Martial Artistic
Taijutsu club practices craft on the Quad
By Dominic Desmond, news editor
Posted on August 31, 2006

If you’re walking on the Quad between 6 and 8 p.m. and you notice a half dozen students brandishing various weapons, tossing each other and rolling on the grass, take a few guidelines with you.

First — don’t dare call them ninjas.

Second— insults, slights and drive-by jokes fall on deaf ears.

And third — don’t hesitate to stop and talk to the members of the Bujikan Budo Taijutsu dojo, but only after they’ve finished their training.

Steven O’Leary, a senior, has been in the organization since he was a freshman. He usually dons a pair of black shin-length footgear called tabi, and black pajama-like pants, which is part of an entire outfit called gi. He might look like someone portraying a ninja from an old martial arts film, but he would refute that description. He says being called a ninja is an insult. Not to him, but to the other real martial artists who have accomplished all the 18 requirements needed to be called a ninja. The martial art O’Leary and the half-dozen-or-so members of his group practice is a specific discipline within the famed and mysterious ninjutsu discipline.

Taijutsu, which O’Leary said could have numerous meanings, is a form of unarmed combat.      

“Things have deeper meanings,” O’Leary said. “Taijutsu means something like ‘body art.’” O’Leary cautioned not to put a label on it.

Senior Travis Ward and acting president of the Taijutsu Club, spoke very clearly and delicately, though he easily threw O’Leary down. Ward said he picked up martial arts from old Japanese ninja movies and even Chuck Norris films. His favorite martial arts movie is “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” However, he said some of those movies are not particularly accurate.

“We teach things that are practical,” Ward said. He said, though, that if movies like “Kill Bill” do encourage people to become involved, he doesn’t have a problem with it.
O’Leary agrees.

“It’s about practicality in defense,” O’Leary said. “It’s not about making a fighting machine taking on five people at a time.”

The other members of the club all come from different backgrounds of martial arts and some with no background at all.

“I have no frame of reference,” said sophomore Jeremy Harris. He’s had no previous martial arts experience, but he said it’s not a problem for him. “They helped us from the ground up.”

Harris sees the practicality of taijutsu.

“If I were to get in a fight,” he said, “I could get out of the fight alive.”

Ward and O’Leary stress the main point of such a discipline is to avoid fighting at all costs. Ward quoted the former Grandmaster of the Bujinkan Taijutsu discipline.

“’If you kill someone, you’ve failed,” he said.

The members of the club say there are different ways of avoiding and diffusing potential scuffles. One way includes a psychological trick to change the subject and diffuse the situation.

“If someone said something threatening,” Harris said, “I would point behind the person and say, ‘Look at the beautiful sunset.’” Just in case that doesn’t work though, Harris is ”planning for the Doomsday scenario.”

Sara Ray wasn’t wearing a komono, tabi, or pants from a gi outfit. She was wearing cut-off shorts and a black T-shirt with writing on it. The junior has been with the club for about a semester and she doesn’t mind rolling around with the guys. In that time, she said, she’s learned a lot of useful stuff.

O’Leary and Ward said sometimes people walk by and watch and ask what’s going on. Sometimes people chide the half-dozen martial artists. O’Leary and Ward both agreed that they don’t care what people say or think.

One passerby watched the group for a few minutes on Tuesday evening. Sophomore Kacie Johnston used to do Kung Fu and said it would be cool to join. Phil Easley, a Harrisonburg resident, rode by on  his bike while the group was practicing under the shade of a tree near the blue stones. He too stayed and watched the gaggle at work. Easley teaches aikido.

“It’s a similar style to taijutsu,” Easley said as he watched the students tumbling and taking punches. “It’s completely defensive.”

Ward is a senior but will continue his training. He plans to go to Japan this summer, so he’s learning Japanese. He said he doesn’t care how much it will cost. He has to go.

This Saturday the group will be putting on a demonstration at Court Square as part of the Downtown Harrisonburg Block Party at 12 p.m.