October 28, 2012
Yossi Sheriff

Thanks for Gaby Frishlander for restoring and editing these VHS video gems of the way things were.

Videos of 1990′s AKBAN

September 6, 2012
Yossi Sheriff

Oded Levi, will be starting today with the basic and intermediate Ninjutsu densho in AKBAN Toronto, Canada.

Let it be a good year again. Ganbatte, 頑張って – Do your best!

June 28, 2012
Yossi Sheriff

Mazal Tov.
With an average of 16 dojo years, I admit it took some time. Congratulations to the new black belts.

Mazal Tov

May 3, 2012
Yossi Sheriff

At last, after many weeks that Avinoam and I could not find the right time slot, we managed, a few days ago, to wake up at pre-dawn, hurry to the sea shore and video the Ninjutsu Kata that form the start of every training session in my groups in AKBAN.

It was a cloudy morning but we managed to shoot multiple clips, from different angles, and finished just when the sun went up. In his own way, Pasha helped too.

Ran Levari recorded a devastating percussion session for this video. The percussion was improvised with two Hanbo on a wooden wall in our Tel Aviv dojo, awesome. Avinoam and Ran are long time AKBAN veterans,Thanks guys!

The stances, the kamae, and the kata that stem from them are either Kihon Happo, Moto gata or Ki gata from our vast Takamatsu den syllabus. Doing these connected techniques is a good way to repeat a large and essential part of our great martial art – Ninjutsu.

Video of the Ninjutsu kamae and Kata from the start of the training session in AKBAN

April 23, 2012
Yossi Sheriff

With the help of graphic designer Gaby Frischlander and through the English graphic adaptation of AKBAN veteran Oded Levi we now have the first QR coded armlocks poster.

Armlocks, or joint locks are a common technique in many kata in the Takamatsu-den Ninjutsu and memorizing these is not an easy thing for a practitioner. With this poster the images, skillfully photographed by Daniel Sheriff, are a good mnemonic help and the accompanied QR code leads the cellular device straight to the video and explanation of the technique on our AKBAN wiki.

download image here – http://i.imgur.com/mOEsG.jpg?1

Dojo QR poster of basic Ninjutsu locks

November 20, 2011
Yossi Sheriff

Apart from the cultural value of the AKBAN project I think there is an immediate value to students and teachers that stems from systematic documentation.

Even after a lifetime of learning martial arts I benefit from looking at codexes, old and new, of martial arts instructors who were astute.
Here is a compilation, an interactive video hub for the basic Ninjutsu kicks. Seven intermediate kicks will be documented next year.

I hope this will be a helpful mnemonic tool, even for students outside our AKBAN dojos

Video of all the basic Ninjutsu arm kicks

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November 15, 2011
Yossi Sheriff

I just finished documenting all the basic Ninjutsu arm locks for the Akban wiki.

Learning Ninjutsu in AKBAN has always been a matter of teacher student practice. I feel that the videos we upload can benefit the beginners’ navigation in our vast martial art.

Video of all the basic Ninjutsu arm locks

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October 30, 2011
Yossi Sheriff

I continue the documentation work, writing articles both in the Akban wiki and in the Hebrew אקבן ויקי. Some of the documentation work involves not only researching and writing. It involves filming, editing and uploading the actual techniques. As the number of techniques in Ninjutsu is huge and the Akban Academy syllabus is even larger this is a task that will take decades. I am in no hurry.

I just prepared the Ninjutsu throws wiki article. Here’s the concise video:

Video of all the basic Ninjutsu throws

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August 30, 2011
Yossi Sheriff

We just finished a month long sparring session that started everyday in the afternoon and ended when night fell. It was hot, it was humid, it was tough, but most of all it was fun.

Old friends from AKBAN all over Israel met together and improved combat Ninjutsu skills. We believe the traditional Ninjutsu kata should be augmented with full contact sparring.

Training of the new year will start in all the dojos after September the 1st.

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August 19, 2011
Yossi Sheriff

The first batch of the Kihon video was uploaded to our YouTube channel yesterday. I am trying to make the videos short but informative. On this session I was helped by the wonderful work of Shodan Nadav Dayan, Raam Manzur, Shmulik Bar Kana and Or Z.

This video is a preliminary for our ”’iPhone app”’ which is due in September.

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