Wisdom From The Last Ninja

I Could Tell You But... writes "The AP has a story about ninjutsu master Masaaki Hatsumi, last living student of Japan's last 'fighting ninja.' He offers advice from the heart of Ninjadom, like 'always be able to kill your students,' and describes the current popular ninja image as 'pathetic.' At age 76, students are speculating on his successor, who may for the first time be non-Japanese." From the article: "As I cautiously raise the sword with a taut two-handed samurai grip, my sparring partner gingerly points to Hatsumi. I avert my eyes for a split second - and WHAM! The next thing I know, I'm staring at the rafters. Keeping your focus is just one of the lessons thumped out on the mats of the Bujinkan Dojo, a cramped school outside Tokyo that is a pilgrimage site for 100,000 worldwide followers. They revere Hatsumi as the last living master of ninjutsu - the mysterious Japanese art of war practiced by black-masked assassins of yesteryear."

Comments

Re:Know what Really Pisses Me Off?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Look at the quotes in the article, it's meaningless blabber.

He who does not listen, does not hear.

Re:Ninja is replaced by Sniper

[SquadBoy]

Yes?

And your point is?

You *do* understand that those are all good things, right?

Expanding on this a bit...

[einhverfr]

I would like to expand on this a bit.

Even handguns are next to useless in sufficiently close quarters. Yes, you can hit someone with them, but even there, their weight makes them slow. If oyu are trained for unarmed combat, the only weapons really worth a darn in close combat (less than about 8 feet) is a knife of a good club. And even the club is often not a match for a bare hand (esp if the barer is untrained).

In any case, training in close combat is well worth what is put into it many times over.

Note that even with all the technology available today, unarmed combat is still taught to all our soldiers, and ninja-like skills are even taught to some of our special forces. The reason is that there is nothing more important than troops on the ground.

Finally, suppose you are in an area you are not allowed to carry weapons and need to defend yourself. Unarmed combat training is worth its weight, as is training in improvised weaponry.