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Silent assassins, vagabond thieves, master less samurai, and all round
bad guy. That’s the image portrayed of the Ninja in movies and the
media ever since the Ninja Boom of the 1980’s, and it’s an image
that’s hard to shack off.

Like most things that come out of Hollywood, they tend to go for the
flashy, most over hyped parts, and then blow it up a bit more. You
only have to look at the most recent World War II films released in
the past few years to see that.

Well the historical Ninja were just a group of people living in the
Iga region of Japan, who didn’t want to live like samurai. That
appears to be their only crime.

They created their own system of self defence, and strategies that
enabled them to survive for over a thousand years to this day. These
strategies are now taught around the world thanks to the 34th
Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi.

Masaaki Hatsumi has many personal students around the world teaching
Ninjutsu, the system created by the Ninja, including 8th Dan Black
belt Brian McCarthy, of the Bujinkan Brian Dojo, who teaches
traditional Ninjutsu throughout Europe. Here in Portsmouth, Ninjutsu
is taught by Andrew Thomas, 4th Dan, who has studied under Brian for
18 years, as well in Japan with the grandmaster.

Andrew has been teaching in Portsmouth, Bognor Regis and Brighton, for
18 years, and has recently celebrated the 1st anniversary of the new
Dojo location at Warrior Crafts in Highland road with two days of
training and a meal at Rickshaws.

Unlike nearly all the other martial arts, Ninjutsu evolved over a
thousand years and is still evolving. Only recently a new throw was
created by a student of the Grandmaster, so that he could throw a man
much bigger than him. The throw is named after him.
Ninjutsu isn’t the system portrayed in films and television. In fact,
until you’ve actually done some, it looks nothing like you would
expect it to. It’s very subtle, and it works.

With Karate you can see the punches and kicks, in Judo you can see the
throw. In Ninjutsu, we try to keep things hidden. Why let the person
who has just attacked you know what you can do to defend yourself?
The other big difference between the other martial arts and Ninjutsu,
is that we are not a sport. Ours is a system that was created over a
period of time to protect the people of a certain area in Japan, not
as a way of keeping fit, and entertaining others.

Does Ninjutsu have a place in a modern society? Yes, of course it
does. No only is it a way of keeping yourself active the 33rd
Grandmaster trained the day he died, at 82 but in this world with
growing crime rates, protecting yourself and your loved ones is always
a good thing.

We can punch and kick, throw and lock joints, we can defend against
weapon attacks, as well as learn how to use weapons such as the humble
stick effectively. We can fight standing up, sitting down, on the
floor, in confined spaces and in the open. We train to be able to
operate in all environments, and to learn to perceive threats before
they become dangerous.

You can’t expect to be good in a few weeks, but you will start picking
things up. If all you learn the first week is how not to be hit, then
you’ve learnt a very good lesson. A lot of martial arts give out
grading’s like sweets, but it doesn’t mean that you have any real
ability, just a nice coloured belt.

In the Bujinkan Brian Dojo, you will only be graded when you have the
ability of the grade. This doesn’t mean that you could walk into the
roughest pub in town and take anyone on, it means that you can
recognise threats, and avoid them.

But what does Ninjutsu mean to me? It’s more than a martial art, but
I don’t want to give you the old line, “It’s a way of life”, although
to the Ninja of past it really was. To the 21st Century Ninja, it
means more than that. It means training with a group of friends in a
relaxed, fun atmosphere, with people from all walks of life from the
taxman, to the Kebab man, to the masters degree student. It means
learning how to move your body in a way that is natural to how your
body wants to move.

As an example of the training given, on the anniversary weekend the
training was split into learning the basics on the Saturday, to
defending yourself on the street on Sunday. Saturday was about how to
move so that you can set up throws, locks and the sort of subtle thing
that would leave your opponent on the ground will you get away.
Sunday was about how you would do that in your normal clothes, with
the restricted movement you get from modern clothes, to learn how to
do all the things you did on Saturday, with less movement because
you’re wearing jeans. It gives you a new perspective on how you
behave.

We learn how to use the more traditional weapons such as the sword,
and the spear, and how to defend ourselves against such weapons. For
the 21st Century Ninja, this would be a chair, a baseball bat, or a
snooker cue.

If you want to learn how to disappear in a cloud of smoke like the
movie ninja’s, you’d be better off speaking to Paul Daniels. Movie’s
are movie’s, real life is more interesting.

To finish, I’ll give you some wise words written on new years day,
1891 by the 32nd Grandmaster;

1. Know the wisdom of being patient during times of inactivity.
2. Choose the course of justice as the path for your life.
3. Do not allow your heart to be controlled by the demands of
desire, pleasure or dependence.
4. Sorrow pain and resentment are natural qualities to be found
in life. Therefore work to cultivate an immovable spirit.
5. Hold in your heart the importance of family loyalty, and
pursue the literary and martial arts with balanced determination.
Now does that sound like the assassin, thief and vagabonds of
Hollywood?

Learn more about every aspect of martial arts here.