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Hey, I am responding about the "ninjas are made-up posts." Now I am not gonna try and prove they are real, but give my opinion as to why I think they did exist.
Also, read my "I Am A Ninja" post; I myself was not claiming that I am a ninja, it refers to a website. It is kind of hilarious. Check it out.
Anyways, Masaaki Hatsumi currently teaches ninjutsu in Japan and he is supposedly the only person in the world who really has mastered the art, and truly knows how to teach it. But I have read a lot about him from Stephen K. Hayes, who trained with him in the 70s, over in Japan. I find it hard to believe that the amount of martial artists who go train with him and find how he can blow away their moves, that he just "made up" that art.
It was mentioend in one of the arguments that "empty-handed ninja arts are bullshit" because the samurai were armed with multiple weapons. In Hayes books, he said a ninja would never, ever fight unarmed. They were just trained in unarmed techniques for when they could be utilized, like sneaking up and choking someone or snapping their neck, or something like that. Otherwise, a ninja never went into any mission or combat unarmed. Ninja also carried multiple weapons.
Samurai had honor to hold as warriors. Ninja held no honor. A ninja's sword was plain, not highly adorned with carvings or blessings of any kind. Ninja used whatever means necessary to accomplish their objectives. And ninja and samurai killed each other all throughout their history while in Japan. As for black garb, that was for stealth. Ninja would practice for hours on end moving through all types of terrain, to learn how to move stealthily. The Native Americans were also capable of this. The ninja also highly attuned their senses of hearing, smell, etc...they could smell a tremendous amount of different things, so if moving in darkness, they would know the terrain they were walking on. Many South American tribes have this type of proficiency, where at the age of 12, their children can smell plant types from 10 feet away, out of a variety of thousands. Ninja were trained from youth at running, jumping, balancing, and stealth tactics. Unarmed fighting was part of training for assassination and to develop strength and base for weapons training, which came later on.
Ninja were completely developed natural people. They held no special powers. They just devoted their lives to completely devloping their minds and bodies, and in the process, made a living as assassins. Many ninja posed as monks, or samurai, or even farmers. When ninja became popular, the media portrayed them as these warriors who could flip all around with magical ninja powers. And ninja could flip around, they were highly trained in tumbling skills as well, but that was just part of their training. Even in Shaolin, they say the tumbling skills are just part of the physical training, they are not for fighting. If you read the training manuals of the Medieval Ages, you will find that knights actually turned somersaults even, with their armor on, for conditioning. Ninja just never would leap out of a bush, backflip on over to their opponent, and do a bunch of jumping kicks to take them out. That is the media.
Even in the XBOX's awesome videogame, Ninja Gaiden, where the ninja Ryu Hayabusa carries the beautiful "Dragon Sword" on a quest to retrieve the "Dark Dragon Sword" and he fights demons and all that and can block bullets, and flip all around and dispatch enemies, the maker of the game, Tomonobu Itagaki even said he just did that because fantasy ninjas are awesome, and in a videogame that stuff is awesome. But he said he knows real ninjas were nothing like that. He just did that to make the game cool (by the way, if anyone in here has the game and is one of those who doesn't like it, I am not gonna argue with you, so if you think it sucks, don't expect me to argue in response if you post said opinion).
Samurai were B.S.ed by the Japanese a lot, from what I understand. The samurai, although they held honor, it was only for their families. They did not "love" the sword the way they are made out to, and used archery a lot. they were also bullies, and sadistic killers. They hated ninja, and ninja hated them. But the Japanese decided to make the samurai all "mystical," and "honor-loving" for the West to pick up on the martial arts. Same with China and their tourist section for the martial arts training of Shaolin.
Ninja also specifically trained in meditative arts to develop incredible powers of concentration and focus. They also trained to never, ever, "want" to kill anyone when they were in the process of doing so. That way, when sneaking up on someone to assassinate them, if they had to, or when aiming at them fro ma distance with a projectile weapon, the enemy would not be able to sense their "want" to kill them because the ninja emitted none. So whether or not that mind stuff is real or not, the ninja believed it was and trained so that no one could sense their presense. They also trained to be able to sense the presense of others so they would know if they were being watched by someone with harmful intent.
But I see no reason as to why ninja could not have been real. I also understand that ninjutsu is just the arts overall of the ninja. The fighting arts of the ninja are taijutsu and ju-taijutsu (grappling art of the ninja). Ninja had hypnotic arts as well and stealth tactics.
As for Korea's hawrang warriors, remember, a whole lot of Korean martial arts knowledge was lossed during the Japanese occupation during 1910 to 1945. And Japan literally tried to destroy Korea's culture during that time. The Japanese also banned all martial arts practice in Korea while they were there. To say that there is little knowledge of the Hwarang warriors or whatnot and thus they are baloney I think is kind of ignorant because the knowledge was all lost. You're talking 35 years approx. of a culture literally almost being destroyed by the Japanese, and being banned from practicing martial arts. A great deal of knowledge, and thus history, was lossed.
The ninja died out as their services were eventually no longer needed anymore. But ninja armour and such does remain in existence. Ninja had battlefield armour, though it was much plainer than that of the samurai. And Masaaki Hatsumi teaches in Japan as far as I know, continuously. I am sure if he was full of it, someone would have shot him down by now.
As for ninja being monks, ninja and monks are pretty much the same, just ninja focused on developing themselves to be better people, but not morally. They killed whoever they were payed to kill. And ninja were not religious. But otheriws,e both monks and ninjas trained constantly in martial arts.
Also, according to what I read, the ninja's arts are NOT fully elite, that is WHY they were so sneaky oftentimes. Like I read that the ninja knew their sword techniques would never be as great as the samurai. The samurai were the sword masters of Japan. But ninja used unconventional fighting techniques against the samurai. That is also why the Mongols, when they fought the samurai, the samurai lossed oftentimes. Their methods of fighting were too specific.
So don't think the ninja's martial arts are supposed to be this super-elite, unbeatable artform of fighting either. It is just a very lethal, highly effective one that emphasizes practicality as best as one can manage.
On a final note, I don't think there would be too much history that PROVES the existence of a type of "warrior" that made it their life's goal to remain hidden and secret. Ninja didn't have huge temples or shrines or anything like that. It is the existence of their martial art that proves they existed, I would think.
Also, read my "I Am A Ninja" post; I myself was not claiming that I am a ninja, it refers to a website. It is kind of hilarious. Check it out.
Anyways, Masaaki Hatsumi currently teaches ninjutsu in Japan and he is supposedly the only person in the world who really has mastered the art, and truly knows how to teach it. But I have read a lot about him from Stephen K. Hayes, who trained with him in the 70s, over in Japan. I find it hard to believe that the amount of martial artists who go train with him and find how he can blow away their moves, that he just "made up" that art.
It was mentioend in one of the arguments that "empty-handed ninja arts are bullshit" because the samurai were armed with multiple weapons. In Hayes books, he said a ninja would never, ever fight unarmed. They were just trained in unarmed techniques for when they could be utilized, like sneaking up and choking someone or snapping their neck, or something like that. Otherwise, a ninja never went into any mission or combat unarmed. Ninja also carried multiple weapons.
Samurai had honor to hold as warriors. Ninja held no honor. A ninja's sword was plain, not highly adorned with carvings or blessings of any kind. Ninja used whatever means necessary to accomplish their objectives. And ninja and samurai killed each other all throughout their history while in Japan. As for black garb, that was for stealth. Ninja would practice for hours on end moving through all types of terrain, to learn how to move stealthily. The Native Americans were also capable of this. The ninja also highly attuned their senses of hearing, smell, etc...they could smell a tremendous amount of different things, so if moving in darkness, they would know the terrain they were walking on. Many South American tribes have this type of proficiency, where at the age of 12, their children can smell plant types from 10 feet away, out of a variety of thousands. Ninja were trained from youth at running, jumping, balancing, and stealth tactics. Unarmed fighting was part of training for assassination and to develop strength and base for weapons training, which came later on.
Ninja were completely developed natural people. They held no special powers. They just devoted their lives to completely devloping their minds and bodies, and in the process, made a living as assassins. Many ninja posed as monks, or samurai, or even farmers. When ninja became popular, the media portrayed them as these warriors who could flip all around with magical ninja powers. And ninja could flip around, they were highly trained in tumbling skills as well, but that was just part of their training. Even in Shaolin, they say the tumbling skills are just part of the physical training, they are not for fighting. If you read the training manuals of the Medieval Ages, you will find that knights actually turned somersaults even, with their armor on, for conditioning. Ninja just never would leap out of a bush, backflip on over to their opponent, and do a bunch of jumping kicks to take them out. That is the media.
Even in the XBOX's awesome videogame, Ninja Gaiden, where the ninja Ryu Hayabusa carries the beautiful "Dragon Sword" on a quest to retrieve the "Dark Dragon Sword" and he fights demons and all that and can block bullets, and flip all around and dispatch enemies, the maker of the game, Tomonobu Itagaki even said he just did that because fantasy ninjas are awesome, and in a videogame that stuff is awesome. But he said he knows real ninjas were nothing like that. He just did that to make the game cool (by the way, if anyone in here has the game and is one of those who doesn't like it, I am not gonna argue with you, so if you think it sucks, don't expect me to argue in response if you post said opinion).
Samurai were B.S.ed by the Japanese a lot, from what I understand. The samurai, although they held honor, it was only for their families. They did not "love" the sword the way they are made out to, and used archery a lot. they were also bullies, and sadistic killers. They hated ninja, and ninja hated them. But the Japanese decided to make the samurai all "mystical," and "honor-loving" for the West to pick up on the martial arts. Same with China and their tourist section for the martial arts training of Shaolin.
Ninja also specifically trained in meditative arts to develop incredible powers of concentration and focus. They also trained to never, ever, "want" to kill anyone when they were in the process of doing so. That way, when sneaking up on someone to assassinate them, if they had to, or when aiming at them fro ma distance with a projectile weapon, the enemy would not be able to sense their "want" to kill them because the ninja emitted none. So whether or not that mind stuff is real or not, the ninja believed it was and trained so that no one could sense their presense. They also trained to be able to sense the presense of others so they would know if they were being watched by someone with harmful intent.
But I see no reason as to why ninja could not have been real. I also understand that ninjutsu is just the arts overall of the ninja. The fighting arts of the ninja are taijutsu and ju-taijutsu (grappling art of the ninja). Ninja had hypnotic arts as well and stealth tactics.
As for Korea's hawrang warriors, remember, a whole lot of Korean martial arts knowledge was lossed during the Japanese occupation during 1910 to 1945. And Japan literally tried to destroy Korea's culture during that time. The Japanese also banned all martial arts practice in Korea while they were there. To say that there is little knowledge of the Hwarang warriors or whatnot and thus they are baloney I think is kind of ignorant because the knowledge was all lost. You're talking 35 years approx. of a culture literally almost being destroyed by the Japanese, and being banned from practicing martial arts. A great deal of knowledge, and thus history, was lossed.
The ninja died out as their services were eventually no longer needed anymore. But ninja armour and such does remain in existence. Ninja had battlefield armour, though it was much plainer than that of the samurai. And Masaaki Hatsumi teaches in Japan as far as I know, continuously. I am sure if he was full of it, someone would have shot him down by now.
As for ninja being monks, ninja and monks are pretty much the same, just ninja focused on developing themselves to be better people, but not morally. They killed whoever they were payed to kill. And ninja were not religious. But otheriws,e both monks and ninjas trained constantly in martial arts.
Also, according to what I read, the ninja's arts are NOT fully elite, that is WHY they were so sneaky oftentimes. Like I read that the ninja knew their sword techniques would never be as great as the samurai. The samurai were the sword masters of Japan. But ninja used unconventional fighting techniques against the samurai. That is also why the Mongols, when they fought the samurai, the samurai lossed oftentimes. Their methods of fighting were too specific.
So don't think the ninja's martial arts are supposed to be this super-elite, unbeatable artform of fighting either. It is just a very lethal, highly effective one that emphasizes practicality as best as one can manage.
On a final note, I don't think there would be too much history that PROVES the existence of a type of "warrior" that made it their life's goal to remain hidden and secret. Ninja didn't have huge temples or shrines or anything like that. It is the existence of their martial art that proves they existed, I would think.
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