Taijutsu, at its most basic level, is two people physically beating each other up. Out of Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu, Taijutsu is the only area where chakra expression is not a requirement of use or mastery for many styles. With Taijutsu, chakra is mainly used internally to increase strength or speed. This field of the ninja arts encompasses all melee combat - both hand-to-hand and weapons. Ranged and thrown weapons are passed off to the Sougujutsu field.
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Defining Taijutsu
Taijutsu is a fairly broad category. All hand-to-hand combat styles fall within this category, as do most weapon styles. In general, if the style centers around attacks where a solid connection can be made from attacker to the opponent - such as a sword strike, where the sword physically connects the two people, as opposed to a thrown kunai, where the connection is lost between kunai and thrower - then the style is considered Taijutsu.
Types of Taijutsu
Hand-to-Hand Styles
Hand-to-hand styles are possibly the most prolific section of Taijutsu.To be considered a hand-to-hand style, the majority of the style must not use weapons and the non-use of weapons should not impact the style's effectiveness.
Striking Types
Styles of this type center around the use of strikes to disable or defeat the opponent. This varies from bruising or breaking bones to pressure points.
Grappling Types
Styles of this type center around the use of throws, joint-locks, pins, and other moves to disable or defeat an opponent.
Mixed Types
Styles of this type incorporate elements of both striking and grappling styles and do not center around one type or the other.
Weapon Styles
Weapon styles are those that center primarily around the use of one or more melee weapons. To be considered a weapon style, the style must use at least one melee weapon and the weapon(s) use must be integral to the combat style.
Tojutsu
The family of styles revolving around the use of swords in combat. There are no size or type limitations on the swords that would exclude a style. One subcategory of Tojutsu is Kenjutsu, which specializes in techniques revolving around the nihonto family of swords and includes various sword drawing strikes.
Long Weapons
There is much dispute as to how to classify the styles that use spears, staffs, or glaives/naginata as the primary weapon. Some claim that Sojutsu, spear styles, is separate and Naginatajutsu, glaive/naginata styles, is a sub-category. Others claim the opposite. Some Bojutsu, staff styles, proponents claim that both styles are subcategories of Bojutsu. Due to all the arguing, most official listings of weapon styles by ninja villages place all three families as separate from each other or combined in a "long weapons" category.
Mixed Styles
Mixed styles are, as the name suggests, styles that mix hand-to-hand and weapons. In large part, the mixed styles are based on hand-to-hand styles that are expanded to make use of various weapons to increase the effectiveness and strength of the style. Some weapon styles also fall into this category due to the proportion of armed and unarmed moves is fairly close instead of clearly dominant one way or the other.
A good indicator of a mixed style is if the style is still fairly effective in combat despite the loss of any weapons used with said style.