be a ninja

Everybody knows the quote from Spider-Man: “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”. This is certainly true of ninjutsu; and that power is, ultimately, the power to make a better world. This is the way of the ninja…

Well I guess I’ve done this…I mean, as I’ve said before, it’s something you are, not something you earn. Maybe a better goal would have been “be an effective, well-trained ninja”. That’s what I’m working on now. So I am a ninja…now I will work on being more effective and well-trained.

I ordered the first set of DVDs and the student handbook tonight. I can’t believe I’m doing this…I’ve only wanted to study under SKH for the last 20 years. And now I can, now I am…I’m on my way!

So these are my goals now:

1) Train through the belts using the DVD Program.

2) Get my shodan (black belt) and instructor’s certification.

3) Open a To-Shin Do school.

4) Continue training and becoming part of the TSD organization.

—Later—

I got the DVDs and student handbook this weekend. The DVDs came with a testing checklist of competencies to demonstrate, techniques to show, etc. So there’s the first part of Step 1: Train through the belts using the DVD program.

I am soooooooooooo stoked….

I DID IT!

I ordered the first set of DVDs and the student handbook tonight. I can’t believe I’m doing this…I’ve only wanted to study under SKH for the last 20 years. And now I can, now I am…I’m on my way!

So these are my goals now:

1) Train through the belts using the DVD Program.

2) Get my shodan (black belt) and instructor’s certification.

3) Open a To-Shin Do school.

4) Continue training and becoming part of the TSD organization.

I never thought I’d do this…man oh man. It’s funny…all I did was get the school’s emblem inked into my arm and the rest was easy…:) So far. As my Navy SEAL heroes are known to say, “The Only Easy Day Was YESTERDAY”. Hence my shopping list: Tiger Balm and Tylenol gelcaps…lots and lots of Tylenol.

More than anything else, I’ve taken the first step to getting something I want. That’s been a loooooooooong time coming.

I am so excited…I’m on my way!!!!!!

The other day I was thinking about a school I used to attend. If you lived in the Midwest and followed the ninjutsu craze, you’d know the school I’m talking about.

Well…I was in ninja school, working out with the other students. We were practicing shuriken-jutsu, or blade throwing. We were throwing stars into a thick pine target board. The way you get them out if to lay the outer edge of your thumb along one side, grasp the back with your other hand and sort of rock them out.

Our instructor, a dickhead who believed in instructing through student intimidation, had whipped his star into the board so hard that no one could get it out. Including him.

Hm.

So Super-Sensei runs to the office to get a tool.

NOW: I’m standing there thinking “Hey, we’re training to be ninjas, if this were a real-life field situation, we coldn’t just run off and get a tool, we’d work with what we had. So WWND (What Would a Ninja Do)?

I took stock of what I had on me…I was wearing a standard karate gi (uniform), no pockets, no tools, no shoes, just a gi and a jock. And of course the uniform was closed with a belt…hmmmmm…

So while the sensei is digging for a tool in the office, I whipped off my belt, stuck it through the hole in the middle of the shuriken and gave it a good yank. And pop it came right out of the wall.

The students were standing around me watching this, not sure whether they should praise me or not. I’d done something right, very right, but the sensei hadn’t thought of it first, so they didn’t want to piss him off. So they waited to see his reaction before they said anything.

He walked up about the time I popped the star out of the board. I pulled my belt out of the hole and handed him the star, still stupidly expecting to get praised for my ingenuity and ablity to problem-solve.

Instead he looked at me like I’d pooped on the Buddha because I had used my belt to pull the star. “Very creative”, he said, “but not the way of the ninja.”

???

Not too long after this I left the school. I knew what I knew…I knew that I was a ninja, mostly because I’d pissed that bully off, and I knew that I was wasting my time waiting for him to approve my skills.

I was thinking the other day about the last time I trained seriously. It was a long time ago, and I remember now why I stopped.

My first wife was a scam artist and the greediest person I have ever known. And that would make me…a slow learner, I guess. I used to be outraged at the things she would pull, very manipulative and controlling, always thinking three moves ahead. I believed she was who she said she was…and hey, love is blind. And stupid. And…well, you know.

We used to live in these awesome apartments called Eden West, they had a loft bedroom and a skylight. There was a balcony out the front door, we lived on the second floor, it was so pleasant to sit out in the evening and listen to the radio and read.

We also had a detached garage, which was great. I used it for a dojo—a training area. I would pull the car out, put on some sweats and work out in there. I had a target board and shuriken, a cheap-ass sword that was fake, but it was okay to train with, I had an awesome set of nunchaku, a pair of sai, I kept my jump-rope down there, I could work out undisturbed. It was awesome…it was my last dojo.

One night we were going somewhere, and Cathy pulled the car out of the garage. I met her downstairs and we went and did whatever stupid thing we were doing (usually an event with her family, the Most Fucked Up Bunch Ever, but that’s an entirely different post. Maybe even a different blog!). Then we came home—and the garage door was open. We each thought the other had shut the garage door. And my stuff was gone.

All of it had been stolen. It hit me on two levels—one, that feeling of violation, that someone took my stuff, things that I had held and treasured, they didn’t care, they just took them. And two, responsibility. There were weapons loose in the world that had been my responsibility to care for. Granted, none of the were as easy to use as a gun, but they still had some destructive potential, and I had been careless with them, and so was indirectly responsible for any harm they caused.

We called the police, and they filled out a report. We took our copy of hte report and filed it with the insurance…and when the check came-nothing. Cathy took the check and deposited it and spent it before I even knew we had it. We never did replace any of my stuff-by that time I was thoroughly under her thumb financially—and that was the end of my dojo.

Which means, I guess, in terms of Rising and Advancing the Spirit…it’s time to build a dojo again. We’ve got plenty of room in the basement, just need to clear the space and toss some old stuff out. Time to get busy…

(Also posted on 43 Things)

Being a ninja is sort of like being a Libertarian…if you say you’re one, you are, because who would make something like that up? Now, being a big fat slow ninja…well…that’s where I’m at now.

On my 43 Things site, being a ninja is on there, along with a lot of prep things to do to get the thing right. I’ve been playing with the idea for about a year now-Stephen Hayes has a DVD training system I will use-but not really motivated.

Well the other night I had a “G-d thing”, where Heaven sort of reaches down and bonks you on the head. I found a copy of “The Octagon”, the first chop-socky movie I ever saw. It stars Chuck Norris, and he basically kicks about a hundred ninjas’ asses and then kills The Master Ninja, this freak-o in a full-face mask and a sort of crown. Good triumphs, evil falls, all is well in LaVista again.

Except the first time I saw this, I was totally blown away. I had just started taking karate classes, and so I knew the poky-assed 3-step drills and everything. I never saw how beautiful it could be, how awesome it could be. (There’s a scene in “Forced Vengeance”, I think it is, where Chuck Norris whips off this kick combination that is so literally perfect it makes your heart stop for a few beats.) I also never considered the martial arts as anything so holistic as ninjutsu. Hell, I got into it so I wouldn’t sit around drinking beer and getting fat. (Instead I got depressed and got fat, but that’s a different story, hm?) And so my scope went from kick-block-punch-kick exercises to seeing it as a way of life.

And then I lost that life…

So I’m standing in Wal-Mart, holding this copy of the DVD looking like I’ve just gotten struck by lightning. And I knew…it was a sign…get busy and get that life.

I have to start stretching and getting ready to work out. I don’t know how long this will take, and I don’t care. I’ve got the rest of my life to do this, to live like a ninja. How well I do it is up to me. I’m on my way…

(Simultaneously posted at 43 Things)