Shinobi Soldiers

[Shinobi_Kokujin]

one of the reading material im adding to the christmas list is

the ninja: ancient shadow warriors of Japan some new stuff that covers history and systems. its from Kacem Zoughari, a Phd is Japanese history and culture as well as experience in training.


from what i got in his other material his information is one of the best coming from a Westerner in Addition to Stephen Turnbull's material.

gleaning from all these various sources my take on Shinobi soldiers is

there were way too many different clans, families,& schools to make a generalized portrayal. they had different specialties and modes of operations.

depending on what region they are from there are different descriptions ranging from priests, to pirates & thieves, farmers, high ranking military officials, mystics, herbalists, and even Samurai-like.

so along with various lifestyles, they had access to particular systems of martial arts and one thing they all had in common was that they

specialized in guerilla warfare, fire/ explosives, espionage,sabotage, escape & concealment as mentioned in the scrolls.

the latter part was made to be a lucrative business in the dispatching of enemies. concerning what specific type of hand to hand combat if any that ninja did.

that would be according to the family/ school. some of them did some form of hand to hand while others may not have done so cause they focused more on the evasive material.

but the togakure ryu, one of the families of Iga did hand to hand. togakure ryu is from the 1100s and can be used as a reference as well as other ninjutsu schools which are recorded in the

bugei ryuha daijiten as legitimate bujutsu arts. although this particular art is very evasive. it still contains many hand to hand combat techniques.

kumagakure ryu ninjutsu or 'ninpo' is similar to togakure ryu but Gyokko ryu ninpo, which was founded in the 1300s has hand to hand combat in its syllabus and specializes in kosshijutsu or nerve strikes

for the unarmed combat part. this though is the development of one family of Iga. every other family had thier own way of how they developed thier school of ninjutsu.

then when you factor in the urban legends and they way how ninja purposely let themselves be mythical and obscure this distorts what people think about ninja.

the Edo-era in Japan also did alot of influence with thier entertainment and Noh theater depictions of ninja.