Much within the world of the Ninja runs contrary to conventional thinking. Nothing is ever as it seems. This article explores why an opponent who fears that he is losing control against a ninja can do nothing to change the flow of events. Because what he thinks is happening in the moment, is not what caused his downfall!
In the martial art known as ninjutsu, one of the primary strategies is called “kyojitsu tenkan ho.” This kyojitsu tenkan (pronounced: kyoh-jee-tsu tehn-kahn-hoe) is the interchanging of truth and falsehood. While many who learn of this strategy believe it to be limited to tricks that “psych-out” your opponent, in reality the concept is much deeper than this limited, beginner level strategy.
Ninja students are taught to always unbalance the attacker before ever trying to apply a technique of their own. If the opponent is on balance and capable of moving and responding to your technique, one of two things will happen. Either:
1) He will counter it and punish you for trying to hurt him, or…
2) Never let you get it on him in the first place.
This is one of the reasons that MMA contests last as long as they do. Besides the fact that it’s not really a tough-guy fight (a tough-guy wouldn’t be worried about rules for “safety”), there is little to no use of strategic tactics that unbalance the attacker. Everyone seems content on just trading blows in an attempt to “look good” and impress the fans who are turned on by demonstrations of animosity.
But how then are you supposed to unbalance and gain control of an attacker when you want to apply your technique – especially if your opponent is bigger, faster, stronger, or better-skilled than you are? The secret, as with everything in the ninja’s self-protection and personal development arts — is that you do most of the work, and produce the results you need…
…long before you are ready for your technique!
The secret to gaining control of an attacker from the Ninja’s perspective, is to take control LONG before the attacker realizes that he has lost it!
An example of this can be seen in the way the great magician and master escape artist, Harry Houdini, affected many of his escapes. You control the setup – and this controls everything else.
Houdini, in true Ninja fashion, was once approached by representatives of a safe company. Confident that the safe itself was unbreakable, they challenged Houdini to pick the lock and open the safe. Instead of taking the challenge, Houdini challenged them instead. He said, “If you really wanted to test my skills, you’d lock me in the safe and have me crack it from the inside!”
And this is exactly what they did. Only to find Houdini emerging from the safe only moments later!
When one of the men expressed his amazement to Houdini’s wife a short time later, she told him, “His skill wasn’t in getting out of the safe, Sir. It was in getting you to put him inside it in the first place!”
Houdini controlled the setup of the situation because…
…he knew that he couldn’t crack the safe. But since a safe is designed to keep people out – not in – he had to be placed in the safe to access to the locking mechanism. The very thing that the men NEVER considered!
In a self-protection situation, it’s not what a Ninja does to his attacker to tie him up, or to break his body that is the skill. No. The real skill is in what a ninja does as the attacker is approaching him, choosing which attacks to throw, and trying to set up the ninja – all the while believing that he has “free will.”
It is what the Ninja does at the beginning of the fight, that allows him to apply the technique that everyone thought was amazing and perfect! Because the shadow warrior knows that, if his attacker cannot see or understand how he is being manipulated to make certain choices – if he can’t see the “real” technique – the invisible technique – then he will never be able to protect himself.
He will never be able to protect himself because the Ninja – just like Houdini – makes the challenger an accomplice to his own butt-kicking!
Do you want to be a master of the Ninja’s art? Get started now on the Path to true mastery and download my new Ninja Training eBook called, “Becoming the Master,”. It’s free. Learn what it takes to be a master warrior in the art of ninjutsu – the art of Japan’s ancient Ninja warriors.
Shidoshi Jeffrey Miller is a master-teacher in the art and practice of ninjutsu – the art of the ninja. His online ninja training programs and home study courses are used by students all over the world – every month.