I just found my old web site on archive.org , and a lot of memories comes back. When I made my first web site (in 1994 or 1995?) there was only one other web site on the whole internets that contained the word "Bujinkan" (I think his name was Shawn (an American not Canadian )). But before that I operated my own Fidonet BBS called 2:201/2123 Moko no Tora BBS on a computer under my bed between 1992-1996 (approximately, I don't remember exactly). I was also at Compuserve when they got their first modem pool in Sweden. At that time you could not access the internets from your home as a private person. There was no provider that offered a modem pool you could call up, it was only at big companies and university's at this time. Until Ragnar Lönn started Algonet in 1994 offering a connection for private persons. If I remember correctly, I got my subscription around Christmas time, and immediately started learning HTML by making the web site.

There was only the MS *plorer and Netscape browsers, I remember Netscape was better because you could change the colours on the fonts and background. There was HTML programs, but they where buggy, annoying and didn't keep up with the new features that the Netscape browser gave. So I learned typing HTML with a simple text editor. I still do this, but I also use a CMS system (this site is on W0rpqr*ss ).

Over the years I had projects that grew too big to handle. More and more people got Internet and found my web site, I see that in the oldest record on the way back machine at archive.org that in May 2000 I had 154 016 hits since march 1995, I'm not sure if that counts the hits I had before on my Algonet page (yes it still sucks!). In January 2002 I had 426 844 hits, Anyway some of the bigger projects was...

BUUYUU www.martial.arts links project

This was link site with thousands of Martial Arts links, driven by a text database, but someone had to manually update with new links, lot's of work. Thanks to Baubak G who helped me with this!

Masai forum board

Means polish your sword or skills. With a couple of thousand members it could sometimes get maybe too political, but often there was good discussions. Back then people where new to the internets and was willing to share stuff, even if it wasn't well researched (me included).

NinZine

NinZine actually started before in my Fidonet and Compuserve days. It was a type of multimedia magazine where you needed a PC with DOS to make it work. Later Liz made Ura & Omote which was more text based articles. I think I only released five or six issues. I tried to find the old zip files but can't find them. If anyone have them, please contact me . I have planned for a while to use the NinZine name again for the bujinkan.me web site project.

Bushikai (the whole Bujinkan world on one site)

Was a kind of portal for each country that showed links to web sites, clubs and local seminars for respective country. Here is Sweden for example (13 training groups, 23 web sites and 6 seminars registered at the time).

Ryu-ha history

This was probably the most popular segment. Thanks to Peter C who gave me most of the school information in the beginning. I added more and more to the pages without thinking or being able to check it's sources.

At the end I removed most of the ryu-ha history notes because I was fed up with some people who knew better that liked to critizice instead of helping, people who took the information and presented it as their own. But mostly because it became too much work, people expected me to update the web site continually, and I wasn't making any money on it. In 2005 I moved the forum to another web site, and about his time I went from 10 000 hits per month to a couple of thousand.

today...

Sure I miss some of the projects a little, but if it means I have to do all the work and it is too much work or I don't enjoy it I won't do it any more. But I moved some of the projects to the bujinkan.me web site...

• The bujinkan.me/ninzine is the new NinZine! It is a script that get articles via selected RSS sources. Contributions is by people with their own blogs that I think make a good contribution to the Bujinkan community.
• The Dojo locator is the new Dojo address database!. This is now handled by Google places, just make sure to include Bujinkan as a tag to get included here.
• The Seminar database is practically the same as before.
• The links..., when I started there was no Google!

My Kabutoshimen / Kesshi web site is more my personal web site and blog, if you are interested in what I'm up to. The Kaigozan Dojo web site is my dojo. I got a bunch of other sites to, I keep it separated (Bujinkan, me, dojo etc.)...

Well I don't know how to wrap this article!
Can't believe I've been doing this for more than 15 years!
I wonder how it will look like in another 15 years?

Anyway... HAPPY TRAINING!
( I think I used this phrase for 15 years to )

/Mats

Here is the link for preview http://kesshi.com/seminars/bujinkan.php

This weekend I'm at a seminar, then I take a week off over the holiday, then new year and off to Japan. So I don't know when and how much time I have to work on it.

If you have any ideas, please let me know, add a comment here or contact me!

Merry christmas and happy new year!

Here is the PHP code if you want include it on your web site.

<?php
$nextmonth = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")+1);
$monta = date("m", $nextmonth);
if ( $monta == "01" )
{ $yerra = date("Y")+1 ;
echo "<p>It is probably December now, click on Seminars next year</p>";
}
else
{ $yerra = date("Y") ;
$ch = curl_init("http://www.kesshi.com/cgi-bin/SEMINARS-ME2.cgi?$yerra-$monta");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
}
?>

If you want more examples how to display seminars from the database on your web site, please don't hesitate to contact me.
I really do encourage all web masters to use any code they want (mine or modified) to display seminars from the seminar database.

Daikomyousai just finished (I wish I could have been there, I have to try harder for next year). I heard they trained outside, and Kihon Happo was the theme, at least for the first day. Hopefully someone will update me for the next newsletter at the end of the year.

.

Web site updates & RSS

I have had a lot of time to work on all our web sites recently, so I think you should check them out.

• Kabutoshimen has become a real Bujinkan portal, I have included a lot of news sources that is constantly updated.
• Bujinkan.ME (also iPhone optimized), I created something i just call the Superfeed. It collects RSS feeds from different sources in four steps.
  • Superfeed, this is all our blogs in one, if you just want to subscribe to our blogs this feed is the only one you need to subscribe to. If we create a new blog or move one, it will automatically be updated in this feed.
  • Superfeed2, same as above plus selected Bujinkan bLogs we this is really good.
  • Superfeed3, same as all above plus selected Bujinkan forums we think is good.
  • Superfeed4, same as above plus YouTube videos tagged Bujinkan, Google Blogsearch for Bujinkan. Note the last feed is experimental, there is no way to control the content completely. I had to filter out one Bujinkan forum because it is too heavily spammed, I might do that with others to in the future if need be.
• Soke classes, is always up to date with the original web site. But our site also now includes a live weather forecast of Matsudo (which is the closest city to Honbu dojo and Ayase classes).

.

Taikai 2009 Update

Nothing new since the last newsletter. The interest seems a little low right now and we need help advertising the TAIKAI. You can help us with a banner or just a link to our web site, or talk about organizing a group trip to the TAIKAI in your dojo, anything encouraging people to go is good for us, and we appreciate it greatly.
The application form is on-line, the following instructors is coming.

• Duncan Stewart, Shihan (Japan)
• Juan Manuel Serrano, Shihan (Spain)
• Lauri Jokinen, Shihan (Finland)
• Mariette vd Vliet, Shihan (Holland)
• Mats Hjelm, Shihan (Sweden)
• Morten B. Østenstad, Shihan (Norway)

The application form for TAIKAI is now on-line! On the taikai web site you can click on the button in the top right column from all pages. Sign up before the end of the year and you will receive a gift from us at the Taikai. Please spread the word!

.

The new web shop has been up and it works really well. Note the shipping costs is really flat rate shipping cost 49 SEK to the whole world (gratis frakt inom Sverige!), we had to adjust some prices slightly to cover the p&p costs, but the DVD prices is unchanged. There is no new products this month, the last ones was Masaaki Hatsumi - Taikai Sweden 1988, Dean Rostohar - Knife and Baton seminar and Aluminium training knifes.

We will release new/old Shinken kata dvd's very soon.

It is Christmas time soon and if you want to have the order before Christmas you should order as soon as possible. We can not guarantee any latest time for ordering to get it in time for Christmas, but we are fast, we send the items within one or two days and the rest is up to the post offices. In Sweden you usually have it the next day, in other countries 3-5 days. But being Christmas it could take a little longer than usual, but of course you know that.

.

Join the Bujinkan SETI team!

Almost 10 years ago I joined the SETI by installing the “screensaver”. I discovered that you could create teams and work together. It was fun and exciting to see how we did together, then somehow I forgot about it until now. I went back to see if our team was active and to my surprise it still was! My account was still there, so I had to log in, download the new program and fire it up again and contribute to the Bujinkan SETI team.

On Wednesday November 19′th 2008 it was 2 active members, at top team no 3548,  723 recent credits (with a total of 424,647 credits) and ranked as 7,562. If you click on the links above you will see that we are climbing up rapidly.

I think it would be fun if you also joined the Bujinkan SETI team in search for extra terrestrial life. If you think this is silly, there is several other organisations you can help by lending your CPU when not in use to.

Click here for the official Bujinkan SETI web site http://kesshi.com/seti/

Please spread the word!

Update: We are now four active users and have tripled the credits produced.

.

Seminars the following months

For more seminars see the Bujinkan.Me/seminars list (here is also information how to add seminars to this database). Sponsored seminar...

2008-12-05/2008-12-07 - Tuusula, Finland
Christmas Camp, with Shihan Lauri Jokinen
For more information (price & schedule etc.) please contact nagareru@hotmail.com More info... http://shinden.fi

2008-12-19/2008-12-20 - Stockholm, Sweden
Hankyou 2008, with Many instructors
This is Kaigozan Dojo's traditional Christmas seminar. We invite all instructors that want to come and share what they have learned this year (please contact us!). If you want to have good fun don't miss this, the cost for the seminar is kept really low. More info... http://kaigozan.se/seminars

2009-01-16/18 - Helsinki, Finland
Shihan Moti Nativ Seminar (Shihan Moti Nativ)
For more information (price & schedule) please contact nagareru@hotmail.com
More info on... click here

2009-02-07/08 - Stockholm, Sweden
Keiko seminar intro to this years theme (Mats Hjelm)
Introduction to this years theme. Mats is doing his annual January trip this year to.
More info on... click here

2009-03-14/15 - Stockholm, Sweden
Keiko seminar with Holger Kunzmann (Shihan from Germany)
Shihan Holger Kunzmann from Germany will be in Japan during February, after this trip he will come here to share what was being taught there.
More info on... click here

.

Short news and Notes

• On Sunday November 16'th Soke told us that you (as the instructor) should say 千早や振る　神の教えは　とこしえに　正しき心　身を守るらん Chihayaburu Kamino Oshiewa Tokoshieni Tadashiki Kokoro Mio Mamoruran" as well when you do "Shikin" at your class.
  

  Read more about it on Kutaki.

• This seems to be needed to be reminded constantly. When going to Japan and training, please do what you can to help the administrators of the classes so it runs smoothly.
• This is one of the many unwritten rules, and it always needs to be reminded! If you are allowed to take video of the trainings, you do not automatically have ok to post the video clips anywhere on internet, selling or giving away to strangers. If this is something you intend to do, then you need to ask if this is ok. This is just common courtesy, show some respect and don't take things for granted.
• There was a Bujinkan Enbu at the Fuse Benten in Kashiwa in October, celebrating a 1200 year old shrine.
  

  New, here is a link to a 35 minute video of the Enbu.

• ...Please send me news to put here!

For the full seminar list which is chronologically sorted to each month we still recommend you check out this page or this once on a while. If you use facebook, add this Facebook application.

Web sites (all is hand coded)
kesshi.com
kaigozan.se
taikai.se (runs on Drupal)
budoshop.se (runs on MagentoCommerce)
bujinkan.me

Blogs (all is WordPress MU with different skins)
bujinkan.me/blogs
kabuto.bujinkan.me/blogs
kaigozan.bujinkan.me/blogs
seminars.bujinkan.me/blogs
taikai.bujinkan.me/blogs
selfdefence.bujinkan.me/blogs
budoshop.bujinkan.me/blogs

todo (sites that need something)
budo-taijutsu.net (maybe? low priority)

I need to do a Site map of all my/our web sites is necessary, to keep track of them all, anyone have any ideas? Please comment!

These pages look best in the following order Safari then Firefox. Opera and iExplorer last. Click on the next page to see screendumps from each browser.

Safari 3.12 (as it should look)

Firefox 3.01 (missing the glow effect on headers)

Opera 9.20 (also missing the rounded corners in headers)

iExplorer 7 (looks similar to Opera, the menu (not showed here) looks weird and needs more tweaking)

This is how it looks with Safari on the iPhone

It would be interesting to see screendumps from other browsers, especially phones. Please send it to us!

This web site is under construction. It is optimized for iPhone and browsers capable of CSS3/W3C standards such as Safari, Opera and Firefox.

I updated the Shugyou portal now with seminar lists for this year and next year. When we moved the websites to a new server some things crashed. I found out that the newsletter mod didn't work, and I had to upgrade this module. And even that one did not work, so I had to spend half the day reading support forums, and I finally fixed it. So if you subscribe to the newsletters you have a new mail from us today.

BTNet is also up and running, the forum software is still beta, but it seems pretty stable now. I won't do any major work on it until the stable release. But this concerns only the back end, so start using it, the messages will still be there after the uppgrade...

There is a lot of new pictures up at the Kaigozan photo album. There was however a lot of spam on it, so I had to update the software. But it is still possible to add spam. It is quite easy to remove, but if it get too much I will close the registration process and ask you to contact me if you want to add pictures. But until then, please start uploading your pictures (Bujinkan related only!).