| While the "Martial Arts - how to become a ninja assassin" may have useful information in it, the methodology is more that of a Western covert ops agent with some ninjitsu techniques incorporated.
Further, it concentrates on how to kill, steal, and destroy, with little or no information about controls or limits. Basically, this document takes all of the "fun" stuff about ninjitsu, adds explosives, guns, etc..., and sets the knowledge out so that anybody can learn it.
A sensei of ninjitsu, however, would be, in addition to teaching their student the "fun" stuff, be teaching morals (or at least obedience to the dojo/clan). Techniques that possess greater potential for destruction will only be taught when the sensei is confident that the student will only use them in a manner that is beneficial for the dojo/clan.
This document is the kind of thing that created a group of kids in my high school who made explosives for the fun of it. They would throw light incendiaries at passersby. They would crawl around in the sewers, vandalizing city property, damaging public waterworks. They would tap into people's phone lines and make long distance calls, leaving the phone off the hook until the phone company found the device. Meanwhile, the customer had to sort out a many-thousand dollar bill. At the height of their stupidity, all started by the fact that a kid with too much time and not enough guidance got ahold of a book very similar to this, two of them were arrested for armed robbery of a telephone repair truck, in order to get cooler toys to play with.
Sorry for the long rant, but something about this book just really rankles me. Stephen Hayes' books I can get behind. What Chapel suggested looks very good, as it touches on the spiritual aspect that this document ignores. As soon as I get an iai-to, kyu, Nintendo Wii, and a few other choice things, I'll be getting that book. |