Adam Mitchell [00:00:01]:
In the early 2000, I learned of a Bujinkan instructor in New York that had spent 15 years studying in Japan under Hatsumi Sensei, and he was a hard trainer, apparently. He had been a former shoot fighter. He had studied, Kosen Judo, a style of Judo that I was always interested in budo never had access to because it was taught only in us in small training groups and universities, in Japan. But this really prompted me to travel up north about 2 hours from where I live, and meet this instructor, and to do some training there. And I was privileged to have been able to travel and spend 3 weekends with Sean Askew. Since then, I've really, I've pursued my my training. I've I've gone forward and, studied with my teacher and committed my entire life to this path. But my experience back in 20,021,001 training at Sean's Dojo left a huge impression.
Adam Mitchell [00:01:01]:
His style of teaching, his methodology of training was incredibly influential to me. Not only do we have a lot of shared past, but we also have a shared teacher. He was new of Mahopac sensei students. We talk about that in this conversation. But, I also have a deep appreciation for what he's brought to the community of our collective martial art in terms of his pursuit of truth and a deeper understanding of the history and the complexities to his teacher's teacher and even further back to the origins of the traditions that we study in this art. Now if you're not a student of the Bujinkan or the Jinenkan or any of the the offshoots of what Takamatsu sensei taught, This episode is still gonna have some interest for you if you have any interest in traditional Japanese martial arts york any touch point at all, whether it was as a child or as an adult with the arts that stem from ninjutsu. We go into some detail about ninjutsu. We talk about the current state of research.
Adam Mitchell [00:02:09]:
We talk about the myths. We talk about the misunderstandings and many of the truths surrounding ninjutsu and who those people were and what that means to us and what value it holds in our current martial art and how we should be understanding it. We talk about Ninpo. We talk about the higher orders and the pathways of this study. We don't go into deep detail on purpose. That can all be found in his book, Hidden Lineage, the Ninja of the Toda Clan. This is an academic book, and to me, every page meant stopping for about 15 minutes and really understanding what Sean was teaching. This isn't a book on technique.
Adam Mitchell [00:02:49]:
It's a book on history. It's a book on spirit, and it's mandatory reading if you have an interest in this art. Now I could introduce Sean and read his bio, but I'm gonna go ahead and leave that in the description because there's so much behind this martial artist. So I'll leave that up to you right now. Let's get started with this conversation between myself and my friend, Sean Askew.
Adam Mitchell [00:03:24]:
Alright. Sean, I wanna thank you so much for joining me on this episode. This is gonna be a really, important, I believe, a meaningful conversation, but I hope to make it also fun and very valuable for all the listeners out there. But before anything, I wanna congratulate you on your recent menkyou kaiden in Koto Ryu koppojutsu. And I'd like to, just say, Ben, so well deserved. I've been watching your work for decades now, and I just couldn't think of anyone, who is more deserving of it from what I can see from the from the periphery, than yourself. So congratulations.
Sean Askew [00:04:01]:
Thank you very much. That means a lot to me coming from you. I appreciate that. I've been watching you for a long time as well. I I love watching your site and your videos. It's excellent. But we come from the same source. Manaka sensei is a great teacher.
Adam Mitchell [00:04:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He sure is. Yeah. One of the things I would like to do is, I'd like to unpack a couple things here, and I think you and I can have a really honest discussion. I'd like to tunnel into some of the historical aspects of ninjutsu. You know, and and specifically, the ninjutsu as it says, is, taught through Takamatsu, Sensei and his grandfather, Toda.
Adam Mitchell [00:04:47]:
And in this conversation, I wanna go above your incredible book. I I want to say that I I can't this is as we were talking before I hit the record button, you really have to spend some time absorbing each page as you read it. One of those books. You haven't done a good job. You've done an incredible job. Budo You've done in this york. And it is so, it's so rich. It's so thick with information and history.
Adam Mitchell [00:05:17]:
Anybody who wants to take this art seriously, this is sort of almost like mandatory reading. And it leads me to my first question, and I want to kind of step right in right here, which is, with so much, built, so much history that you've been able to say, hey. Here it is. And so much information available. Why do you feel that there is so much pushback from different communities, from different whether they be organizations, but so much pushback even from other researchers, on the Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu?
Sean Askew [00:05:55]:
I think it's it's because it takes the spotlight away from all of the other masters in Japan. I've got quite a good relationship with several, Kenjutsu School, Soke's and Daishihan's from other Ryuha, who are open minded and and are friendly toward the Bujinkan. But, through them I've gotten to realize that, throughout the Kobudo world, ninjutsu is looked down upon in one sense york historical historical reasons, of course, on one side. But I think the big reason is that Hatsumi Sensei has stood out like a shooting star, for the last couple decades, and it really kind of put a shadow over everybody else. Not not not not not meaning other shihan in our art, but a lot of other Kobudo martial arts, do have a, jealousy and a bit of a complex, with the Bujinkan just because we we seem to globally suck up the the students that they might be able to attract as well. I I think ninjutsu is extremely popular, and, the fantasy lets everybody's imagination run wild and So k and and, and the as well. The other people, the high representatives of the art have been searched out, for the last few decades, and it doesn't seem to be going away either even as everything starts to
Adam Mitchell [00:07:17]:
Yeah. When you say, yeah, when you say that, it doesn't seem to be going away, are you or where do you see this tracking? You know, when you have more researchers coming out, I really believe that, there were 3 phases, and I talk about this in one of my coming episodes, where I'm trying to encourage more of a seriousness in training, more, more physicality, more understanding that the kata in what in what we study, it demands physicality. Right. It demands your ability to track the knees correctly, not hyperextend the joints. Make sure that weight distribution is correct, make sure that you know how to hit the mat, make sure you know how to get simple things like, you know, you know how to get tapped out, and you're not just sitting there barking commands and making things up as you go along. Right. And and I find that there were really these three phases. I'd be interested to hear your feedback on this, which is first, you know, after the ninja boom, we had pay per view and we had, you know, we had UFC come on scene Right.
Adam Mitchell [00:08:18]:
Pay per view fighting. Yeah. And now you could actually see everybody got called into the ring. New, you wanted to test your skills, come into the ring. Right. And then the second round was, you know, was the Internet, and now you started to see Budo. You started to see chat forums and discussion forums. And now no longer did you witness this fighting and you started to question, but now you could actually participate in the conversation york at least you could sit on the bleachers and watch some very highly skilled and very, learned people like yourself have conversations back and forth.
Adam Mitchell [00:08:54]:
And now we get to this place where you have more of an open source environment like Gutenberg or things like, you know, Eric Shahan's doing where you're finding these old, you know, books that just would have never seen the light of day, let alone in the western world. Having them translated through technology and and through your own, you know, and through his own work. But so much information now is available that was never available before. And I'm curious to hear where you see this tracking. Mhmm.
Sean Askew [00:09:23]:
Well, that's definitely the case. New thing I quickly realized when looking at Takamatsu sensei's research was that there was no way that he could have made this up. Because simply like you said, with technology the way it is now, we have access to things that he wouldn't have had access to. To to dig out the story would require you to get into national libraries, like, the things that just didn't exist at those times, know, when Japan was still coming out of its feudal state, there was no places for Takamatsu as a young man to have gone to to search these things out. It had to have been taught to him directly. Yeah. But, like, for me, I could take pieces of the stories that they've said and use, techno I can use, for example, there's AI software out there now that is about 60 to 70% accurate to where I could take an old document that I can't read myself, but let the AI read most of it for me. I'll get the gist of it, and then it's quite easy to start to decipher the rest of the document from there, or becomes less expensive for me to take a to a professional and have the rest of it translated.
Sean Askew [00:10:26]:
So, yeah, everything now is at such a high high pace. A couple of the people I work with in my research group, they're in Spain, And, they don't even speak Japanese, but they come up with some of the best research that I've ever seen. They they they help me out tremendously, and it's simply because they're good researchers. They know how to use technology at the university academic level, to dig things out and find it even in other languages. It's it's absolutely amazing. We've got a great team. I'd like to give a shout out to those guys, the the the Bufu research group.
Adam Mitchell [00:10:57]:
Awesome. What what do you see on the horizon then? What's the do you see sort of a slow emergence of more information centered around ninjutsu, centered around, Takamatsu Sensei? Do you see as more of, like like, a starburst moment where all of a sudden, boom, is, you know, great is found. All of a sudden, there's this massive treasure trove of information that becomes public.
Sean Askew [00:11:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. I would say we're really, really on the cusp of that. There's a few things that, I haven't been back to Japan in a couple of years. I haven't been back since before COVID. Budo just before COVID hit, while I was there, I've been working with some researchers at the Iga University there, at Mie University on the program. And through them, they've been able to assist me in locating the the actual ruins of the Toda family. It's it's still there.
Sean Askew [00:11:46]:
They had a they had what you would call kinda like a small, estate, maybe even almost, like, a a manor, right there in Iga. And the interesting part about that, which I don't wanna give too much away because it'll come out in the second book, budo, I've been able to trace it that the owners, the people, the total family that lived on that plot all the way up into the 18 seventies, had maintained their estate there for 300 years or so. And when the 18 seventies came, 18 late 18 sixties, early 18 seventies came, and the revolution happened, the Toda family moved from that location there in in Iga to Kobe to open a dojo on the on the estate within the grounds of the Kuki property. So it's it's looking more and more like we're getting close to the actual locations of where the dojo lose was located. When the Toda family were working for the emperor, their job I'm arts, for the shogun. Their their position was in Edo. So they lived in Edo in the area of Musashino, and they kind of had a lot of power there. But their home homeland was still in Iga.
Sean Askew [00:12:51]:
So when they retired, they had the option to go back and live home in Iga. But it seemed like for the last more than 100 years or so, the total family, even remained in, in Edo after their death. So their graves are likely to be also found in in Edo new the near the imperial, probably near Zoshigaya, near Ikebukuro. I've been able to track down where their last, properties were with falconry training new, and their homes would have been probably on the same grounds.
Adam Mitchell [00:13:19]:
Yeah. In your book, you talk about, Kuki Takahiro. Yeah. His eldest son, Takatomo, marries the daughter of, Toda. Right?
Sean Askew [00:13:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. There's and there's more to that. There's, as I've spoken about before, that lineage that we've been given in our in our history of the Toda, the 8 the 8 generations of Toda, Those names don't exist. They you'll never find them in any any historical record. But they are big clues. There are big clues and hints within those names to point out to who that real family is. And if you if you backtrack from and go through those names, through the Hisajiro's family because his genealogy is available online.
Sean Askew [00:14:03]:
So it's a very proud, samurai family, great history, but it's intertwined with espionage and falconry and ninjutsu. So it's a great story. Eventually, it should be turned into a movie. The Toda family themselves, generation after generation after generation, have been big heroes. Yeah. It's a great story to tell.
Adam Mitchell [00:14:23]:
It's I'm wondering what your feeling is on this. I was having lunch with Manaka sensei. A year was this was last year. I was in Japan twice last year, going back next week. Budo I had lunch with him, and we were having this conversation about, his experience and his time with Taijutsu and stuff. He had made mention number of different experiences. And I asked him based on a lot of the recent, research, both inside the Bujinkan and outside, about what his feelings were on the, what his feelings were on the teaching of ninjutsu in the modern era, and now kind of after the 70s and 80s and 90s had passed, and he's gone on and done his own thing, and where he is new, closing in on 80, if he's to look back, how does he feel about this?
Sean Askew [00:15:18]:
Right.
Adam Mitchell [00:15:18]:
And his answer, he didn't he really didn't bat an eye or just even think about it. He said, I trusted Takamatsu's.
Sean Askew [00:15:25]:
Oh, right. Right.
Adam Mitchell [00:15:26]:
And he didn't I I knew that there was this period in the in the early seventies that they had done a lot a ton of research about this. Because they probably bumped up, to some similar questions maybe. I don't know. But I know that there was a lot of research done, and he has written a lot himself and he's given a lot, to students, which I'm I'm sure you know of. But I really wanted to kind of get his viewpoint now where things, you know, as as the years have gone by. And he went on to to share about how there was this relationship that he had as a cadet in military academy that Takamatsu, sort of almost vicariously looked at him as hap on a path that he was not able to be on because of his own physical handicap and not being able to get into the military so that there there is this sort of unique connection. And as a result, Manaka Sensei said, none of that matters to me. What matters is that I trusted him, and I still today, I trust what he says.
Adam Mitchell [00:16:31]:
And I think, you know, as a retired Lieutenant Colonel, a person who's a pretty, you know, pretty well-to-do guy, and, I think you'd agree he's principally quite strong and a good judge of character. Should that be as students of this arts, regardless of organization, should that be more of our signpost, or should we be constantly digging into the history looking for this proof? What how do
Sean Askew [00:16:56]:
new do you feel
Adam Mitchell [00:16:57]:
about that?
Sean Askew [00:16:57]:
Yeah. I I do feel like there should be trust. But in order to do that, I think we need to have something out there. There should be Yeah. Maybe new standard book or or a website or an organization or something to, just, like, be a backbone. Yeah. With with everything the way it is now, at least with the budgeting kind of the way everything now, it's kinda still like everything's just word-of-mouth. It's just.
Sean Askew [00:17:22]:
There's no, you know, there's no way to, especially when people start to challenge. You new? If if someone who's just say, you know, been in the arts 10 even 10 even people who've been in this arts 20 years, you know, they could get caught up into a conversation with somebody, who doubts the authenticity of our art and get all mumbled up just because they don't know how to defend the art. They don't know their own the history. They don't know a lot of them don't even know the accusations that are being made against the. So it's it's quite an interesting, mix of people out there, and some people just simply don't care. Yeah.
Adam Mitchell [00:17:56]:
Yeah. I I wanna go back to something interesting you said about how it couldn't have been made up, and this is something that I strongly agree with you on. I think that you have, you know, with your with your study of this, with your research, you you certainly have a lot more to stand on than I do. I, however, can look at something like the kotou view, and I can look at the shodan, the chudan, the oco I could be there's no way that you can go from 1, one set of principles and tactics, in in in how we train, there's a strong emphasis around the sandan level of kakihiki. Like, there's these tactics and the and how to really look at the kata in a very, very specific way to be able to get a specific response from your partner and from the opponent and actually go from, the uke to the teki, and there's a sort of whole kind of change and transformation of your intention as you move through the different demo, and you realize the the attacking characteristics that exist york the sort of, your your the the movements in one set of techniques versus another, this just can't be something that someone made up. This this this was ground through from trial and error, through through experience, through from and and people are constantly adding to this and optimizing it, and that is very, very clear. When you feel that the only way to really get that is to do that type of training, really research and go into the kata, into the individual densho, and then it almost becomes illuminating to a sense that you're, like, no. This wasn't just made up by some guy.
Adam Mitchell [00:19:48]:
It was lying. This is very, very real, and the proof is right here.
Sean Askew [00:19:53]:
How do you feel about that? Yeah. Yeah. There's one of the the biggest things that came across to me when I was looking into especially delving into the kata, even at the level of, say, the kukishinden, the dakken types. A lot of the names of the katas, for example, the it's, those are actually technical terms that are involved that are related to naval warfare. The the cookie family's naval warfare. And there'd be no way that a normal individual there's a whole that's just one example, but within the type within the whole duha, there's all kinds of technical names that they it belongs to the to the navy. And they're being talked about since it was never a sailor. You know, it wasn't he wouldn't have been able to have created these types of, nuances and and word the vocabulary.
Sean Askew [00:20:43]:
Same thing with, like, from the beginning of. You know, the when often arts overlooked as is actually the name of god of war. It's, there's a if you don't I think I did a Facebook post on it once. You might can Google it up pretty easily, but the depth that goes into each name of each form isn't something that could have been made up by 1 man and 1 generation. Like you said, this is something that's been built over a long period of time with a lot of depth. Yeah. I mean, if it was new school, I I think, yeah, if it was one school, maybe some genius coulda you know, a martial genius coulda put it together and made it up, but we we've we've got several schools with branches that, yeah, just they intertwine so well. The the the families are so connected.
Sean Askew [00:21:27]:
That that's not something he could have just created. He would have had to have had family lineages to have tied these in together and woven them together to match the right time.
Adam Mitchell [00:21:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Man, that is that's a tough thing to be able to tell a researcher who's not part of the organization or maybe just had a couple of touch points with it at some point in time. It's sort of like you just don't know what you don't know, and, you know, only those with eyes will see type thing.
Sean Askew [00:21:57]:
Well, it's like even with the Japanese, you know, if you with the Japanese researchers, one of the difficulties I've had with trying to get close with some of these people is because we start to say, like, the the founder of the is Tozawa Hagunzai. And supposedly, there's no evidence of him ever existing other than outside of the world of fiction. Budo then a couple amazing things happened. Takamatsu Sensei places him in the lineage at the exact same time within the same, like, 2 or 3 years that the name of Tozawa, the family name Tozawa actually ever came into existence right at the very beginning, and it was at the time of the the Genpei war. So he put he placed Tozawa, Hakun Sai at the very very beginning of the the the Tozawa's family's lineage, But all of the fictional people who have written about him in novels, they place him into the middle of the warring states period, fighting with, and teaming up with, what's his name there? Ishikawa Goemon and those other stories. So the academics start to say, well, he doesn't exist, but he exists in in in novels. So it has to be a later creation. And that that went on for a long time, probably close to 50, 60 years within the Japanese academic community.
Sean Askew [00:23:10]:
They've been arguing back and forth as to whether or not there's even any written record of Tozawa Hakun san existing, but, I also wrote a post about this on Facebook. But a new years back, there was a samurai, samurai historian who was a samurai, who wrote a massive work of art. It's probably, like, 6 feet by 6 feet, and it's a a list of all the names of different grandmasters of different views. And this was written in the early 1800, so it's it's long before the novels came out of, Chicago, and all these novels. So at least decades before that, there was a samurai researcher who did list Tozawa Hakun Sai, as the founder of Iga Ryu Ninjutsu. So pieces of the history are starting to now come up. Like, people are I think Japanese people themselves are starting to look, you know, they're like, hey. You know, what's in my attic? And and especially the people who live in the countryside, and they're finding things, especially the Iga and Koga people.
Sean Askew [00:24:08]:
It's happening all time with, like, the Watanabe family. Have you have you been following the what's going on with the Watanabe family? I have been with the they've they've come out with some great books. They they the new even though the guy didn't realize he had a family history of ninjutsu, but, he was a wealthy man, had a wealthy, you know, big estate, and they went into his, cruda. And when they started digging around into some boxes, they found, you know, 100 and 100 of, ninjutsu of manuscripts from, like, 1700. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of information is coming out.
Adam Mitchell [00:24:41]:
Amazing. Anybody who's been around your work has heard a term that you, sort of, I I guess, coined, but it's the Momochi Den Taijutsu. And I've been waiting years to ask you this question, and I still have a document that you handed out at a workshop in 2001. I think we're talking before I hit the record button, and I still have it. It's still in my binder. I'd like you I'm wondering if you could I think there's a very simple answer. It's just a collect I have 3 different new, but I'm wondering if there's more to that that drove you to batch those together and to actually york of give it its own sort of, bow and tie it up in its own package. Like, can you talk
Sean Askew [00:25:22]:
about that? In 95, I was graduating from university in Tokyo. I went to Sofia University, and, I had asked for Hatsumu Sensei for permission to to write the paper and give me permission to interview him and things like that. So over a course of time with talking to him, we didn't like saying over and over and over again. So it became a lot easier to say the Momochi New. And then that led ninpo further discussion with Hatsumi Sensei, and he was he explained to me that, in the like, when we we when we go back to try to find the history of our art, we shouldn't expect to find documents that say Togakure Ryu or or anything like that because during those periods of time, everything was. Even Koga was. Even up until, like, around 1600, they they weren't really separated. They actually, it's a little earlier.
Sean Askew [00:26:13]:
Sorry. The only reason they got separated was because the Koga, decided to follow the Ashikaga shogun, and Iga decided to stay loyal to the emperor. But, so during that time, there was no such thing as or or or Togakure Ryu or anything like that. They were all just warriors of Iga that followed the Iga way. But over time, of course, they have to talk about their own family. How did their own family get involved within Iga? And that's where these Doha names come from. So, like, our strain of Iga would have been the the Nishina's family's strain of it. And according to their legends, you know, Nishina was, like, the 3rd or 4th of Iga Ryu while being the of Togakure Ryu in such.
Sean Askew [00:26:56]:
So it follows along the same line as Ieyenaga and and all the other famous Iga warriors. But, that's how Momochi then came about. He he we he he and I discussed that saying that, you know, you won't go into history and find But what you can say is the the arts that were practiced by the Momochi family. And here's some branches of the family that did it, and this was their specialty. This one's this one branch of the family specialized in climbing and, and, you know, hiding in rivers and waiting on the bottom until something came above them to where they could sink it. You new? Learning how to stay underwater for long periods of time. Each school had its specialty. So when when much later in time, right, everybody wanted to look back, then those names started to come about.
Sean Askew [00:27:41]:
You start seeing other names, other, like, Yasuda Ryu and and, even Momochi Ryu or Fujita Ryu or yeah. A lot of the old names that we talk about, like hakuun Ryu and and the, what's his name there? Kusunoki Ryu and the the Yoshitsune Ryu. I tend to think that they don't really exist. They they they don't start to become mentioned until much later in history.
Adam Mitchell [00:28:08]:
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You don't come out I I don't know if you come out and say this, but I didn't get it from my read. But, again, it's very it's it's it it's a thin book. I mean, it's a it's a thin book. But for someone like me, it needs to be about this thick. There's but there is so much interwoven between the history of the Togakure Ryu
Sean Askew [00:28:40]:
Oh, yeah. Right.
Adam Mitchell [00:28:41]:
There's so much overlap that you go into. Are you is there any suggestion that, that that this is the ninjutsu of
Sean Askew [00:28:54]:
the Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. I I would say that they were the shinobi that would be hired out by the the Kuki family. Yeah. At least at the very later end of their history towards the the 17, 18 100, that would be for sure. Earlier in history, maybe not because early, like, the early part of the, say, the begins where they're fighting in in, Izumo over at Iwaniginzan, the, the silver mine.
Sean Askew [00:29:21]:
It was the 3rd the the world's 3rd largest silver mine, I believe. So the Portuguese and everybody wanted to Japan to, you know, train to get their silver. So the story for us begins in the begins over there. So at that time, I don't think they would have been connected. But, their job, they were sent from to Izumo to to retake that, mine that had been taken away from the clan that that held it. So they were hired out, got sent there. But, Sakanoe, what's his name there? Sakanoe no. No.
Sean Askew [00:29:55]:
That's his name. Sakanoe Punitaro, the the first basically, the first of the pot of the. He dies in action there, and he passes it on. But his son and theirs and I believe there's 3 second ways that pass it on to each other, and they bring it back back to Iga. So it went it left Iga, went to fight, and then came back to Iga. So after that point, it could have probably, fell under the control of the Kooky family, especially when Iga fell. You know, when when Iga fell, the Toda family that we're connected to, this is actually an interesting part of the history. The Toda family that is our, our Soke lineage is involved in the invasion of Iga.
Sean Askew [00:30:35]:
Yeah. So they're they're in Iga, and they're also involved in the invasion of Iga. So whether or not the family saved their own to tell them, hey. The invasion's coming, and maybe they took off so that the other total family would invade and then got to come back. I I'm not sure. That's a mystery at the moment, but, yeah, they're definitely on both sides of the the, the war.
Adam Mitchell [00:30:56]:
With when the as the information was coming out, I think a lot of people now on the periphery would say that the there was a big for example, that everything was togaku ryu. Right? Because of the ninpo boom. However, when I look at what was happening from a different perspective, I see that there was this this this implementation of his teaching that shined a different light on ninjutsu, and it was more of a light of truth. Like, new. Okay. There's there's all of this ninja fantasy over there, but this is what we're doing. And, yes, this is happening at the same time that the entertainment and world is showing this stuff. But this there's almost this sense of, like you said, sincerity and, and truthfulness to this.
Adam Mitchell [00:31:52]:
And I don't know if I'm if I'm explaining it really correctly here, but I I don't I don't feel as though it is too much of a reach to say that a lot of the information that came out was it because of Doron and Steven, coming in, Westerners starting to, put ninjutsu on the radar. Budo I think that that was something that really helped it not become very bastardized in a time when it could have. And it almost seemed like there was some genius behind what Hatsumi Sensei did by delivering it to the western world in the way that it was done. Right. Because we're having this conversation
Sean Askew [00:32:41]:
now. Yeah. Yeah. I I would have to say I agree with you a 100%. Yeah. That's Soki is definitely a genius in in that way. Oh, when you looked at over look at it over the last, you know, the whole 50 years or so of the Bujinkan history, he he planted the seeds and let the wind take them, and and and everything seems to be working out well for his plans. You new? Everything he touches turns to gold.
Sean Askew [00:33:08]:
I haven't seen anything that Sensei has ever put in you know, attempted to do that failed.
Adam Mitchell [00:33:13]:
Yeah. I know one of the things we hear a lot in the Jinenkan, Sean, is anytime, where I was at, when since I was living in Baltimore, there was an experience I had when he was teaching in just a small garage and it was a February, and he comes in and he opens the windows. It's freezing. And we're we're training, class is over, and he asks, we trained them to our morning session, class is over. He asked if anybody had any questions, and there was only, there was probably like 6 or 6 or 8 of us in the in the dojo. And new of the guests, and one of the students had said, you know, oh, you know, when you were training with Hatsumi, da da da da da, he he went in to ask his question, and, Manaka sensei just waved his hand, and he said, don't ever reference him as Hatsumi in my dojo. He is Hatsumi sensei. Manaka Sensei got up and walked right out of the dojo.
Adam Mitchell [00:34:19]:
Didn't even finish the conversation. He was offended. I asked him about that, some years later, and he said that's my teacher. And in his living room, he had a photo of Hatsune sensei, on his mantelpiece in Baltimore. And there is this veneration, or this acknowledgment of who Hatsune sensei was, and he would always say Yeah. He was an enigma. Those were his words. He was an enigma.
Adam Mitchell [00:34:46]:
Uh-huh. He he he wasn't part of this world, I think. He was who he was once referenced. And and this is why I really wanted to ask you this question, what your observation was, because I have no relationship there. I only have a relationship with Jinenkan sensei. But hearing this talk makes me think that during this time, this very pivotal time of ninjutsu, it could have become something very, very different. And you started to see in the 19 eighties a lot of westerners hijacking it and and creating their own thing from it and books being written by it. Yeah.
Adam Mitchell [00:35:20]:
And I like to think that while I'm sure it was profitable, it was certainly preserved as well. And and it sounds to me like you're agreeing with, with my very far and distant perspective of that.
Sean Askew [00:35:33]:
Yeah. No. I I definitely agree.
Adam Mitchell [00:35:36]:
Let's talk about what some of the current and common misconceptions of, ninjutsu arts. And we can I I I mean, we can go from the the how it's viewed from the Code York community, right down to how it's viewed from the, from sort of the lower level, people who come in and think that they're gonna get a a quick certificate or or whatever? But I'd like to run the spectrum of, of our collective martial arts community and hear from you what some of the misunderstandings are that we should really recalibrate.
Sean Askew [00:36:18]:
Yeah. Well, the the first one that we have to deal with is with the the koryu community because the Bujinkan themselves, other than, you know, I've never seen want to be considered part of the Kobudo Kai in Japan. He's the there's a lot of rumors that have gone around that we're talking about how he had to submit makimonos and denshos, and they were reviewed. And then they were they're they didn't predate 1860, so they were rejected. And he wasn't allowed to become a member of the Kobudo Kai blah blah blah blah. When actually and actually, none of that has ever japanese. Ever. It never happened even once.
Sean Askew [00:36:53]:
It was started by people that followed, the Draeger gentleman there, Don Draeger. It wasn't him himself. He was actually a friend of Soke's, but, people that associated with Drager, were the ones that started this big story that because didn't have any old documents, that everything was made up. Well, he's he's he's he's, correct that there are no old documents for some of the, but there are some very old documents for a lot of them. And then, the the biggest thing that I would like to say is when you're talking about ninjutsu, you you can't you can't expect to have the same type of densho, menkyo, kaiden type of system set up. It was completely different. Never existed as that type of formal system. There was no shodan, shudan, okudan.
Sean Askew [00:37:40]:
Mankyo was given out to shinobi. The only kind of, if you wanna call it a, the only thing that was ever given to shinobi is at least during the Edo period where it was a certificate that comes from the shogun himself saying that you're working under him in his authority, and, you know, you only report to that certain chain of command. You that you're outside of the rest of, the Japanese chain of command. So everything is a very you know, it's a secret of nature. So they can't expect us to have a shodan, chudan, okudan, york, any kind of ranking system in ninjutsu. It just didn't exist. Not at least not until way past the the the golden era of ninjutsu. Maybe maybe the 17, 18 100, those types of things started to come out.
Sean Askew [00:38:24]:
But, yeah, you wouldn't see anything like that in in in the 1500 or the 1400. And then just we're too busy, you know, actually doing work.
Adam Mitchell [00:38:32]:
How did
Sean Askew [00:38:33]:
And the art was always evolving. Like, it it wasn't something that, like, somebody made up. It isn't like yeah. It isn't like you could say, this guy is the founder and this is the art because ninjutsu is always something that just comes it arises at in the situation. When you're given a situation, it's gonna have its weak points, and then you need to be the one to fill in those gaps, and that's where ninjutsu comes in. You know, whether or not you can use deception and and falsehoods to let your enemy fall right into your trap.
Adam Mitchell [00:39:02]:
How do we argue then for the preservation of ninjutsu?
Sean Askew [00:39:06]:
Yeah. Then I would say there's we do have a lot of things that like, a lot of our, martial sayings, there's a lot of poems. Like, even within the kotaryu kaiden level, there's a bunch of poems that can be read. They have a lot of wisdom in there. Though those type I think we we we should be preserving the what especially the way has to be is taught over these last few it's not the that we're really supposed to be trying to preserve. It's more of the, you know, proper mental attitude, having students that are loyal. It's just the whole general, you know, being a being a bushy, being a warrior properly. It didn't matter what you how you're from.
Sean Askew [00:39:45]:
You needed to be a good human being. And that's where I think we we our our our can kinda get a kick in the rear. A lot of people have kinda, in my opinion, have started to just look too much into the to the, Kana side of things and forgot to polish their character. You know, we the whole point of having that mirror up on the coming down of there is that it's supposed to represent your mind and your heart, and it needs to be polished. You gotta keep that dust off. So training is our way of, you know, polishing our heart.
Adam Mitchell [00:40:14]:
That's a really interesting point that I could unpack and but I know it's beyond the scope of this conversation at some point. Wow. I I wanted to hear your understanding of and sort of that and and it sounds to me that's sort of where we're that's kind of the the lane we're merging onto right now. But could you, share with us a little bit about that definition and that higher meaning or the higher order and where we go from that ninjutsu to that new.
Sean Askew [00:40:50]:
Okay. It's actually interesting you bring this up, but this is again a major part of my, second book, the second part of hidden lineage. When when you search for the word nympo itself, it's it's, especially as you get further back in time, it becomes more and more rare to find. You know, shinobi no hou, shinobi no ninjutsu, a lot of lot of ways of writing this, but Ninpo itself didn't really start to show up until Togaxi and Izuna. There's a valley between Togaxi and Mount Togaxi and Mount Izuna, And that that valley was filled with Shugenja back in the 1100 and all the way through 13 1400. The Nishina family there controlled the valley bit from from Nishina mountain to the bottom of, the valley, and then Togakure, from the bottom of the valley up to the top of Togakshi mountain, was controlled by actually, I'm sorry. I forgot who it is at the moment. I would have to check my notes.
Sean Askew [00:41:45]:
But the Nishina family, were powerful throughout the whole region, including Togaxi. But that whole mountainside, was theirs. And from that area, you can find documents that say that use the ninpo, and what it was was a, Shugenja type of magic ritual that you would perform, for good luck, basically. To make you invisible. That you wouldn't be seen. It wasn't like you're, you know, you're gonna do something and you just hope the guy doesn't see you type of thing. It it was before you went out your door, before you started your mission. There was a ritual that you would do, to pray for your invisibility, And then, you and it also in court included some, objects that you'd use in the ritual.
Sean Askew [00:42:29]:
I think it was 8 arrows. I believe 8 arrows have to be put into the cardinal directions with the arrowheads facing in, and they're all connected with a hemp rope, I believe. Something is placed in the middle, but this would be a ritual that they would go through, to pray for their invisibility in a successful mission. That was a very particular thing that was only done by the Nishina family, in that area of the the world of Japan. It was wasn't something you found in other Shugenja or Shigendo rituals or Yamabushi rituals. It was only found on Izuna. Now when our story, the Togakurei Ryu's legend begins, the fall of Kiso Yoshinaka, the Nishina family have to flee Go to Iga. Okay? So when the Nishina family flees, obviously, it wouldn't just be Nishina Daisuke.
Sean Askew [00:43:19]:
It would be the whole clan. The clan is lost, so the clan has to flee. So it was the clan that fled from to. And right after that period of time, so 11, 1200s, well, another thing I should mention is when when the Nishina clan does flee and they go to Iga, they settle in the area on the border of Iga and Nara, because Nara and Iga border up with each other. And that whole area there is loaded with, I think there's 13 shrines that are Togakushi shrines. It's another very rare thing. You don't you don't find Togakshi shrines all throughout Japan. Here and there, you'll find 1 or 2, maybe 1 usually 1.
Sean Askew [00:43:58]:
Yeah. You never find 2, but here, you find, like, 13 within, like, within 7 kilometers radius. So it's obvious that the Nisina settled there. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's a lot of things in the in the in the legend that lend, credibility to our story.
Adam Mitchell [00:44:16]:
Wow. And and you were saying the first that the
Sean Askew [00:44:20]:
Oh, I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but, yeah, I forgot to to tie what I was saying was. So when the when the Nishene family fled and didn't go to Iga, they brought that ritual with them, and it spread throughout all of Iga and Koga. Because when you look at later documents like the 1400, 1500, 1670, even the, you'll find that ritual. So all of the Shinobi of Iga and Koga started to incorporate it. So it's kind of like Izuna and Togakshi are the origins of Ninpo, which later developed into many more other rituals as well.
Adam Mitchell [00:44:56]:
Wow. I'm looking forward here. Looking forward to the second work now. This is great. Let's, you know, I wanna be sensitive of time, and some of the really important questions pertaining to them now and per and, again, like I I I shared with you earlier, I'm very interested in as we don't get younger, I wanna make sure that we are holding the lantern bright for the next generation behind us, and the young students, the new leadership. What in your position, your opinion, your responsibility, should we be offering the next generation to focus more on? And you already shared, you know, being a better character, focusing, you know, you get so much focus and energy in the kata and and learning this stuff, but you gotta work on yourself. In terms of in in terms of maintaining proper study, proper training, preservation of the art, what are your, what's what's your advice, Sean?
Sean Askew [00:46:07]:
Yeah. My big thing is I push I push the a lot, And sometimes it sometimes it it it gets me into some trouble because when I go and I teach a seminar, I'll wind up teaching the budo it's because they really need it. You know? The the even though someone might have a 7th degree black belt, you know how things are and how things got to be the way they are. So there's a lot of correction that needs to be done. So in order to preserve our art and and and solidify it for the next generation, I think everyone really needs to go back to the basics. They new to bend their knees. They need to there's so much laziness, including myself. I get lazy too.
Sean Askew [00:46:48]:
But, yeah, when you go to a seminar and, you see a crowd of people and you say, sometimes it's like, okay. This is where we need to start. Arts know? The feet aren't in the right place. The knees aren't there's a lot of and I know you know these things because Muraka sensei, you know, taught them to us. You new, the the the key hon is so important, and so many people are are, you know, like, I'm ready to just fly through that. You new, I've learned it once. I I got it. Yeah.
Sean Askew [00:47:16]:
Yeah. But it needs to be drilled. Every clash should start with. It should start with. It should start with Hit the bag or hit a makkiwara. I I believe in all of that. Real training. Yeah.
Sean Askew [00:47:30]:
The basics, you know, rather than, okay. I've been training 6 months, and now I'm doing taijutsu. I I I for the 1st year to 2 years, I really don't see much of anything other than Keon Happo and Kemi york the at least for 2 years. Make sure they're doing it right.
Adam Mitchell [00:47:46]:
And when you
Sean Askew [00:47:47]:
that I think that I think will help our future. You know, when you look at other arts like karate and judo and aikido, they have a very formal and rugged structure for their basics, their kihon. It's not to say that they're locked to that. Like, a great aikido master, of course, can break his forms and and become a great martial artist. Same thing with the karate people. But it's their forms that get them there. New those great masters got there through the repetition of those forms that are the structure of their art. And with ours, we we really need to instill that structure because a lot of people have gotten up to very high degrees without any structure.
Adam Mitchell [00:48:23]:
Given its size, do you think that that's possible for the Bujinkan to actually implement that stuff?
Sean Askew [00:48:28]:
I I I think it has to die once.
Adam Mitchell [00:48:30]:
You know? Say what you mean by that.
Sean Askew [00:48:33]:
Yeah. I don't know yet. I because everything's every it seems like everything's in limbo. To me, I feel like, I I this is gonna be the first time I say it in a in a public forum, but I I I do believe I see, like, a death coming. With Sokae's with Sokae's retirement, I think we're gonna see something kind of wither and die often. Then from there, something's gonna flower bloom out of it. I don't know what that's gonna be yet, though, but, yeah, I think everything has to die once.
Adam Mitchell [00:48:57]:
If you had your way, what would that look like?
Sean Askew [00:49:04]:
I would incorporate tournaments and and sparring. Yeah. I I definitely I I believe that there's no reason that we can't do a jujitsu oriented or judo oriented with rules. I I don't see I don't like the excuses of, you know, my martial arts too dangerous, so we can't use our techniques. That's not true at all. You new? Your your your art should be just as, powerful and and and and as a BJJ guy. The arch is the same. It's about how you train.
Sean Askew [00:49:34]:
And and and a and a match with rules is a you know, if you can win with a set of rules, then it's that much easier to win without them. You know, when I am allowed to finger gouge or, you know, into the eyes or, you know, the groin or biting or anything like that, those are all just bonuses. But you need your as a martial artist, you need a core. You know, You can't go into a fight thinking I'm gonna bite this throat off. Yeah. You need to know how to stop people from tackling you. You new to you need to know how to stop somebody from grabbing you and repeatedly punching you in the face. I I had it happen to me.
Sean Askew [00:50:04]:
So you you just reality starts to set in. So if I had my way, I would make a Togakushi cup. I would even call it the Takamatsu cup. Let everybody compete.
Adam Mitchell [00:50:15]:
Wow. Make sure you give me I
Sean Askew [00:50:17]:
would I would do I would do grappling rules, strike, you know, make separate types of you know, you could do grappling only. You could do striking. You could even do weapons. There could be lots of fun involved too, especially shuriken. You could have great fun with shuriken tournaments.
Adam Mitchell [00:50:30]:
Wow.
Sean Askew [00:50:30]:
I brought this up with new time, and he laughed and giggled, but he he didn't seem to be up for it. So what
Adam Mitchell [00:50:36]:
what about going into cross training? What's what's your recommendation there? I spoke to Mahopac Sensei. I think it's probably in 2001, somewhere around that same time, that that I went up and visited you. And I was talking to him about cross training, and he went through everybody in the room, and he said, what do you like to do? What's your, you know, athletic like that? And then when he came to me, he said, swimming and judo. Keep doing judo and swimming. Those are your 2 things. You don't need to do anything else, swimming and judo.
Sean Askew [00:51:06]:
Right.
Adam Mitchell [00:51:08]:
Do you have a do you have a recommendation, or is do you do you feel cross training has provided an important role in your own? I know you you did kosen budo. I'm a friend as well. Gonna be actually doing some kosen judo in Japan next week. Nice. And you also did, when you were at university, you also were a shoot fighter. Is that correct?
Sean Askew [00:51:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the shoot fighting started in 95, right, the year I graduated.
Adam Mitchell [00:51:34]:
Okay.
Sean Askew [00:51:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a interesting journey. I when I asked Sokka for permission to compete, he said go for it. Just realize that it's a tool. It's not a way. It's not the path.
Sean Askew [00:51:45]:
It's just a tool. And that I wasn't allowed to use the Bujinkan name until I became a champion if I became a champion. Yeah. Because if you become a champion, then you can tell everybody you're Bujinkan. So I had to keep the name Bujinkan out of it while I did it. But he had no problem with me doing it. Yeah.
Adam Mitchell [00:51:59]:
Are there cross training models that you've seen in your own students that have been really successful that you've seen some super progress with?
Sean Askew [00:52:06]:
Yeah. Actually, Nate Daly was one of the I was very proud of Nate. I always wanted Nate to compete in MMA because he he got to a very high level, both in taijutsu and and new. Great.
Adam Mitchell [00:52:16]:
And, so how did he get there? What was the what was his path?
Sean Askew [00:52:20]:
We we sparred a lot together.
Adam Mitchell [00:52:22]:
Yeah.
Sean Askew [00:52:22]:
We did a lot of sparring together when we were in New York, and then, he went after that, he went I don't actually I don't even know. Last I heard, he was in San Diego's, but I'm not sure if he's still there. But, yeah, he he he continued. He's a bit of a genius, isn't he? He's one of those types of guy. I remember he was very young and, still, you know, he'd already started working for Lockheed Martin. His brain is just, you know, wired a little bit differently. I don't even think he went to college or anything like that. He's just smarter than the professors.
Adam Mitchell [00:52:49]:
So when he
Sean Askew [00:52:49]:
went to Japan, he yeah. He he became fluent in Japanese in less than a year. Yeah. I was so jealous of that. You know? I went to university to learn to speak the language, and then without any problem with, like, less than a year staying there, he was fluent.
Adam Mitchell [00:53:03]:
Wow. Wow. Yeah. It was that was quite an experience. I said, you know, before we hit the record button, I and I'll say it again. I just wanna thank you because york the experience I had at your dojo really showed me that there were some very good teeth in this arts. And, you know, going up and working with your group, and and then doing a half an hour of Rondorri with you guys, I was I was like, alright. Someone's getting down here.
Adam Mitchell [00:53:32]:
This is good. This is good. And, it it left a it left a strong impression on me for all of, the rest of my career. And whenever anybody asks me who some of my favorite teachers' arms are, who really stands out, you're always at the top of the list for sure.
Sean Askew [00:53:49]:
Thank you very much. That means a lot to me. Thank you.
Adam Mitchell [00:53:51]:
Yeah. Before we go, I wanna ask Sean, are there any questions that really should be getting asked about our art right now? Arts there any conversations that you would really encourage us to have more of?
Sean Askew [00:54:11]:
Yeah. One would be maybe bringing everybody back in together. You new? I don't know what there's what the what the, what's I don't know how to put this into the proper words. I don't think I could see, say, Bujin Khan and the and the Gimbal Khan getting along, buddy buddy, and and being friendly. But I do see that the Jinenkan and the Bujinkan a re brothers. There's nothing and that's thanks to Manaka Sensei. You new, he didn't do things, in the wrong way. He did everything the right way.
Sean Askew [00:54:43]:
The situate I was there. We were there. I was there when it was time for him to do his own thing and create the, and and he did it. And he didn't do it in an insulting way. He did it in a in a very, peaceful and good way. So I could see in the future that, I think Jinenkan and Bujinkan people should should be working together more. I don't see any reason for us to think of each other as being apart. In my opinion, Manaka sensei kept true to what the Bujinkan was always teaching.
Sean Askew [00:55:13]:
He just had I think he just kept his students to a higher caliber. So I I think the question we should be looking at is, you know, in the future, we we can't afford to be split up. This isn't this isn't going to be an art. In my in my opinion, I don't think this is gonna be an art like judo or a con update to where it's gonna be for the masses. It it'll still always be there with a with a good I think there'll always be a large number of us throughout the world, but I don't see it as becoming a, like, a McDonald's type of thing. It's gonna always be, a little bit underground and low key. So I would like to see everybody working together, get along together, having seminars together, training together, writing together, working together. There's no reason.
Sean Askew [00:55:56]:
But like I said, I don't know if that could be possible with other. There's a few other branches that maybe that won't work.
Adam Mitchell [00:56:02]:
Time will tell. Yeah. Time will tell. But, you know, having conversations like this here with you, Sean, is certainly, is a good starting point.
Sean Askew [00:56:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's I think that's kind of what arts of that death and rebirth that I was talking about earlier that I that I feel is coming and should come, that, some of the things of the past are the past, and and the future doesn't it's really not that important. The future is important, of course, but those differences that were were in the past are are, you know, negligible.
Adam Mitchell [00:56:37]:
Well, hopefully, a lot of people hear york words because they're extremely important and carry a lot of weight for sure.
Sean Askew [00:56:44]:
It's funny because I didn't feel that way before. You new, back back well, that that could be another whole conversation, so I should probably assume you. But, you know, everyone changes when you know, there there was probably, you know, several years back where I wouldn't have been saying this. Budo, looking at things from, you know, when in hindsight, you know, Manaka sensei did things very well. He he he did things the right way.
Adam Mitchell [00:57:08]:
Tell us, as we wind up here, a little bit about some of your current projects, what we can look forward to, and how we can support it, and, what those steps
Sean Askew [00:57:20]:
look like. Yeah. Got a lot of going on, actually. I've been working on the second volume of hidden lineage back ever since the first one finished. It it should have been a long time finished a long time ago, but I'm waiting to get back to Japan. I there's a lot of things that have been discovered that I wanna be the 1st to get photos of to include in the book. So hidden lineage 2 will come out after I've gone back to Japan to get some final photos. I'm currently working on a project with Alex Estevay from Spain, the Daishia from Spain.
Sean Askew [00:57:48]:
He's one of the other Menkyo Kaiden holders. We're working on a joint project together on the and about Noguchi sensei's life and similar to the idea of what, Ishizuka sensei and Kacem have just done. Maybe a little bit different. Like, I I believe I saw some others, and I new they covered the Densho and and things like that. I don't think we'll cover the Densho in this book. There's a lot of, there's a lot of material that has never been released before as far as I know, that Alex and I are now currently translating. So the bulk of the book will be the the the inner teachings of the Koto Ryu that most of us are I was never from I had never seen a lot of some some of the stuff before, so that'll be an exciting book. I also
Adam Mitchell [00:58:32]:
be available to the public? Yeah.
Sean Askew [00:58:33]:
Yeah. This will be made open to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine right new, the plan for Alex and I to finish that will be before the next taekai. We wanna have it presented in March at the taekai for Noguchi sensei. So I expect that book to come out at the end of February, beginning of March. Yeah.
Sean Askew [00:58:50]:
And then in the meantime, I'm also working on the there's a book called the Gunzu Yo doki, which right new, it's a major, military text that, is extremely rare. There's only 3 copies left that are known, and I've got one of them. It's the complete book. It's it's the, I wouldn't call it a. It's more like a encyclopedia of anything related to their martial art. It's about a 300 page book, written in the 17 seventies, and there's a whole chapter in there on Ninjutsu, called Shinobi no Maki. So I've had that professionally, transliterated from the old Japanese into modern Japanese, and then I'm translating that into English. And the the researchers in Japan that that did that work for me also gave me a bulk of material that is how to understand.
Sean Askew [00:59:40]:
Like, it talk there's things that are mentioned in in the text that without this other supplementary notes, you wouldn't be able to understand it. So, we're gonna include all of that in a book. So I think that'll be the first time you'll ever see an actual real completely translated from beginning to end in 3 stages. The it'll be in the original Japanese, the old kanban, then it'll be in modern Japanese, and then in English.
Adam Mitchell [01:00:06]:
I certainly have your plate filled, man.
Sean Askew [01:00:08]:
Yeah. It's busy. Yeah.
Adam Mitchell [01:00:11]:
Yeah. And it's bringing so much for so many people too. I hope you recognize. I mean, you know, sometimes we do our york, and we don't realize the impact that we're making, and it takes others to share that with us. And I just wanna be hopefully, I can stand in that in that place, and say that all of the work that you're doing, it's helping so many of us, and I just wanna, you know, share my gratitude.
Sean Askew [01:00:34]:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's
Adam Mitchell [01:00:37]:
Well, this has been a a wonderful conversation, Sean.
Sean Askew [01:00:40]:
Thank you.
Adam Mitchell [01:00:41]:
I really appreciate it. I appreciate the, the friendship, the the willingness to come on and and spend your time here. I know it's, it's late right now in the evening that we're doing this, and, I appreciate that. How can anybody contact you if they have further questions or if they wanna learn more about your work?
Sean Askew [01:00:58]:
Oh, yeah. I'm outspoken on Facebook. So if you ever wanna get ahold of me, yeah, just just type in Sean Askew in Facebook. I I generally respond to most people unless you ask me some crazy wild question. Right. Right.
Adam Mitchell [01:01:11]:
Right. Okay. Well, Sean, thank you so much. I appreciate it, and, I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Sean Askew [01:01:18]:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for the invite.
