Who are these sword instructors on movie sets?

[Ray_McCullough]

The ninja attack had a lot of action ,but 1 ninja hiding in his bathroom would have done the job and left with out any one knowing till the next day.

I was in recruit training for the fire department at the time the movie came out. One of the recruits went on and on about how cool Tom Cruise was. I got him all riled up when I pointed out that they made the bad guys the good guys in the movie. LOL

It was fun raining on his parade. He was as full of him self as Tom Cruise is.LOL

[Logan Weed]

I really like that movie. It may not have been historically accurate but I felt it was pretty culturally accurate. As movies go the combat was pretty solid as well IMO.

And what exactly is wrong with the waster duel? You think Algren should have won? How? Why? He's an officer in a modern military, how much sword training do you think they had? He probably had plenty of combat experience with the weapon but not against another sword. His opponent has vastly more training and probably experience in swordfighting, a victory for Algren would have been as implausible as a Samurai beating him in a musket loading contest.

And you know, you can make a lot of progress in something practicing all day, every day for four months straight!

I don't train in the sabre but I imagine I could become quite proficient in four months given my experience with a hand and a half sabre.

I think if that movie had somehow taken place in Europe and concerned a pocket of traditional knights clashing with modern Europe none of you would have any problem with any of it. Ahh, but because it concerns Japan it's obviously overhyped, ninja crazed nonsense eh?

Edit: How and considering it was not a sabre fight, but rather a club fight I should think a two handed grip would hold a significant advantage over Algrens native one handed sabre training.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

actually because you are new here, you have not had a chance to hear us ripping apart all the "knight" movies as well, like Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, lord of the rings etc....so no. it's not just because of the Japan thing.

Like I said, go watch it again, in the first battle he is kicking but against pole arms, katana's and some other assorted arms, and since I have sparred against pole arms plenty of times, I can say from some expirence that it is very difficult, so he should have had no problem putting up a better fight than when he faced of in the "waster duel" scene.

I did like some of the training footage though, and often say to myself "no mind" when I am training--ok, not really but I thought I'd throw you a bone- Aaron P

[Jeremy Martin]

Oh yeah, if it was knights then they could have taken down abrams and we'd be ok with it.

The guy did fight native americans, so I kinda figured he had experince against various sorts of melee weapons.

I thought showing how good that samurai guy was with the bow and arrow was more realistic then having every samurai be a master swordsman.

"The ninja attack had a lot of action ,but 1 ninja hiding in his bathroom would have done the job and left with out any one knowing till the next day."

Actually, the ninja could have just teleported into his bedroom while he slept.

[Justin Lompado]

Haha exactly.

[Justin Lompado]

"Actually, the ninja could have just teleported into his bedroom while he slept."

--> To play Devil's advocate here, and with the risk of going seriously off-topic, much much much fake hype surrounds ninja as well. If you ever get the chance to seriously learn about them you'll come to respect them for the enourmous variety of skills they had to employ and master to stay alive. And don't think they can't fight an open battle either (I'm not saying you were doing any of this but just to be clear). Just throwin' that out there.

[Randall Pleasant]

Justin Lompado wrote:
If you ever get the chance to seriously learn about them you'll come to respect them for the enourmous variety of skills they had to employ and master to stay alive.

If the Devil's advocate wishes to play then he must be willing to be taken to task. What are the non-hype sources about the ninja that you have been studying?

[Allen Johnson]

id be interested in some real documentation as well. Its so hard to find legitimate info on ninjas.

[Ray_McCullough]

Hey

This is off topic ,but if anyone wants to dicuss we can do it by private message or if its allright with one of the moderators maybe we could open a new thread.

Someone let me know if Interested.

I studied what would be considered "Ninja arts" for 2 1/2 years.

[Jeremy Martin]

Oh, I don't disrespect them. Just the hype around them. Anyone who practices assassination, sabotage, and intelligence gathering in hostile locations for a living would surely be fairly competent and have a good deal of skills under their belt. If they lived for any length of time that is. I'd just have to imagine.

And yeah, I'm sure many of them could win an 'open' fight. There's nothing magical required for kicking someone's ass(a new quotable phrase!). Despite all samurai having l33t katana skillz.

[Ray_McCullough]

The "Hype" was used by ninja as a psycological tool. People who teach the "hype" as truth are not "legitimate".

Ninja were on the battlefield and considered Bushi (warriors), but only some were in the samurai class.

In class we learned 8 samurai ryu and 1 ninja ryu. What is considered ninja arts are techiques on sneaking in to enemy camp, gathering info, what to do if spotted and how to sneak out of camp. The shuko (climbing claws) were not worn in to battle, but if while in the enemy camp you are spotted and likely wearing the shuko, you have learned techniques to fight with them.

The samurai on patrol who spotted a shadow in the camp and attacked it, has what he thinks are claws sink in to his arm,has his sword swollowed up by the darkness, and fills a hand as hard as iron hit him, will tell wild stories of a demon attack to his buddys.

" hey bubba, I got got last night....!"

[Justin Lompado]

I can't say that much for "documentation" of ninjas, I suppose because either I am just ignorant of it or their arts were passed down almost entirely through oral and demonstrative traditions. I would assume they would keep some records as relics or advanced-level study material but that's all I can see in the way of documentation we posess.

--> In terms of readings I can only really recommend you search a lot yourself because I don't beleive there's much out there. I have yet to search in-depth on the internet, but haven't come across anything great there. You might want to look in some older books on martial arts, because the ninja tradition in Japan is all but extinct, so anone who will have studied with a real master is already a rare commodity. Even in Japan itself the somewhat "typical" image of the ninja prevails over the real fact. Don't forget also that this is in part design, because think of how much less effective ninja would have been if people knew everything about them the way they did for samurai. So, you might want to check out some older books on martial arts as a whole (and this means they will unlikley include any WMA), but be aware that there are some that offer only short descriptions of basically no detail, and while these may not really put forth the hollywood image of the ninja they don't exactly help in clearing it up. I would recommend as a good start reading "The Ninja and their Secret Fighting Art" by Stephen K. Hayes. He has appeared in at least one television show, but even if you have seen it or anything like it I still recommend the book. He was (to the best of my knowledge) the first American to get a real ninjutsu eductaion from a real ninjustsu master from a legitimate ryu in Japan. Beware of books that focus on ninja fighting skills too. There may be some good books on that that I am unaware of, but there are some that are a waste of money. A friend of mine purchased a book after I had explained some things about the ninja to him, and it was terrible, just a guy in a black mask showing you how to sneak up on and kill people with a concealed knife or shaken (sorry I couldn't give the title). What it seems to me you are interested in is historical, tactical, and for lack of a better term cultural information on the ninja. I also would not get your hopes up of discovering some great new and undisclosed truths about the ninja, I would say we are all beyond that phase of thought when it comes to martial arts. You will find them to be pragmatic, simple, and effective at what they do. There are no mysterious secrets, just illusions given with the purpose of projecting and ingraining such an image. The truth is plain, straightforward, simple, and a welcome clearing in the mist of rumor and superstition.

--> The purpose of my previous post was just to point out that the ninja weren't just secret spies but well-trained and effective martial arists and combatants, and in many respects on par with their samurai neighbors.

--> Sorry if this doesn't help but it's been a while since I've read about the ninja so im doing this from memory.

[Allen Johnson]

This is meant in no way as a knock to any of the above posters (is that a real term?) but...
This is kind of what I'm talking about. Whenever you hear 'ninja' stories its always just that- hearing stories. I still havent seen any documentation to historical writings or texts. It's always 'I read somewhere...' or 'My sensi told me...' Never do you hear, "on page __ of the ____ text it says...'. Over the weekend I bought a copy of Nathaniel's Nutmeg, which is one of the few books I have heard that supposedly has accounts of european and japanese conflicts. So we'll see...

[Justin Lompado]

Well, like I said I do not know if any such documentation exists and if it does we will most likley be unaware of its prescence, let alone have real access to it. But by no means give up searching, because it would be great if you did find something.

"It's always 'I read somewhere...' or 'My sensi told me...'"

--> Obviously that is what you want to avoid. Anyone claiming to have a real ninja sensei is lying to your face.

In regards to European and Japanese conflicts, I can't even beging to speculate. I know for sure that there was a battle off the coast of Bintang, near Singapore between Japanese and British sailors in 1604. The British, as we would expect, carried the day.

[Gene Tausk]

This post is now off-topic. Discussion of EMA are fine if they are used to compare to WMA or the historical swordsmanship arts of Europe. This does neither.

If the thread is not going to head in this direction, then let's just close it out.


----------------->>>>>>>>>>>>gene tausk
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