The Art of Manliness - #290： Everything You Know About Ninjas is Wrong

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so when you hear

00:00:19.260 the word ninjas what do you imagine hooded in masked men in black garb stealthily running

00:00:24.620 across tiled roofs ninja stars how about renegade warriors engaging in a special hand-to-hand

00:00:29.580 combat system against their sworn enemy the samurai if that's what you think when you think

00:00:33.740 of ninjas i'm afraid my guest today on the podcast is here to tell you it's all completely wrong well

00:00:39.480 most of it's completely wrong his name is anthony cummins he has spent his career researching and

00:00:43.940 translating feudal japanese texts on samurai and ninjas his latest book is the true path of the

00:00:49.440 it's a translation of a 17th century text called the shinoniki a field manual for would-be ninjas

00:00:55.600 today on the show anthony uncovers the biggest myths we have in the west about ninjas like the

00:01:00.360 fact there isn't really a ninjutsu fighting system nor were samurai the ninjas sworn enemy and then he

00:01:07.120 gives the real history of these ancient warriors anthony then shares what lessons actual ninjas

00:01:11.740 can teach us folks living in the modern west about psychology interacting with others in business and

00:01:16.520 life while the bad news is that we're going to ruin your childhood conceptions about ninjas in this

00:01:20.700 podcast the good news is that the real story of ninjas is even more fascinating after the show's

00:01:25.700 over check out the show notes at aom.is slash ninjas anthony cummins welcome to the show thank you very

00:01:45.560 much uh so you helped put out this book the true path of the ninja it's a translation of a set of

00:01:53.020 japanese scrolls from the 1600s called the shoninki is that did i pronounce that right yes pretty much

00:01:58.140 yep all right and it's an authentic ninja training manual so before i read this book my conception of

00:02:05.100 ninjas was what i've learned from popular culture here in the united states guys in black using flying

00:02:10.820 you know ninja stars ninja turtles all that stuff but this gave me a completely different view of

00:02:17.380 ninjas and what i love about the book too is that it's sort of like the art of war or the book of

00:02:23.800 five rings it gets very specific about you know ninja things but also have these like overall broad

00:02:29.220 philosophies that you can apply to your life and we'll get into those some of those specifics here in

00:02:33.300 a bit but before we do that can you give us a bit of historical background on ninjas when did ninjutsu

00:02:38.980 begin why did it begin who practice it what the role was in feudal japan yeah no problem basically

00:02:47.460 i had the same i loved ninjas since a kid i'm like pretty much one of those really sad guys was obsessed

00:02:52.560 with it but when i went to japan to study with these so-called ninjas i realized it just wasn't right

00:02:58.360 so i decided to go around and collect as many of the ninja scrolls as possible so um basically what

00:03:06.200 we've come to i was the same i had this idea of what ninja were but it's been totally changed

00:03:10.340 so the first record of the ninja comes in 1375 so there's a there's a document called the tai haki

00:03:18.500 which just talks about they called shinobi originally in fact you should say shinobi no mono instead of

00:03:23.680 ninja but obviously everybody knows ninja um so basically they start in this document and then they

00:03:30.380 just sort of start appearing different documents and the idea is that they're part of the military

00:03:35.660 organization they're the commando spies of japan so when an army was on the move you would literally

00:03:41.280 take with you your commandos your spies your spy networks and people would just send them out all

00:03:46.380 over japan and to get them to gather information i thought one of the one of the myths that that you

00:03:51.360 blew up in this book was you know there's this idea like ninjas versus samurai right that's like that

00:03:56.080 was the ninja's sworn enemy but you talk about in the book like ninjas were oftentimes samurai like

00:04:01.640 that i thought it was really interesting this is one of those that no matter how many times i've told

00:04:06.480 people people just don't seem to get it at the moment but what you've got is samurai is a social class

00:04:11.980 so samurai is one of four things you get samurai at the top then you get farmers then you get um

00:04:17.740 artisans craftsmen and then merchants ninja is not a social position it's a military role it's a job

00:04:24.000 so a ninja could be a samurai or he could be a foot soldier more than likely they were samurai

00:04:29.720 though trained this idea of the ninja peasant is total myth in fact the guy who wrote this is called

00:04:34.920 natori masasumi he's a samurai in fact he's a very high-ranking samurai and nearly 100 of the text

00:04:41.120 that we have left today are all written by samurai so basically this is a training manual you could be a

00:04:46.940 samurai but it was specifically in how to fulfill this role as a spy basically well the best way to look

00:04:53.740 at it if you want to look at from a modern point of view is you have to go and join the army if you

00:04:57.460 or the military if you want to be a spy or a commando so you don't just get your random farmer

00:05:03.040 in the field who's never had any training to be your spy so you would obviously take it from your

00:05:08.280 military class so obviously you get foot soldiers and then you get samurai who are more officers so

00:05:13.940 when you go to special forces ninja are basically special forces so when you go to your special forces

00:05:19.200 you'll say um okay we need an officer from here because he's well trained but they've got this

00:05:23.360 foot soldier here who's a total maniac and we'll go and murder everyone so we'll use him so that's

00:05:29.140 basically how they did it any other myths about ninjas that we have here in the west yeah mainly

00:05:34.040 the uh hand-to-hand combat is your big one it started in the 1960s in japan as a very small thing

00:05:41.280 and it blew up it became massive in the 80s and 90s as the ninja hantan fighting system it just

00:05:48.140 doesn't exist in history it's not there so there isn't like ninjutsu like you can get your black belt

00:05:52.460 in ninjutsu that that is not a real thing that's not a real thing that all started as say in the 80s

00:05:57.280 basically so it's a bit of a problem because we got a lot of um emotional sort of throwback on that

00:06:02.820 because a lot of people spent a lot of time training with these japanese people

00:06:06.140 and to be fair it was just a lot of cashing in on the sort of post bruce lee era yeah actually i

00:06:12.220 have a book i bought a book and i don't have it anymore but i bought it when i was in eighth grade

00:06:16.020 it was like how to be a ninja and it was like this manual it was really cheesy like the photographs

00:06:20.020 were terrible but there's like these weird moves like how to disappear like a ninja there's like a

00:06:24.640 move like monkey steals the peach which is like you grab your opponent's testicles and like i thought

00:06:33.000 it was funny but at the same time i thought it was cool when you're in eighth grade but yeah

00:06:35.860 after i read true path of the ninja that was i've learned that that was no this is where a lot

00:06:41.300 of people get it wrong ninjas did fight there's not there's no doubt about that but they don't have

00:06:45.960 a specific system that only they use and he's passed down in secret they use the same fighting

00:06:50.640 methods as everyone else okay all right gotcha so if anyone says they are a ninja master and they

00:06:55.680 can teach you ninja martial arts do not believe them do not believe it if they're wearing a black

00:07:00.740 karate gi they've got a black belt on and they say they train in the ancient arts of the ninja it was

00:07:05.280 they believe it they're not lying there's no problem there but it was lie they were lied to

00:07:09.920 okay so let's talk about the the shinoki and specifically um big picture what are the the

00:07:16.420 broad themes in this set of scrolls i mean what were the driving principles so if there wasn't

00:07:22.300 ninjutsu martial arts ninjutsu was more of a a way of approaching the world stealthily i guess

00:07:27.560 so what were the big principles behind ninjutsu right so basically an army needs every sort of

00:07:33.940 specialist so you've obviously got your specialist in spearsmanship you've got your cavalry officers

00:07:38.040 and things like that so ninjutsu developed ninjutsu means it's shinobi no jutsu means the skills of the

00:07:44.200 ninja that's all it means and it's an auxiliary art that goes on the side of all your other training

00:07:50.220 so you go and learn horsemanship you'd go and learn um how to create fire how to fight with a spear

00:07:56.320 but then you'd need so you'd pick up the best people for who would do intelligence

00:08:00.200 so those who could speak multiple dialects and languages you can get those who do counter

00:08:05.700 espionage they will double check for spies coming in you get propaganda agents what they'll do is go

00:08:11.120 and spread rumors in other provinces and to try and create a division between the enemy and then you

00:08:16.140 get classic commando style infiltration you know you're sort of um black war paint on and guys going

00:08:21.580 in and they form networks yeah so basically that's they deal with all of that including like special

00:08:28.100 weapons and uh destruction and demolition right so i mean there's like there's books like that here

00:08:33.320 in the modern day like you can buy like vintage cia field manuals for spies pretty much the same thing

00:08:41.180 the good thing about the ninja what makes the ninja so famous and special is the fact that they do uh it's

00:08:46.600 a james bond thing where james bond will be a spy one film or one part of the film and then he's a

00:08:51.760 commando the next part and then he's an assassin the next part and all that seems to be mixing

00:08:55.740 together and that's very much what the ninja trained in and i love to um getting back to some

00:09:00.660 of the myths of the ninja there's one chapter where notori matazumi he writes about the equipment

00:09:05.620 and the clothing a ninja should have on him and like again like we have that idea like he's in all black

00:09:12.080 he's got the mask he's got ninja stars but that's not how it's described here i mean what was the

00:09:16.740 typical wardrobe a ninja was supposed to wear and what kind of equipment did he keep on him right well

00:09:21.920 uh first of all the the ninja star is not it's not real the ninja star does exist but it's not a

00:09:27.860 ninja weapon so uh that came later but basically a ninja would be wearing normal military clothes

00:09:35.080 you've when you see this ninja suit and you've got this image of it you've got to remember that's

00:09:39.040 traditional japanese wear it wasn't out of place there the only thing that's out of place is the

00:09:43.540 hood but even then people wore hoods when they didn't want to go into it or if they didn't want to

00:09:47.780 be seen going into brothels and things like that they could wear a mask so basically a ninja would

00:09:52.640 just wear normal clothes of the day but when he infiltrated in trying to find something lightweight

00:09:57.460 and he might he may or may not cover their face we don't know about that but probably not there's a

00:10:03.440 whole section is dedicated to the art of disguise like how to disguise yourself in different situations

00:10:07.820 as well yeah so you've got two options as a ninja you can either go in infiltration style meaning

00:10:12.720 you know you shouldn't be seen you wear dark clothes and you use magical spells to hide yourself

00:10:18.660 and all that but on the other hand you've got to go into enemy territory walking outwardly walking so

00:10:24.140 you've got to blend in with the crowd so say you need to be a priest or an acrobat or just wear clothes

00:10:30.440 that the people of the other place wear so make sure you've got the same hairstyle as the that province

00:10:35.500 or make sure you're not wearing clothes that seem strange in that province so you've got to do your

00:10:39.940 research beforehand i think they did the same in world war ii didn't they they checked when they

00:10:44.100 sent spies in to france they had to make sure all the clothes were bang on correct right right i love

00:10:50.000 there was a section too like how to look like a sick homeless person right this is like fast for as

00:10:54.900 long as you can and rub dirt on your face and and do that yeah i think even apply burns to your skin

00:11:01.200 and don't cut your nails yeah i think it and as well put things in your mouth and make yourself look as

00:11:06.420 disgusting and as horrible as possible because everybody ignores beggars don't they right right

00:11:11.080 right yeah they just ignore you and besides the clothing what kind of equipment was sort of

00:11:15.140 standard operating procedure for ninja so was it the katana like the sword was that a thing or was

00:11:20.000 that is that a myth well the ninja sword itself doesn't exist they just used normal swords which

00:11:24.820 was fine but uh in the show ninky it says go with a short sword in however the best one to be honest

00:11:31.320 is um that we've now translated about 10 different books on ninjas and a load of ninja manual shonink is

00:11:38.200 just one of them but uh and it has the least amount of tools in it believe it or not uh the other one

00:11:43.640 we've done is the book of ninja has loads of tools and for example climbing ladders collapsible grappling

00:11:49.560 hooks um floats to get you across water all that type of thing so if you need to climb you need to get

00:11:56.200 across a moat in a castle so something like a lifeboat a life boy needs to float you across

00:12:00.480 then spikes to climb up the wall then a grappling hook to get over the last bit of the wall and then

00:12:05.880 maybe uh some hand grenades are used things like that yeah that's crazy and so you mentioned earlier

00:12:10.860 that there were two so ninjas were basically spies there was two ways you could get reconnaissance you

00:12:16.140 could infiltrate and that was done at night or in other ways clandestinely but i thought was

00:12:20.500 interesting the other way was just be out in the open but disguise yourself and it seems like most of the

00:12:25.940 book was dedicated to how to do recover reconnaissance in that more open way yes this is one of the

00:12:32.900 problems we're having the shonink it's to be honest my favorite ninja manual of all time but now we've

00:12:37.120 been digging into it turns out it's only one of 30 manuals overall but three of those 30 are ninja

00:12:43.800 manuals so it's like a peek into the ninja but it assumes you've read the other 29 scrolls from

00:12:49.480 samurai warfare you know from every aspect so some bits do seem missing so in this one it's more

00:12:55.760 about how to because natori masasumi is born in a time of peace just after the wars so and he served

00:13:02.480 one of the most powerful families in japan and he would probably go around checking for rebellions

00:13:07.460 checking if anybody's causing any troubles what i love about this book is that it provides even though

00:13:12.860 it was written in the 1600s is written for ninjas there are these great insights that just common people

00:13:18.760 living in the west in the 21st century can apply themselves particularly on how to interact with

00:13:23.560 people in order to gain information from them because that's a useful thing to have in business

00:13:27.920 or even in just your personal life if you're dating someone so what can we learn from ninjas about

00:13:34.140 interacting with people to get information that we might want from them right basically ninjas did deal

00:13:40.220 with psychology and they tried to investigate their version of psychology and it says that the human mind

00:13:47.180 is divided into two main aspects you've got the mind of man and the mind or the principles of heaven

00:13:53.280 and the idea here is that basically there's what's right and what's wrong and normally people will try

00:13:59.720 their best to to get what benefits them you've got to realize that most people most of the time are

00:14:05.820 not lying but being mistruthful so a ninja's job is to try and get through to what the truth is in the mind

00:14:13.020 so what happens is when you study ninjutsu you end up finding you're realizing when people are lying

00:14:17.780 you end up realizing when people are exaggerating and you start to be able to go beyond what they're

00:14:23.160 saying and construct a big picture of what's happening in the background just through their

00:14:27.320 vocabulary their words they use and also their body language things like that right there's a lot of

00:14:31.680 sections dedicated to how to read body language yes that's one of the bits that's a little bit out of

00:14:36.820 date because he's using an old chinese almost mystical method but yeah absolutely ninjutsu is very much

00:14:42.580 about because you've got to remember that the enemy are trying to hide what they want to do from enemy

00:14:49.020 spies and they don't know who the spies are so this is where we go back to the question that these ninja

00:14:53.380 were walking around in normal clothes getting information because they were you know inside of

00:14:58.940 the enemy province so bit by bit they have to reconstruct from what people say and what people

00:15:04.380 are doing right and i love too there was a bit in there about just understanding people's psychology and

00:15:09.440 like the best places to go for information for example they said in the time of the ninja the

00:15:14.380 best place to go to get information oftentimes was the temple amongst priests what what was it about

00:15:19.300 the the temple that made it such a great place to get information about your enemy most people had to be

00:15:25.320 registered at a temple at more at some points in japan and the temple it's like the church in probably

00:15:30.760 the early 20th century everybody went to the church and had a chat all information was being done

00:15:35.140 there and it actually says in the scrolls it says don't bribe lower level people with gold because

00:15:40.920 they'll be become a bit wary that's too much yet if you offer gold to priests they love it they will

00:15:46.740 lap up as much money as possible and they are the ones in the know they they know what's going on in

00:15:51.620 the community all right so a bit of cynicism there from this absolutely there's actually a quote from an

00:15:58.000 englishman the first englishman who got to uh japan was in the 1600s and he said that the monks

00:16:02.980 just run down on on their day off and get as much silk as they can and posh food and

00:16:07.520 nothing's changed yeah uh i thought another interesting bit of uh psychology that the ninja

00:16:14.600 used there's this interesting section called how to avoid defeating people why have a chapter on how

00:16:20.400 not to defeat your enemy if that's what the whole point of ninjutsu was to get reconnaissance to defeat

00:16:25.360 your enemy yeah that's that's that's good that's a common misconception you don't want to defeat

00:16:30.400 the enemy meaning that the enemy spy or the person you're interrogating so interviewing if you like

00:16:35.860 you don't want to defeat them because they'll close up the idea behind this is when you're in a

00:16:40.140 conversation you need to create an argument a ninja would create an argument and they would say

00:16:45.160 something that was clearly wrong and the the enemy spy or the person they're talking to would correct

00:16:50.440 them and they would have to admit defeat but through correcting them they give away loads of

00:16:55.080 information so this is the difference between losing the points battle but winning the war so

00:17:01.480 you've got to lose lots of little battles so you can gain information and then eventually you put all

00:17:05.720 that information together and move in and get them because most people will not want to lose an

00:17:10.500 argument that's one of the skills of the ninja you have to end up looking stupid and losing so people

00:17:16.420 will get carried away and say too much yeah i thought that was an interesting point uh the the guy

00:17:21.780 repeatedly throughout the book is like look dumber than you actually are i mean that was and it's

00:17:26.840 amazing it's an effective strategy i mean i've read books where leaders in the modern day have taken

00:17:31.980 that approach dwight eisenhower here in the united states he was a really sharp guy but he he often

00:17:37.260 played as himself sort of this rube from kansas who just a country boy by taking on that persona he was

00:17:43.620 able to get more information from people than he otherwise would have it's absolutely they even say you

00:17:49.080 should pick people who visually look stupid as well so people who you just automatically think oh you

00:17:54.100 look stupid but yet they're clever underneath and they play the role of the idiot and they go out as

00:17:58.900 you say as beggars looking stupid but inside they've got phenomenal minds just working over time in

00:18:04.520 multiple different dialects or multiple levels and they're just collecting information by memory as

00:18:09.440 well and so the idea is that you've got that this front of a really stupid silly person but in the

00:18:16.140 background you've got to work excellent right so there was also sections where the ninja were told

00:18:22.680 to find lessons from animals i guess this is a very common thing in ancient asian cultures like learn

00:18:28.820 lessons from the dog or for from the cat or something like that um what were some of these lessons that

00:18:33.740 we find in the shinoki about how ninja can learn from nature and how to approach their work so he in

00:18:40.120 the in the manual he divides it into two here what he says is from four-legged animals by that he means

00:18:45.000 cattle really you know um domestic cattle and by wolves and raccoons and this has got something to do

00:18:51.900 with the traditions in japan in japan a wolf um or sorry a fox a wolf and a raccoon they have magical

00:18:58.160 power sometimes and they um can disguise and mutate themselves so what he's saying here is if you follow

00:19:04.840 the path of the wolf the fox you use deception you go deep into the mountains you'll go clandestine

00:19:12.400 at night and use all that attitude but if you use like the cattle it means let people lead you where

00:19:19.100 you want to go another ninja master called chikamatsu he basically said that most ninjas will

00:19:25.380 automatically try to go and climb over the gate or do this but he said instead why don't you just get a

00:19:30.500 job as a servant to someone who's allowed in that castle and if you remember these guys are mainly

00:19:36.180 samurai so they have to really really lower their sort of standards become a servant to someone who'll

00:19:41.540 probably hit them and hate them and then what happens is when they go through the castle gates

00:19:45.660 they're allowed in they automatically infiltrate without having to risk their lives so that's the

00:19:50.520 idea you divide one is wolves like climb over get in deception or the other one is just go in with

00:19:56.140 someone who's meant to be there be follow be a cattle and be led in right i think you know applying

00:20:00.260 that to our own selves i mean i think the tendency for us in our sort of hyper competitive world is you

00:20:05.460 want to be the wolf right just like be confrontational just get right in there um but the the better way

00:20:12.100 is to be a cow absolutely get led to where you want to be yeah it's less it's less risky isn't it

00:20:17.860 this way chaps okay thanks right right but yeah i mean and it's hard though because you don't want

00:20:22.700 to be put in that subservient role but sometimes you need to do that going back to that idea looking

00:20:26.420 dumber than you really are might hurt your pride a little bit but you have to look at the long game

00:20:31.260 that's exactly back to the same issue with that not to defeat others if you defeat them they close

00:20:36.180 up they stop talking you know if you suddenly have a go at someone and you're clearly more

00:20:40.060 intelligent than they are they'll make an excuse to leave or they'll stop talking whereas if you

00:20:44.940 look more stupid than they are they will just love it and go for it right and there's some sections too

00:20:49.400 about teamwork i guess ideally like what i found that the author was a little bit ambivalent about

00:20:54.060 ninja teams got the idea that if you had a really good ninja with you working it was better but if you

00:20:59.920 had a bad one a bad partner like it made things worse for you so what insights can we learn about

00:21:05.280 teamwork or working with other people from ninjas right so in the in the teamwork area the problem

00:21:11.800 is is if you're infiltrating at night and you're moving into say an enemy house this is basically what

00:21:16.840 he's talking about you need a watchman you need an infiltrator who creeps deep into the enemy and you

00:21:22.840 also need people they'll get ready with swords next to the doors for when everybody starts running out

00:21:27.040 they'll start cutting them down um so what happened was if you have to work as a unit absolutely so

00:21:33.780 practice practice practice because if you don't one of you messes up everybody wakes up starts drawing

00:21:38.860 their weapons and it becomes a bit of a bloodbath really and they don't want that and especially

00:21:43.020 when you're going in open disguise if someone's not good enough they're not speaking well enough or

00:21:47.980 they're just not working right it'll give up the entire team so that was a problem so he his point

00:21:53.240 there is if you can do it alone it's better but if you have to do it in a team you must be really

00:21:58.920 gelled together and like each other as well we've talked to some of the big picture kind of the more

00:22:03.640 the tactics that allow you to get information in a more open way but let's talk about some of the

00:22:08.800 clandestine things those are fun that's like the things we think about when we think ninja so what

00:22:12.500 were some of the tactics ninja used to infiltrate a palace or a building to get information in there

00:22:19.540 well this one we book talks about using sickness so what you do is you walk up you'll knock on a

00:22:25.300 door and you'll be like vomiting or make yourself vomit or look really ill and you say i'm so sorry

00:22:30.880 but what you don't do is you don't push your way in you just say i just need some water that's fine

00:22:35.780 and you take the water and you take refreshment and then you go on your way then what you do is

00:22:40.880 you'll case the joint for around for a few days but then you pretend you've been on your journey you

00:22:46.660 come back with some presents and you go in and say thank you for looking after me i feel better

00:22:50.780 now here are the gifts and then what you do is you map out the internals of the house and you map it

00:22:56.280 by memory and if you get chance you open the locks to the windows and things like that and then what

00:23:01.400 when you say goodbye thank you very much goodbye later on that night when everyone's gone to sleep

00:23:05.840 you'll use the window that you've opened and creep through and then crack on and do what you need

00:23:09.520 to do well there were sections about roof walking that's how we get kind of a stereotype we have

00:23:14.700 of ninjas like they're out in the night walking the tiled roofs but that actually happened that

00:23:18.220 was a thing oh yeah without doubt don't get me wrong what what we need to do is change the image

00:23:22.860 of the ninja it is how we imagine it but it's a little bit different it's not it's more sophisticated

00:23:28.460 and there's two parts so as i said before there's the part where you go in open disguise and then

00:23:32.660 there's like climbing on roofs and so it says you have to walk along the ridge so that all the beams

00:23:37.340 to make sure that you don't make a squeaking noise as you go along or if somebody looks up at you

00:23:42.140 you throw a stone down one side and jump down the other and people will hear the stone and then

00:23:46.420 follow that way as you jump over the fences and move out there was also too like on how to walk

00:23:51.020 when you're in a house because i guess there's a diagram in there how um the mats were arranged in

00:23:56.800 the floor in homes of japan and like i guess it'll the way if you walked on it normally it'd make a lot

00:24:01.320 of noise but if you walked on in a certain way it didn't make as much noise did i read that right

00:24:04.960 yeah you did that's actually though that's an addition from another school that's in the back of the book

00:24:09.000 that's uh from a school called katori shinto ryu but absolutely yeah that's there it's uh not from

00:24:14.060 the manual that's a secret tradition that's passed down by one of the oldest schools in japan

00:24:17.640 but yep ninjas absolutely talk about how to walk in so for example if you're in a marsh you have to

00:24:22.780 pull your toes up very directly up because otherwise if you just push forward you do that squelching sound

00:24:28.240 and then if you're in corridors you have to go along the inside of the corridor and slide your feet

00:24:33.380 gently as so if you're in the middle because if you're in the middle you will um spring on the boards

00:24:38.440 and you'll make creaking sounds and there's even one which we don't really know how realistic is but

00:24:42.940 where you put your hands on the floor and you put your heart your feet on top of your hands and use

00:24:47.660 your hands like almost like a crouch frog type movement that sounds really uncomfortable it does

00:24:54.060 it does sound uncomfortable but it's appeared in two separate manuals now which means and from

00:24:59.000 different times so they must have been doing some and i've had a professional dancer test it and they

00:25:03.500 did it really quite well actually also another thing was to avoid water that was the one thing i saw

00:25:07.740 is like avoid water at all costs but if you do like tread with caution yeah pretty much one of

00:25:13.760 the old techniques they used to use was uh they'd clip the wings of um some waterfowl and they put

00:25:19.640 that on the moat or on you know the water outside a house and when somebody came in it try and fly

00:25:24.720 away but it make a splashy noise because it couldn't fly away and always water gives away your position

00:25:30.040 yeah so they use that as a distraction technique yeah there's also great tidbits in there about how to

00:25:33.920 distract your enemy so they'll go one way like so if you're on a roof you throw a rock on the other

00:25:40.020 side of the roof so they'd go check that out while you're getting out the other way yeah absolutely

00:25:44.360 and another manual states that if you set up chinese firecrackers so when you uh when you leave if

00:25:51.260 somebody sees you you can set fire to the firecrackers and it sounds like muskets are being shot at them

00:25:56.680 so they will stop and start firing back while the ninja runs off in another direction oh and another cool

00:26:02.260 tidbit that i thought was really neat was on how to do reconnaissance how to count people like they

00:26:06.260 would have this elaborate system it wasn't actually an elaborate system of bags it's like you get these

00:26:09.640 bags with different colored rocks and you would transfer them in as you were counting and at the

00:26:15.260 end you can just look at the bag and see automatically how many people were in that building you were at

00:26:19.660 yeah so there's two skills here there's one where if you need to know how many buildings are in a

00:26:23.360 town so if you need to know how many sort of houses are in a town you can get the population number

00:26:27.380 and what you do is you put uh in your sleeve they have long sleeves in japan so you'd put beans yeah

00:26:32.700 and you drop one and you know if there's 100 beans in your sleeve if you're only left with five there's

00:26:37.320 95 houses and then similar when you're counting people you would have like say 10 bags one bag for

00:26:43.380 mounted horsemen one bag for you know gunners and you just yeah pick out the beans so you don't have

00:26:48.240 to actually count just pick the beans out and then count them up at the end yeah it's really clever i

00:26:52.100 thought that was pretty cool it's really yeah really easy and really clever so let's talk about

00:26:56.960 something i had no idea that existed but was uh ninjitsu magic or witchcraft can you talk a bit

00:27:03.960 about that like what what did they believe that this magic could do for them what were some of

00:27:08.920 the spells or talismans that they used to perform this magic obviously it's a medieval society so

00:27:14.940 magic is throughout um natori masazumi himself says don't trust magic too much it's a little bit

00:27:20.300 dark and seedy but he also says don't throw it away but for example in the shonen key it has

00:27:25.220 spells of protection so the idea is that when you go on a mission you'll fast for seven days you'll

00:27:30.360 write out these spells you put them and sometimes they consume them by eating the paper and the idea

00:27:34.980 is that you know the enemies won't see you or capture you but other manuals go really quite dark

00:27:40.080 to be honest there's ones where they actually take out the eyes of dogs living dogs and they'll grind

00:27:45.920 them up and they'll paste them on their foreheads or eye around their eyes and the idea is that you can

00:27:50.460 see better in the dark or that the enemy won't see you so invisibility spells things like that

00:27:55.860 protection spells or uh curses for the enemy so you can curse them like for example one of these

00:28:02.060 schools which is a bit crazy goes into infiltrating people's dreams so ninjas will cast these spells and

00:28:08.100 send dreams to the enemy that will make the enemy really upset the next day for battle that's crazy

00:28:14.000 it is crazy isn't it and there are some of the the spells in the in the scrolls you all translated

00:28:20.900 um so if you want to check that out and you're listening uh you can pick up a copy of the book

00:28:24.880 it's it's pretty interesting the end of the book it's not part of the scrolls as you said earlier i

00:28:29.580 referenced something that wasn't in the scrolls but it was this sort of oral tradition of how to

00:28:33.940 defeat a ninja can you talk a little bit about that who who where did that come from and what were

00:28:39.020 some of the insights on how to defeat ninjas do you mean the entire system at the end

00:28:43.760 yeah the entire system so basically this school been around for about 500 years

00:28:49.160 it's called katori shintori and they had a ninja tradition but the idea is to defeat ninja they

00:28:55.180 themselves said you should never become a ninja because it was a pretty horrible job to do and

00:29:00.680 the idea is that you would set up as many defenses as possible to stop shinobi infiltrating to stop them

00:29:08.120 getting in so for example in that book they in that oral tradition they have a certain smell of burnt

00:29:13.320 powder because a ninja will move forward and he'll throw this powder in the air and what happens is

00:29:18.320 that that floating almost light dust will hide the um outline of a ninja so if you're in the dark the

00:29:24.920 human eye can automatically see what looks like an outline even when it's a tree you think is that a

00:29:29.400 man you know because it sees the shape of a human so what they do is they try to hide the shapes so it's

00:29:36.100 just skills like that basically gotcha and so we we mentioned earlier that like ninja martial arts

00:29:42.060 does not exist but i mean are there individuals where this idea of ninjutsu has still been passed

00:29:47.800 on and like it's still practiced as a philosophy i don't know if it's a philosophy be a right word but

00:29:53.020 is it still exist in some form today that is uh the big that's the emotional question i think that's

00:29:58.460 out there there's a big ninja community out there and they obviously some of them practice

00:30:02.500 hantan combat and some of them don't but i would say and my honest opinion is and i've searched for

00:30:08.460 these there is no it's all died out there are now three japanese people around three japanese people

00:30:14.560 who claim to be the last ninja but none of them have any proof whatsoever all of their stories only go

00:30:21.320 back to like the 1960s 1970s and they don't really fit history it's a little bit strange to be honest

00:30:28.840 yeah it is going back to sort of the uh the idea of ninja the history of it was the skill of ninjutsu

00:30:35.020 was this something that was passed on from say father to son or was it something that you were

00:30:40.360 just trained to do like you were brought into like spy school ninja school and you were taught how to

00:30:45.600 be a ninja if that was your you were called to do that yeah basically a different version so you know

00:30:50.980 that one we just talked about where it was the uh how to defeat a ninja tradition so that's only a

00:30:55.820 very small amount in a samurai sword school so from one end the smallest end they've got these like

00:31:00.940 how to defeat a ninja or how to stop them coming after you uh just passed on and right at the other

00:31:06.700 end sorry right at the other end you have full-on schools and these are places called iga and koka

00:31:12.780 they're different cities or towns if you like areas in japan and those guys were brought up in their

00:31:19.380 samurai families and their speciality was ninjutsu they were only passed on from like you know within the

00:31:25.160 family so from one end you get highly specialized ninja uh right to the other end where little

00:31:30.620 tidbits are passed on in schools also in in this one the shonen here it's basically he has picked the

00:31:38.200 best people so this guy natori masazumi was teaching in a place called kishu and when um he got samurai

00:31:46.420 students come in those who were really good or they suited ninjutsu he would teach them ninjutsu as time

00:31:51.820 went on so we've learned a lot i think a lot of people's childhood illusions or dreams were shattered

00:31:57.680 in this podcast destroyed however though guys i would like to say if you're listening honestly i was

00:32:05.360 one of those guys i was like childhood that's what ninjas do but even though it's difficult this

00:32:11.180 historical ninjutsu is difficult to understand it's far better than the fantasy by a long shot so you've

00:32:16.480 spent years researching ninja ninjutsu all this research that you've done what are some like

00:32:21.780 lessons that you think we can take from the ninja the life of the ninja that we can apply to our own

00:32:27.200 lives even if we're not clandestine spies we're just average joes making our way through 21st century

00:32:32.440 western world here what are some lessons that guys today can apply from their lives from the ninja

00:32:37.840 the thing about historical ninjutsu obviously you can't do it for real because it's highly illegal

00:32:42.600 that just wouldn't do but what i found studying this is it reshapes your mind when you start at

00:32:48.840 the beginning of samurai training and you go all the way through to the ninja training you start to

00:32:53.620 think differently you start to look at the world differently different things become you know more

00:32:58.800 important different things go off the other side so i would say the number one thing people can take

00:33:03.640 from ninjutsu is how to reconstruct the way you think and how you re-approach the world absolutely i think

00:33:10.740 once you've done the train or once you go through it you come out with a much more structured mental

00:33:15.720 attitude definitely i love that well anthony where can people learn more about the book and your other

00:33:20.600 work right if i could say to everyone basically if you want to go to my website you can use www.natori.co.uk

00:33:27.940 which is n-a-t-o-r-i and just click anthony cummings and you'll see there but what i would say guys

00:33:35.200 i've been working now for 10 years and i've been going backwards and forwards to japan

00:33:38.980 and i'm trying to reconstruct what we understand about the samurai and the ninja so if possible

00:33:44.620 of course you can just go onto amazon and type in true path of the ninja and i'd recommend guys you

00:33:50.860 get the red paperback because it's the most up-to-date version but if if you find that

00:33:55.820 interesting then i would say if you want to start at the beginning go to a book called the book of

00:34:00.680 samurai it is the first work natori masasumi writes and we're publishing that from volume one all the

00:34:06.860 way to volume 10 and the show ninky will be republished in it for those guys who just are brand new

00:34:12.440 all ninjas brand new everything i would definitely definitely recommend a book called samurai and ninja

00:34:18.080 by anthony cummings i just say that because there's lots of different books out there with similar titles

00:34:22.760 that will give the absolute beginner the full lot and lastly if you're absolutely obsessed with ninjas

00:34:29.180 i would say uh go for a book called the book of ninja or another book called eager and coca ninja

00:34:35.920 skills with that guys you can learn everything you know i would be grateful so you guys could help

00:34:40.680 out because we're a self-funded team and the only way we get money is through book sales so thank you

00:34:45.180 very much for the obviously opportunity through this podcast anthony cummins thank you for your time it's

00:34:49.580 been a pleasure thank you very much my guest it was anthony cummins he helped translate the book

00:34:53.940 the true path of the ninja it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also

00:34:58.460 find more information about anthony's work at anthony cummins.com that's a-n-t-o-n-y-c-u-m-m-i-n-s.com

00:35:06.740 and you can find more information about his other books he's published check out his books about the

00:35:11.180 samurai really fascinating as well and also make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is

00:35:16.520 slash ninjas where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper in this topic

00:35:20.620 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manliness and advice

00:35:31.980 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:35:35.960 show i'd really appreciate if you give us a review on itunes or stitchers that really helps us out and

00:35:39.860 gets the word out about the show until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:35:50.620 you

The Art of Manliness - March 28, 2017

#290： Everything You Know About Ninjas is Wrong

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript