NINJITSU Ninjitsu is the ancient Japanese Art of the Ninja. It is the martial art of choice for the night vagabonds and killers. Ninjitsu unlike it's social counterpart, the Samurai, is an underground class of warriors trained to quickly gain entrance to hire security areas and achieve it's mission. Ninjitsu began more than 800 years ago. Ninja means "stealers - in". Their forte is espionage and assassination, by any means possible. Ninjas were usually trained from childhood and continued learning the art of Ninjitsu from birth. Soon, even the elite Samurai class began to fear the Ninja for their notorious skills. Ninjitsu was practiced in great secrecy. Upon the arrival of Modern Japan, the Ninjitsu class was absorbed into Japan's Secret Service arm of the government. The art of Ninjitsu was later brought to the western world during the 1970's because of the work of Doron Navon and Stephen Hayes. They found a Ninjitsu headmaster living in Japan who was willing to train them. The art of Ninjitsu is also known as "ninpo". Ninpo is a traditional Japanese bujutsu martial art that goes back for tens of centuries. It was developed as a counter culture art to the Samurai Warrior Class and was considered to be anti-government and illegal. Ninpo continues to be practiced today unter the tutelage of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, 34th Grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu Ninjitsu Tradition. Dr. Hatsumi is considered to be the last variable true Ninja Grandmaster having a direct line of decent going back to Feudal Japan. The art of Ninjitsu has no bounds. Their direct aim is assassination and espionage. They use many stealth and killer tactics including ninja stars, throwing knives, smoke bombs, poisons, darts, bow and arrows, karate, wrestling and guerrilla warfare tactics. Ninjitsu is best known for their black uniforms and shurikens. The Ninja specialized in espionage and assassinations. They were killers and vagabonds trained and bred to kill. Ninjitsu originated in the ninth century and continued throughout the history of Japan. The art of the Ninja had much influence from Chinese Martial Arts, especially Chinese martial arts that dealt with killing, stealth espionage, murder and assassinations. In many ways, the Ninja is a direct contradiction and an opposite to the Samurai. Samurais lived by a code of honor. The Ninja had no such rule, where anything was permissible to accomplish their mission including, arson, sabotage, assassinations, poisons and secret murders. The art was banned in 17th Century Japan. The Ninja sword was inferior in quality to the Samurai. Another reason for the poor quality of the swords is that since the ninja was mostly mountain people and outlaws, they could not afford to hire expert sword smiths like the samurai class. Also their own sword smiths did not have access to the right resources to be able to make curved edge swords with well constructed blades. If a Ninja could overcome a samurai he would take his swords, simply because they are better. Although the ninja sword was smaller and poorer quality, it had many uses. The scabbard for instance was made longer than the sword, about 3 to 4 inches longer. At the end of the scabbard there was a hidden compartment that was used to hide small weapons such as spikes, daggers or small amounts of poisons. Another use the sword had was that it could act as a small step by jamming the blade into the ground, the ninja could use the hand-guard as a step to get that extra height needed to scale a wall. Because the blade was not very sharp, the ninja could also use it as a hammer by holding onto the blade (carefully) and hitting with the handle. Also it was common to have the tip of the scabbard come off so it could be used as a snorkel.
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