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This is 木隠. Since 1999 you can read articles, collections of texts and translations on topics related to the Japanese shadow warriors and spies, the Ninja, and their martial art Ninjutsu.

The idea for this was developed and implemented by Stefan Imhoff, a designer, developer and martial artist from Wolfsburg (today from Hamburg).

What Does 木隠 Mean?

The name kogakure (木隠) is Japanese and literally means translated something like Hidden behind leaves and trees.

I got the ideas for this name in reference to the book of the Samurai Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure (Hidden under leaves) and the oldest school in the Bujinkan, Togakure (Hidden behind a door).

Why Does This Book Exist?

Since the beginning of the 90s, I probably first came across Ninjutsu through the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and I have been interested in the Ninja and their world of ideas.

At that time, the Bujinkan was hard to find in Germany, and it was almost impossible to find a training opportunity. The specialist literature that was available was also more than poor.

In the search for knowledge, knowledge and information, a collection of notes accumulated over time, which was processed in this book.

This book does not claim to be complete, nor does it to be absolute, verifiable, historical evidence. It should help all bugeisha (warriors) to learn more about the wisdom of this thousand-year-old art.

Contact

You can contact me via my email address or various social media platforms on my website.

Please check first if your question has already been answered in the FAQ. I don’t always have the time to respond to every question, but I promise I’ll read every message!

FAQ

  • Where Can I Train?

    The best way to find a Dōjō for Bujinkan Budō Taijutsu is to use a search engine to search for Bujinkan in connection with a city near you. But certainly there will not be as good coverage with Dōjō as in Judo or Karate. There is a very extensive dojo list on the Bujinkai site.

    I don’t have my own Dōjō and offer no training. Kogakure is not a martial art style, it is the name of the book.

  • What Books Are There?

    The selection of specialist books on Ninja and Ninjutsu is very large. However, most of it is in Japanese or English. It’s best to just take a look at my recommendations.

  • Which Books Can You Recommend Me?

    First I recommend the books of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi. Andrew Adams book Ninja is good to get an overview. Stephen K. Hayes has a lot of philosophical aspects in his books (e.g. Tendai, Shugendō, Mikkyō), since this interests him personally, he has even been appointed a monk of Tendai, just like Takamatsu.

  • Where Can I Get Books on Ninjutsu?

    Ever since book retailers such as Amazon exist, it should no longer be a problem to get books from abroad. On the recommendations page I have compiled a list of books and films that I can recommend.

  • I Want to Link to a Page. What Is to Be Considered?

    It is generally prohibited to implement the link in a frame in which the website is no longer recognizable as the author. You are welcome to link to any page in this domain.

    Images, photos and other media may not be directly linked, but may be downloaded and placed on your own servers (as long as the rules of the Creative Commons License are complied with).

  • Are Translations of the Texts Allowed?

    Translations of the texts into other languages are generally permitted as long as the text is accompanied by a reference to the source. Please send me a link where the translation will be published. If you want to translate the website in a different language and hosted on it’s original location, please contact me.

    Commercial use in any form is only possible with written permission.

♥︎ Donations

This book is free, ad-free and has cost me many hundreds of hours of work over time.

If you enjoyed it, I welcome praise and recognition. You can support me by making a small donation.

Technical Information

Anyone who has made it this far is probably also interested in the technical details on this page.

All work was created on an Apple computer, the graphics were designed with Affinity Photo, and Affinity Designer, all templates and code segments Neovim were written by hand and versioned with Git. The pages are generated with Eleventy (11ty) and the development environment and deployment are automated with Gulp.js.

The source code of this website is available to everyone on GitHub. Errors, improvements or additions can be reported there as Issue or by email.