Okay. I’ve tried to e-mail your site a number of times, but have been interrupted, or ignored. Please understand that I do not intend this rudely in any way. I only wish to alert you to the staggering inaccuracy on your Ninjutsu page, in that almost all of your information is grossly erroneous. I guess it would be best to go through your information paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraph 1: Ninjutsu does not emphasize stealth or camouflage. Ninja do employ those things, but emphasize survival. Also, Ninja were not mercenaries and were not employed by anybody, at least not as a group. Some of them were high level Samurai, some of them were farmers, gardeners, or anybody. Ninja have a huge respect for human life, all life really, so if anybody is an assassin or contract killer, they are no longer a ninja, and merely using the basic physical and mechanical parts of Taijutsu (“body arts”), which are not Ninjutsu by themselves.

Paragraph 2: You state that the two oldest styles of Ninjutsu are Iga and Koga Ryu. Not only are they probably NOT the oldest, they do not even exist anymore, they are not practiced in modern times. The nine Ryu that survive from before World War II are as follows:

Togakure Ryu Ninpo Happo Hiken
Gyokko Ryu Kosshijutsu Happo Hiken
Koto Ryu Koppojutsu Happo Hiken
Shinden Fudo Ryu Ninpo Happo Hiken
Kukishin Ryu Taijutsu Happo Hiken
Takagiyoshin Ryu Jutaijutsu Happo Hiken
Kumogakure Ryu Ninpo Happo Hiken
Gyokushin Ryu Ninpo Happo Hiken
Gikan Ryu Koppojutsu Happo Hiken

That’s not to say there aren’t other Ryu out there, but these are the nine practiced by the Bujinkan (Grandmaster Hatsumi Masaaki’s Schools), and Iga, and Koga are no longer practiced by anybody.

Ninja are skilled in a variety of martial arts. However, none of those martial arts are Judo or Jujutsu. All the martial arts practiced by a ninja are considered forms of Ninjutsu. I don’t know this for certain, but it’s highly unlikely that a ninja would carry a sword strapped to their back, it’s deadly hard to pull a sword out of it’s scabbard as is, maybe when they were climbing. Ninja use a great number of types of swords; swords ranging from only a few inches to several feet. So did Samurai. They in fact, used the same swords. As for your list of weapons, it is accurate, but you should keep in mind that a Ninja makes anything available to him/her a weapon.

Paragraph 3: Like I said earlier Ninja were not assassins. Some of them did assassinate people, but only for purposes of preserving life. The Samurai were not all bound by honor, and many can be historically traced to murder and rape. Also the Bushido did not exist until Ieyasu Tokugawa became emperor of Japan, he wrote it and used it to compel his citizens to act as he wished them to.

Paragraph 4: Paragraph 4 is alright as long as you accept the fact that Ninjutsu is not so much popular as it is idolized by pop culture. By the way, the Ninja Boom of the 1980’s is when the Ninja-to came into existence. It is in fact a Hollywood fallacy.

A final note to you is this: I study Ninjutsu under the direct instruction of a third degree black belt (Sandan) who is going to Japan next year to take his Godan (5th degree) test under Soke Hatsumi Masaaki. His teacher (with whom I also train) has gone to Japan and trained with Hatsumi seven years running, and is Kyudan- 9th degree black belt. His teacher is Soke Hatsumi.

–Anonymous
Ninjutsu Practitioner

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