Ninja Martial Arts Techniques

Real Ninja

by: Hirohisa Oda

Amazon Price: $15.99 (as of 06/03/2012)

The Ninja were famous for their secrecy and their ability to remain hidden - even to the extend that many of the people who were their contemporaries in feudal Japan believed that they literally had the supernatural power of invisibility. It is exactly this air of mystery, illusion and supernatural power which fascinates us still today, but unfortunately it is also this which means that in many areas accurate relaible information about who the Ninja's actually were and what they did can be thin on the ground. These two facts combined - the lack of information and our fascination with their mysterious practices and powers - have created a situation where there are many hundreds of books out there which have been written about the ninja, most of which contain predominantly reconstruction, speculation, or a narrow focus on modern ninjutsu, which is only one part of the arts practiced by the historical ninja

Dr Hirohisa Oda's book 'Real Ninja' is the best remedy to this lamentable situation that I have found. Aiming to "describe the ninja as they actually were, rather than the movie industry perspective" Real Ninja is the most historically accurate book on the Ninja that I have ever read (and I have read a few, as I have been utterly hooked on ninja stuff since I was about 12). It also contains many fascinating historical stories anbd examples which really serve to bring the ninja to life in your mind as you are reading.

The book begins with an overview of the history of the ninja, tracing it's development into different branches. This includes some really great stories about real life Ninja's, as well as the Lords and Samurai who employed their services for espionage to defeat their enemies. It also looks at how the famous text Sun Tzu, or the Art of War, laid the foundations for the the emergence of the Ninja in the first place, the kind of people who became ninja's, and how they got around the rigid class structure which Japan had at that time to mix with (and spy on) people from every level of society.

I was interested to read about the use of ninja groups in full scale battles as guerilla fighters to go behind enemy lines and disrupt things or scount for intelligence, as this is quite different to how they are usually portrayed as lone operators sneaking around at night.

Later on in the book there is a section about Ninja equipment and weapons, which I found to be very thorough and which included a couple of things that I hadn't seen in other books, such as the Shikoro, a small almond shaped saw that could be used to cut through wooden floors and walls to gain entry. This leads into a discussion of ninja houses and the hidden features that would be built into them, as well as a look at the temples that they built and used.

There is also a section on some of the actual techniques used by the ninja, although this is quite limited. In summary I would say that if you are looking for a 'how to' book that will teach you ninja fighting and espionage techniques which you can actually learn and use yourself, then this is not the book for you. There are many other books which focus on this aspect, and you can take a look at the links I've included near the bottom of the page for this. But anyone with even a mild curiosity about who the real ninja were will find the tales of real ninja's and what they did, as well as the legends which were spun around them, absolutely fascinating. Likewise if you are looking for a historically accurate and reliable text about this fascinating period in Japan's history and the role that the ninja played in it then you won't find a better author than Hirohisa Oda.