The art of writing without writing… about fighting.
Every so often in life, even the lay person will encounter… A Ninja!
Let me start this article by making two things very clear:
– There are no such things as Ninja.
– I have met people who CALL what they do “Ninjutsu“, and who presumably think of themselves AS Ninja (at least nominally); whose martial arts skills are good enough to break the average person in half… But that doesn’t make them Ninja.
A little history might be useful at this point.
In old Japan (from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries) there MAY have been organised clans of mercenaries specialising in assassination and espionage, who were called “Shinobi”, which translates to “One who escapes stealthily”. Read more of this post
It has become something of a tradition in certain martial arts circles to dabble in specific professions once one has been training for a certain length of time. These career choices are rarely healthy, however, and are rarely true to the spirit of the martial arts as I understand it.
When I was training in my late teenage years, the school I was attending at the time had a small group of black-belts. Most of these men worked as bouncers, and up-and-coming students were encouraged to consider this as a career move, and as a part of their training. The emphasis was on “testing one’s skills” in a live environment. Read more of this post
Sidney Sofocleus: This is a name that strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest fighters.
Fear of catching whatever gibbering mental and/or physical illness warped this initially (presumably) human man into a grotesque parody of life and reason, that is!
Mr Sofocleus calls himself “Sid Sofos”. This is inoffensive enough. He calls himself “Grand Master”. This is ludicrous. He calls himself “Sijo”, which is a Chinese term meaning “founder of a style”. This is flatly false, as Sofocleus has no style. Read more of this post
Without Writing 