFC and other mixed MA came out we as young guys/teenagers believed all the hype particularly with King Fu and Karate - that a master could fight 10 other guys and they couldn't even touch him - we thought the Mr Miyagi style master from Karate kid was real lol

I feel the energy all around me. Allow it to pass through you and be part of you. Now I will give my energy to you.

I took Ninjitsu at Robert Bussey's Warrior international lol.

The mirror thing was to weed out the weak kids that didn’t really want to be there. It wasn’t a mirror, it was a door.

I grew up around the same time period but I don't remember the ninja phase of martial arts. I remember it was in magazines and movies but was it all about karate and such? I remember like karate, judo and like... kung fu who were also chinese dragon dancers but not ninjutsu! Small town life maybe.

The best American ninja movie was Beverly hills Ninja

You're playing with fire, Joe. Ninja-fire...

As far back as Bruce Lee who used a left cross boxing move as his only weapon. Was a celebrity hang around, never won a tourney of anykind and Chuck Norris has to teach him how to kick. I learned from Mr. CHO who wrote the definitive Tae Kwon Do Manual and was a 10th degree certified black belt. He chuckled when anyone brought up Bruce Lee.

Back in Wpg Mb🇨🇦 in early 80s on Princess St. Modern Ninjitsu academy, Fake School, didn't last long!

I wonder what his thoughts on Paul Vunak is?

I have trained in many styles, it's a life changing experience. Bud Malmstrom was my Shihan of Bujinkan Dojo in Atlanta. Ninjutsu is the Art of survival, it's a dead art as Latin is a dead language, but some still speak it! I learned a lot about myself! Some say martial arts don't work, well if they don't work why is the Mixed Martial Arts so prominent and everyone is making money!? Joe Rogan, can you go out in the wilderness and survive? Fuck no you can't! Keep on trucking Bro, I still love ya Man!

that’s a nice hoodie

Yes! Thank you guys!

The problem stemmed from people thinking ninjitsu was a martial art when it is infact a mental art. It's about stealth, disguise, subterfuge, self awareness and situational awaremess.

Like Kip checking out Rexquando

Used to love the Stephen Hayes books and ninja mania yeah I was a 12 yo running around my hood in a ninja suit

Historical ninjas were nothing more than Spec Ops soldiers with a dash of CIA operative. Their best contributions were Intel and knowledge of the enemy/terrain, using stealth and disguise as well as local contacts to gain valuable intelligence on enemy forces. If they had to fight, they failed their most basic tenet, they had been uncovered and blown their cover.

The Foot Fist Way! is the WAY!

3:39 "That's hilarious that it actually worked" - Mr. Know It All

Love his cousin was just messing with them hilarious. Also besides some good mental discipline I can definitely say that 5 years of typical TKD is useless in a real fight especially if the other guy knows how to box.

Back in the 80s, Ninja movies were like the zombie movies of today -- everybody was making them.

If everyone had their parents pay someone to make kids stand and stare at themselves for one hour without moving today I have no doubt society would improve

sho kosugi was the ninja guy....was he for real?