First, I will define for you the term “ninja” and I will inform you a little bit more about its origins. Basically, ninjas are people who use ninjutsu. The word ninjutsu comes from Japanese and means the art of sneak away. Ninjutsu is an art of warfare (nowadays is considered a martial art) that started 4000 years B.C. in the Indian culture. Despite this, many scholars propose that ninjas and the ninjutsu art started between 500-300 B.C with the 13th chapter of a Chinese book called “The art of war” written by Sun Tzu. This book contained information about spies and their methods of espionage that was taken and transformed into a philosophy called “ninpo”. Later on, this art was passed to the Korean peninsula and finally, in the 6th century, it arrived to Japan. There, a man called Shotoku Taishi learned these techniques and therefore he is considered the root of the ninjas. Moreover, Shotoku mixed the espionage techniques with a Japanese practice called shugendo (this practice consists in mountain training), but since Japan’s geography is hilly and narrow, ninjutsu became a unique art from Japan. Moreover, the yamabushi (monks that lived in the mountains) and different Japanese warriors, learned the ninjutsu art in the Heian period (794-1185 A.C.) because the Omyodo (an art of divination and astrology with Chinese origins) was introduced to Japan. Finally, ninjutsu established and developed when the Hattori clan took control of the Iga region (nowadays the Mie Prefecture) and opened the Iga’s school of ninjutsu.
Source from where I subtracted and modified the information:
Iga-Ryu Ninja Museum. What is a ninja? 2011. 18 August 2011
Hello Ray! So you'll be discussing 'bout ninjas? Jaja Nice! I'll keep following you.
ResponderEliminarNinjitsu! are you posting something 'bout shurikens? Cause I love'em and I really want to learn 'bout them.
Hey take a look to your blog archive ... it seems kinda weird!
Danyel
I am glad you have chosen this ninja subject. I am particularly surprised about the history of the ninjas. I didn’t know that this martial art was from the 4000 B.C. This fact makes the history of Ninjas more interesting, because those were the warriors of the Middle East. Their techniques, the bases, were applied and used by many other martial arts so, they became in the base of many cultures. I actually didn’t know that the Ninjas were from the India, so I can now say my mother I did learn something new today.
ResponderEliminarSomething I think will be great as a theme for your blog is that the ninjas were a group of people that belonged to the most prestigious social classes in Japan. For the Middle East countries and cultures being a ninja represented more than just a warrior, it represented to have values such as respect, tolerance, solidarity, generosity, and some more. It would be great to learn more about this ‘heroic’ culture of the ninjas, because they were treated as heroes.
Finally, I am happy for you, I know that you practiced ninjutsu in the summer. So, I know that you were influenced by this martial art, I am sure that you will do good Ninja posts in the future and I will be glad to read them. I hope you consider the option that I gave you for a theme so; I will be paying attention to your future posts and to your great job.
Gregorio Reyes
A01139438
Hi everybody, here is the comment that Caro made last week but she wasn't able to post it because the blog didn't let her to do that. Anyway, here it is.
ResponderEliminarCarolina Martínez Pérez A01139584
Your post is really good (: it has very interesting facts about ninjas. I learned many things. For example, I had heard about the ninjutsu before, but I did not know that the martial art, or warfare art as you say, was originally used or created by the ninjas. I did not know that ninjas were called like that because of the art they practiced. It is interesting that it came up as a war technique and for sneaking away; I had always thought that it just consisted on hitting, kicking and jumping like crazy, but the aspect of the espionage is really interesting. So you helped me correct my false myths about ninjas. Also it is great that ninjutsu was first written in a Chinese book, as a theory of the art of war. So war was considered an art, it was considered that like to write a book about it. It is interesting how Asian cultures consider or considered it an art, while American or Occidental cultures consider it more a demonstration of power in the first place. This fact, taken from the ninja theory, might be useful to understand the behavior of the Oriental cultures through history, specially their attitudes toward war and what was worth to do in them. For example, an Asian belief about war is that it is better to kill yourself than to die in the hands of the enemy and lose your “honor”; this maybe can be generally related to the fact that ninjutsu is the art of “sneaking away”.