We here
at the American Federation of Jujutsu practice Open Transmission of
Jujutsu and the arts related to it. If that interests you, we invite
you to join us. We hope to provide relevant assistance to our
membership and to broaden the horizon of knowledge for the art of
Jujutsu and those arts related to it. We do so through various means,
but a better known example of our mission is expressed in the items
found in the Library Collection of
Shihan Weymouth. This is a larger
number of translations written on the art of Jujutsu offered openly to
all interested parties. On this webpage you will find necessary
membership applications and other membership files which have been made
available. At present, only Affiliate Membership is available to the
general public. Affiliate membership comes with a Membership
certificate and a variety of membership benefits. As an Affiliate
member, you are urged to register your existing rank(s) with the American Federation of Jujutsu.
There is an AFJ Certificate of Rank
that you will receive as registration of your existing rank. Rank
advancement is also available for those who lack a viable means of
continuing within the arts. These are just a few of the membership
benefits when you become an Affiliate member. NOTE: All certificates
and documents issued by the AFJ are in digital format only. We do not
handle any other forms of documentation and certification. Filing fees
will be charged for Rank registration and various other concrete
benefits offered by the AFJ.
WHAT IS OPEN TRANSMISSION?
Open transmission is the act of freely
communicating the tenets and traditions of something, in this case, of
Jujutsu and the arts related to it. Open transmission means that there
is nothing held back because of one's rank or level of experience.
Others do sometimes claim to engage in open transmission, but commonly
they do not really practice it (in the sense of limiiting someone
because of rank or their level of experience.) Open transmission was, in fact,
the singlemost common style of communicating the art of Jujutsu in the
classical and traditional schools known to us from history. The fact that
they themselves had such policies is exactly why the art survived so
well. They understood that Open transmission allows a person to
actually adopt and make relevant usage of the art on a private and personal basis. Only through open
transmission can one become proficient and make actual functional usage
of anything, no matter what it is.
We here at the American Federation of Jujutsu admit that the tenets and
traditions of Jujutsu are only as useful as they really are. Even we
don't think that you should waste too much time in pursuit of something
like Jujutsu, giving unnecessary attention to it and spending too much
money on it. But the truth is that everyone needs some kind of Self
protection method to fall back on. If you knew the truth, the real
tenets of Jujutsu forbid the practitioner to act this way (they mention
it commonly in the old writings, one may not give improper attention to
the subject, you may not waste too much time or money on it.) When we
talk about self protection methods, we aren't necessarily talking about
fighting back against an attacker, because the real methods of Self
defense include quite a bit more than just fighting techniques. They
are composed of a variety of physical and non-physical methods to allow
one to escape danger. In fact, the tenets of the art of Jujutsu state
definitively that physical techniques and methods only make up about
25% of the art. What about the remaining 75% of the subject?! There are
too many dojo, training groups and clubs that never address anything
but the physical techniques that make up only 25% of the actual art.
Even then, they commonly don't consult the full 25% by any means. It
leaves one hoping for better than this. The good news is that you can
provide it for yourself, all of us have that ability inside us as a
person.
JŪJUTSU
DOKUSHŪ-HŌ
Commonly
this term would be
translated "Jujutsu self taught", it is the methods of teaching
yourself the art of Jujutsu. Jūjutsu Dokushuhō means educating yourself
in the art of Jujutsu, quite commonly without any certified instructors
and without joining a school or dojo. The traditional writings that
define the tenets of the art of Jujutsu explain that, quite often, a
person cannot afford the high cost of membership in a school and cannot
afford the tuition that must be paid to a certified instructor. The
system called Jūjutsu Dokushuhō is described as being a necessary and
integral part of the tenets of Jujutsu itself, a necessity of the art
outlined and detailed in these tenets. The AFJ fully endorses and
supports Jūjutsu Dokushuhō whether engaged in with or without an
instructor, with or without a school. The AFJ is structured to be of
maximum benefit to people whom do not have a school or instructor. We
here at the American Federation of Jujutsu are prepared to issue the
needed ranks and certifications, and to provide a meaningful
organisation to belong to. If you have no (chief) instructor, as a
member of the AFJ you have the option to retain Shihan Logan Weymouth
as your instructor. None of this wil cost you large sums of money
at any point. The fees we do charge are all quite minor. We can help in
a variety of ways. We sadly understand how others may view this and
what may sometimes be said... but more importantly we know for a fact
what the historical and traditional tenets of the art of Jujutsu have
to say about it. Being that we practice Open transmission of the art of
Jujutsu, we have no choice but to admit the validity of this path of
pursuit (hell, they have a name for it). 75% of the art of Jujutsu, and
the arts related to it, simply are not physical techniques at all.
Physical techniques make up just 25% of the repertoire, the remaining
75% is teaching and tradition found within the classical and historical
writings (which is why these texts and scrolls were written in the
first place.) Perhaps one cannot ignore the physical techniques, but
when one ignores or remains ignorant of the 75% main payload of
tradition... what do you really have?
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