Ninjutsu

This article is about a Japanese martial art. For fictional depictions and use, see Ninja in popular culture.Ninjutsu (忍術) sometimes used interchangeably with the term ninpō (忍法) is the martial art, strategy, and tactics of unconventional warfare and guerilla warfare practiced by the shinobi (also commonly known outside of Japan as the ninja). While there are several styles of modern ninjutsu, according to the Koryu.com, not all can be related to the historic practice of ninjutsu in Japan so as to be considered a koryū.

Etymology
The main character nin (忍) is composed of two lesser characters. The upper character ha (刃) means "edge of the blade", and the lower character kokoro (心) means "heart" or "spirit". [The character 刀 means "sword" or "blade," the character 刃 means "edge of the sword."] Together they mean "stealth", "secretness", "endurance", and "perseverance" . Jutsu (術) means "art" or "technique". Pō (法) meaning "knowledge", "principle" when found with the prefix "nin" carries the meaning of ninja arts, higher order of ninjutsu. The popular view is that ninjutsu is only about secrecy and stealth. However practitioners of this knowledge utilize it to endure all of life's hardships.

History
Ninjutsu was developed by groups of people mainly from the Iga Province and Kōka, Shiga of Japan. Throughout history the shinobi have been seen as assassins, scouts and spies. They are mainly noted for their use of stealth and deception. They have been associated in the public imagination with activities that are considered criminal by modern standards. Throughout history many different schools (ryū) have taught their unique versions of ninjutsu. An example of these is the Togakure-ryū. This ryū was developed after a defeated samurai warrior called Daisuke Togakure escaped to the region of Iga. Later he came in contact with the warrior-monk Kain Doshi who taught him a new way of viewing life and the means of survival (ninjutsu) .
Ninjutsu was developed as a collection of fundamental survivalist techniques in the warring state of feudal Japan. The ninja used their art to ensure their survival in a time of violent political turmoil. Ninjutsu included methods of gathering information, and techniques of non-detection, avoidance, and misdirection. Ninjutsu can also involve training in disguise, escape, concealment, archery, medicine, explosives, and poisons.
Skills relating to espionage and assassination were highly useful to warring factions in feudal Japan. Because these activities were seen as dishonorable, Japanese warriors hired people who existed below Japan's social classes to perform these tasks. These persons were literally called "non-humans" (非人). At some point the skills of espionage became known collectively as ninjutsu. And the people who specialized in these tasks were called shinobi no mono. Somewhat later they were called ninja. This may be too fine a point. Because we should note that the characters for "shinobi no mono" are 忍びの者. The characters for "ninja" are "忍者."
Eventually ninjutsu became so essential to warfare that some samurai began to practice these techniques. Finally they incorporated ninjutsu training into their formal martial arts schools (ryū).
"Ninjutsu" should refer only to a specific branch of Japanese martial arts. Otherwise the word ninjutsu can be used in a historical sense.

18 Ninjutsu Skills (Ninja Jūhakkei)
According to Bujinkan members the eighteen disciplines (jūhakkei <>

The 18 disciplines are:
01.Seishin-teki kyōyō (spiritual refinement)

02.Taijutsu (unarmed combat, using one's body as the only weapon)

03.Kenjutsu (sword fighting)

04.Bōjutsu (stick and staff fighting)

05.Shurikenjutsu (throwing shuriken)

06.Sōjutsu (spear fighting)

07.Naginatajutsu (naginata fighting)

08.Kusarigamajutsu (kusarigama fighting)

09.Kayakujutsu (pyrotechnics and explosives)

10.Hensōjutsu (disguise and impersonation)

11.Shinobi-iri (stealth and entering methods)

12.Bajutsu (horsemanship)

13.Sui-ren (water training)

14.Bōryaku (tactic)

15.Chōhō (espionage)

16.Intonjutsu (escaping and concealment)

17.Tenmon (meteorology)

18.Chi-mon (geography)

Today the main focus of ninjutsu deals with the techniques relevant to armed and unarmed combat.

Kunoichi

Kunoichi (くノ一) is the term for a female ninja or practitioner of Ninpo.

Derivation of the word Kunoichi
The term is thought to derive from the names of characters that resemble the three strokes in the kanji character for woman (女, onna); said in the order they are written: ku (く) - no (ノ) - ichi (一). Early literary quotes include Enshū Senkuzuke Narabi Nihyaku In (遠舟千句附并百韵, Enshū Senkuzuke Narabi Nihyaku In?) (1680) as well as Maekuzukeshū (前句付集, Maekuzukeshū?) (1716), which specifically associates the word with the kanji 女 supporting the etymology. This may be a modern fake etymology by Futaro Yamada[citation needed]. The "くノ一" writing requires the use of one character from each Japanese "alphabet" — first hiragana, then katakana, then kanji. While hiragana and kanji can exist in the same word, katakana generally cannot appear in conjunction with the others. There are exceptions to this, e.g. "ゴミ箱", "消しゴム". Another proposed etymology would derive the term from 九能一 (能 "nō" : talent) with Japanese numbers "ku" (九) for "nine", and "ichi" (一) for "one", meaning "nine talents in one person", though no creditable source lists these "nine talents".

Kunoichi ways
Unlike in fiction (see next section), real-life kunoichi were trained differently than male ninja. Their training focused more on disguise, poisons, and using their gender to an advantage. While they were trained in close combat, they were only to make use of this knowledge when they were caught. They would usually disguise themselves as geisha, prostitutes, entertainers, fortunetellers, and the like to get very close to the enemy. It is thought that they would generally seduce the soon-to-be victim and when they get close enough, would poison them, but it is just as possible they would be disguised as a household servant, allowing them many opportunities to overhear information or get close to said victim. Kunoichi would hide weapons in their disguise, like poisoned needles in their hair and dirks up their sleeves. They also often would turn a previously harmless item into a weapon. For example, they would learn how to break bones with their wooden shoes, put a hidden blade on their fan, or they would use an umbrella as a momentary shield.

In popular culture
Kunoichi have appeared frequently in popular culture, often as a literally female equivalent counterpart to male ninja.

Ninja

In the Japanese history, a Ninja (忍者) was someone specially trained in a variety of unorthodox arts of war. The methods used by ninja included assassination, espionage, and a variety of martial arts.

Their exact origins are still unknown. Their roles may have included sabotage, espionage, scouting and assassination missions as a way to destabilize and cause social chaos in enemy territory or against an opposing ruler, perhaps in the service of their feudal rulers (daimyo, shogun), or an underground ninja organization waging guerilla warfare.

Etymology
Ninja is the on'yomi reading of the two kanji 忍者 used to write shinobi-no-mono (忍の者), which is the native Japanese word for people who practice ninjutsu (忍術, sometimes erroneously transliterated as ninjitsu). The term shinobi (historically sino2bi2 written with the Man'yōgana 志能備), has been traced as far back as the late 8th century when Heguri Uji no Iratsume wrote a poem to Ōtomo no Yakamochi. The underlying connotation of shinobi (忍) means "to steal away" and—by extension—"to forbear," hence its association with stealth and invisibility. Mono (者, likewise pronounced sha or ja) means a "person."

The word ninja became popular in the post-World War II culture. The nin of ninjutsu is the same as that in ninja, whereas jutsu (術) means skill or art, so ninjutsu means "the skill of going unperceived" or "the art of stealth"; hence, ninja and shinobi-no-mono (as well as shinobi) may be translated as "one skilled in the art of stealth." Similarly, the pre-war word ninjutsu-zukai means "one who uses the art of remaining unperceived."
Other terms which may be used include oniwaban (お庭番 "one in the garden"), suppa, rappa, mitsumono, kusa (草 grass) and Iga-mono ("one from Iga").
In English, the plural of ninja can be either unchanged as ninja, reflecting the Japanese language's lack of grammatical number, or the regular English plural ninjas.

Historical period of origin
The ninja use of stealth tactics against better-armed enemy samurai does not mean that they were limited to espionage and undercover work: that is simply where their actions most notably differed from the more accepted tactics of samurai. Their weapons and tactics were partially derived from the need to conceal or defend themselves quickly from samurai, which can be seen from the similarities between many of their weapons and various sickles and threshing tools used at the time.
Ninja as a group first began to be written about in 15th century feudal Japan as martial organizations predominately in the regions of Iga and Koga of central Japan, though the practice of guerrilla warfare and undercover espionage operations goes back much further.
At this time, the conflicts between the clans of daimyo that controlled small regions of land had established guerrilla warfare and assassination as a valuable alternative to frontal assault. Since Bushido, the Samurai Code, forbade such tactics as dishonorable, a daimyo could not expect his own troops to perform the tasks required; thus, he had to buy or broker the assistance of ninja to perform selective strikes, espionage, assassination, and infiltration of enemy strongholds.

There are a few people and groups of people regarded as having been potential historical ninja from approximately the same time period. It is rumored that some of the higher-ranking daimyos and shoguns were in fact ninja, and exploited their role as ninja-hunters to deflect suspicion and obscure their participation in the 'dishonorable' ninja methods and training.
Though typically classified as assassins, many of the ninja were warriors in all senses. In Stephen K. Hayes's book, Mystic Arts of the Ninja, Master Troicuk (pronounced troycock), one of the most well-known ninja, is depicted in armor similar to that of a samurai. Hayes also says that those who ended up recording the history of the ninja were typically those within positions of power in the military dictatorships, and that students of history should realize that the history of the ninja was kept by observers writing about their activities as seen from the outside.

"Ninjutsu did not come into being as a specific well defined art in the first place, and many centuries passed before ninjutsu was established as an independent system of knowledge in its own right. Ninjutsu developed as a highly illegal counter culture to the ruling samurai elite, and for this reason alone, the origins of the art were shrouded by centuries of mystery, concealment, and deliberate confusion of history."
A similar account is given by Hayes: "The predecessors of Japan's ninja were so-called rebels favoring Buddhism who fled into the mountains near Kyoto as early as the 7th century A.D. to escape religious persecution and death at the hands of imperial forces."

Historical organization
In their history, ninja groups were small and structured around families and villages, later developing a more martial hierarchy that was able to mesh more closely with that of samurai and the daimyo. These certain ninjutsu trained groups were set in these villages for protection against raiders and robbers.

"Ninja museums" in Japan declare women to have been ninjas as well. A female ninja may be kunoichi (くノ一); the characters are derived from the strokes that make up the kanji for female (女). They were sometimes depicted as spies who learned the secrets of an enemy by seduction; though it's just as likely they were employed as household servants, putting them in a position to overhear potentially valuable information.
As a martial organization, ninja would have had many rules, and keeping secret the ninja's clan and the daimyo who gave them their orders would have been one of the most important ones.
For modern hierarchy in ninjutsu, see Ninjutsu.

Historical garb, technique, and image
There is no evidence that historical ninja limited themselves to all-black suits. In modern times, camouflage based upon dark colors such as dark red and dark blue is known to give better concealment at night. Some cloaks may have been reversible: dark colored on the outside for concealment during the night, and white colored on the inside for concealment in the snow. Some ninja may have worn the same armor or clothing as samurai or Japanese peasants.

The stereotypical ninja that continually wears easily identifiable black outfits (shinobi shozoku) comes from the Kabuki theater. Prop handlers would dress in black and move props around on the stage. The audience would obviously see the prop handlers, but would pretend they were invisible. Building on that willing suspension of disbelief, ninja characters also came to be portrayed in the theater as wearing similar all-black suits. This either implied to the audience that the ninja were also invisible, or simply made the audience unable to tell a ninja character from many prop handlers until the ninja character distinguished himself from the other stagehands with a scripted attack or assassination.

Ninja boots (jika-tabi), like much of the rest of Japanese footwear from the time, have a split-toe design that improves gripping and wall/rope climbing. They are soft enough to be virtually silent. Ninja also attached special spikes to the bottoms of the boots called ashiko.
The actual head covering suggested by Sōke Masaaki Hatsumi (in his book The Way of the Ninja: Secret Techniques) utilizes what is referred to as sanjaku-tenugui, (three-foot cloths). It involves the tying of two three-foot cloths around the head in such a way as to make the mask flexible in configuration but securely bound. Some wear a long robe, most of the time dark blue (紺色 kon'iro) for stealth.

Associated equipment
The assassination, espionage, and infiltration tasks of the ninja led to the development of specialized technology in concealable weapons and infiltration tools.

Specialized weapons and tactics
Ninja also employed a variety of weapons and tricks using gunpowder. Smoke bombs and firecrackers were widely used to aid an escape or create a diversion for an attack. They used timed fuses to delay explosions. Ōzutsu (cannons) they constructed could be used to launch fiery sparks as well as projectiles at a target. Small "bombs" called metsubushi (目潰し, "eye closers") were filled with sand and sometimes metal dust. This sand would be carried in bamboo segments or in hollowed eggs and thrown at someone, the shell would crack, and the assailant would be blinded. Even land mines were constructed that used a mechanical fuse or a lit, oil-soaked string. Secrets of making desirable mixes of gunpowder were strictly guarded in many ninja clans.

Other forms of trickery were said to be used for escaping and combat. Ashiaro are wooden pads attached to the ninja's tabi (thick socks with a separate "toe" for bigger toe; used with sandals). The ashiaro would be carved to look like an animal's paw, or a child's foot, allowing the ninja to leave tracks that most likely would not be noticed.

Also a small ring worn on a ninja's finger called a shobo would be used for hand-to-hand combat. The shobo (or as known in many styles of ninjutsu, the shabo) would have a small notch of wood used to hit assailant's pressure points for sharp pain, sometimes causing temporary paralysis. A suntetsu is very similar to a shobo. It could be a small oval shaped piece of wood affixed to the finger by a small strap. The suntetsu would be held against a finger (mostly middle) on the palm-side and when the hand was thrust at an opponent using the longer piece of wood to target pressure points such as the solar plexus.

Ninja also used special short swords called ninjato, or shinobigatana. Ninjato are smaller than katana but larger than wakizashi. The ninjato was often more of a utilitarian tool than a weapon, not having the complex heat treatment of a usual weapon. Another version of the ninja sword was the shikoro ken (saw sword). The shikoro ken was said to be used to gain entry into buildings, and could also have a double use by cutting (or slashing in this case) opponents. The shuriken is a weapon that was essentially created from popular culture. It was almost never used by actual ninjas.

Many Ninja disgused themselves as farmers so that their weapons (the Kama) could be used as weapons and farming implements, their shurikens were also coated with poison so that when in direct combat with another the Ninja could throw the shuriken and the injury would seem minor but if left untreated (depending on the strength of the poison) it could be fatal.