Ninja ARE Human.
Kaede Nagase finished dressing herself in her ninja robes, and stepped in front of a mirror. The tall girl staring back at her wore an expression you wouldn't find on many junior high-school girls. It wasn't total seriousness that dominated her face; rather, it was a mixture of concentration, intelligence, and dedication, mixed with just a hint of wisdom. Her eyes always appeared to be closed, or at least, it gave her the appearance of squinting. This wasn't reality; in fact, she could see fine, and if she opened her eyes fully then everyone would see that she had beautiful eyes. She didn't smile; nor did she frown. She wasn't angry, and she wasn't excited. She was, however, content.
Kaede tilted her head down slightly as she gathered up her long hair. She made sure she had all the strands, before holding it tightly with her right hand. Her left hand swiftly found the tape sitting on her drawer, and she grabbed it. A few seconds later, and she had taped her hair into a pony-tail. Swiftly, she taped around her wrists, lending them stability.
She looked into her mirror, and took a few seconds to straighten her bangs. She smiled at this. Ninja seemed, to everyone else but her, at least, to be mythological creatures who had attained a strength or wisdom beyond normal humans, exempting them from the natural things, such as straightening hair. Kaede knew that if someone had seen her doing this, there would immediately be questions.
Why do you have to straighten your hair? Don't ninja attain a level of consciousness and mature awareness that keeps them from becoming worried over something as simple, mundane and useless as whether or not your hair looks good? Don't you just naturally look good, being a ninja and all?
Kaede allowed herself a small smile. People would indeed ask that. Some already have asked her things along those lines. Kaede stared at her reflection in the mirror, and once again adjusted her bangs, before becoming satisfied.
Another common misconception was that ninja were killing tools, and could kill people no matter what. Kaede hated this. The internet had made ridicule of ninja, many videos and blogs twisting and contorting the image of ninja until it was impossible to know what ninja really were. The internet, fan videos, spoofs, they had all portrayed ninja as characters dressed up funny, throwing around ancient weapons and doing backflips off walls.
Kaede knew better than to get mad at something she couldn't change, but she was only human, and it did indeed anger her. She wasn't saying that ninja in the past weren't commissioned for murder, but this rediculous contortion of the image of the ninja was disgusting.
Becoming a ninja was fifty percent mind, and fifty percent body. It was a religion, a way of life, and not all ways of life involved killing. Ninja no doubt were skilled in many art forms, taijutsu, bojutsu, kenjutsu, and many other art forms, almost all of them deadly or lethal. But back then, this was the way of life. The climate of ancient and feudal Japan was perpetual war. Ninja adapted, creating art forms that helped the practitioner survive many things. The arts taught stealth, speed, many things. How to kill, how to incapacitate, how to evade and escape. Arts to teach sword handling, staff handling, kunai and shuriken handling. The arts taught how to survive in feudal Japan.
Today, when people thought of ninja, they largely thought of people running around with katanas, killing people. The truth was, this was only a small fraction of it.
True ninja were the ones who adapted to their environment, who learned how to survive in it and how to traverse in it. In ancient Japan, maybe it was okay, neccessary even, to kill someone.
Not in today's world. Today's world didn't accomodate the slaughter of other human beings, so that ceased to be what being a ninja was about. In todays world, being a ninja meant many things, but truly, it came down to the same two things as it did in feudal Japan.
The perfect mind and the perfect body. Survival. No longer was Kaede under any threat from men with swords; people didn't do that today. Sure, she practiced kenjutsu, bojutsu, many of the ancient arts to help hone her mind and body, but in all reality, there were very limited circumstances in which these would be used, much less actually put to the test against someone else. Todays threats included things like guns, muggings and street robberies. These were the new threats, and new arts had been created in response.
Krav Maga was a big one. Kaede practiced that heavily, as it related directly to the present. It helped deal with real world situations, not those of the past. Krav Maga taught her many gun and knife disarms, how to protect herself and defend when she had only her body and her own two hands. These were the threats of todays world. Guns, knives and fists. In becoming a true ninja, Kaede had adapted to this world and its threats. Not the threats of the past, shurikens and katanas, but defenses against someone with a gun, someone intent on beating her up or killing her.
This was the real meaning of ninja. There were threats, and someone who was ninja has trained against these threats, able to defend and counter them. Able to move comfortably through their environment without fear of attack. Able to defend and counter if attacked.
Kaede dropped her hands from her hair, and examined herself in the mirror. In the end, even her clothing was announcing the stereotype, but there were reasons for wearing them. Her outfit was comfortable, easy to train in. It was reflective of the soul of the ninja, but few would look at her and know the truth. Many would look at her and think she was just another trickster, swinging around a fake katana and flipping off walls. Little did they know, if someone confronted her with a gun or a knife, she would have ready defenses and counter attacks. She would fully utilize her mind and body to the best of its abilities and avoid injury or death, which was more than she could say for most of the people on the ever popular YouTube.
Ninja were often visualized as being cold-blooded ruthless killers. She sighed. Somehow, in this fucked-up society, it always came down to killing. She shook her head. Even this wasn't true. Ninja are people, and people have emotions, thoughts and feelings. This meant ninja have emotions, thoughts and feelings. It was the suppression of these three things that showed you up for a fake. To perfect the mind, the emotions must be taken into account, and utilized. Thoughts have to be balanced, and feelings must be controlled, but not suppressed. Very few people could kill another human being without a second thought, and those that could had no right to the title "Ninja."
Kaede left her dorm, heading toward the forest she liked to train in. The forest was an environment that almost everyone had access to, whether they lived in a crowded city or not. Somewhere outside those city limits, there was bound to be a forest. This forest is an environment. Therefore, it is possible to adapt to it. It is possible to learn how to move through it, hunt in it, survive in it. These things were the basis of any club or scout program, and were easy enough to master. Where the "ninja" part came in, Kaede thought, was when you upped the ante.
Fighting. Everything came back to it, unfortunately. When you can adapt to your environment well enough to fight in it and survive, then you have, in some way, gained mastery over a particular ninja skill. Fighting in a wet, dark forest full of wild animals and sometimes poisonous insects and plants was quite different from fighting inside a room in a house in the city, or fighting out on the street. Even the grip changed. In the city, its usually stone, pavement or cement that you're standing on. In the forest, its dirt, water, foilage, rocks and mud.
Kaede started jogging, eager to smell the fresh air of the forest, to hear all its familiar sounds. The last weekend she had trained in the forest, she had worked on stamina. It had been raining, and she had stood out in a relatively open part of the forest, allowing the rain to pour down on her. It didn't seem like much, it didn't even seem hard, but you try it sometime.
Stamina is something many people lack. It goes hand in hand with concentration, another mental benefit, and when you lose one you lose the other. For hours on end she had stood in the rain. She willed herself not to move. She didn't move when the lighting struck and the thunder rumbled, she didn't move when worms oozed up from the soaking earths surface to crawl across her toes. The snake that slithered by; it didn't get a reaction out of her. Time had no meaning to her. The wild animals that roamed by, she ignored them all. All she focussed on was her stamina, and her concentration.
Another common misconception was that ninja were always loners, and always had some kind of problem of some sort. There was always some reason they couldn't have a mate or significant other, and Kaede largely blamed this one on anime and manga. It was a convenient plot tool, she knew, but it was also sending the wrong message.
Just because you trained your mind and body didn't mean you couldn't support a relationship with another member of the same or opposite sex. It was foolish to think you couldn't. The main cause of lonliness in people in todays society, who trained or practiced martial arts in any great amount was due to their dedication. If they were seriously dedicated to their art, this creates an intensity that other people find overwhelming, or intimidating, making it harder for that person to have a relationship. However, it only made it harder. It didn't make it impossible.
These were the main misconceptions that twisted and muddied the mental image of ninja. The misconception that ninja had to wear specific clothing, uncaring of whether it was appropriate for that time and place or not. Also, that ninja had some sort of mystical property that made them wake up looking good, dressed a certain way. It just didn't happen. Whether you considered yourself ninja or not, looks would be, and will be, important.
The misconception that ninja trained in flips and killed people with katanas. This was partially a training benefit, and partially a result of the time period. Flips are introduced in many modern martial arts, and are seen in the original old styles as well. However, it is a training tool, used to condition the body, and to help overcome fear. Backflips are initially scary things for some people, and if you can get over the fear of flipping backward, then no trick or skill will theoretically be beyond you. However, it is training only. In a real fight, you won't have time to do a backflip, much less actually turn it into a real, useful attack, unless the person is willing to stand still so you can flashkick them. Also, ninja don't kill people with katanas. This idea is outdated, and overused. Ninja may have used katanas in feudal Japan, as that was the weapon of choice back then. The time period of feudal Japan dictated that katanas, kodachis and shurikens were the weapons of choice. With the ninja penchant for adaptation and survival, skills with these weapons were quickly perfected, leading to their current mysticism. However, in todays society, this line of thinking is just unintelligent. Just because you swing around a sword, doesn't mean you are a ninja. If you seriously practice for enjoyment, and the development of skill, this is fine. But if you really think you're going to get in a fight on the street, and pull out a katana, you aren't thinking too clearly. First off, why are you carrying a katana around the street? Second, chances are the other person won't have one, so what are you going to do? Dishonourably attack an unarmed opponent?
The third misconception was that ninja were cold-blooded. This is far from the truth. Usually one with a trained mind and body realizes early the value of a human life, and is hesitant to take it.
Kaede shook her head as the angry thoughts clouded her mind and fouled her judgement. She knew she shouldn't be so quick to think that everyone was making these assumptions and applying them incorrectly, degrading the very meaning of "ninja". She wasn't even angry with the videos on YouTube she had recently seen. They were fine, funny even. It was fine to casually make fun of something, as long as you weren't ruthlessly attacking it and bringing it down, which none of the videos she had seen had done. She was really angry with the people who played an XBOX game, watched a movie, watched some videos, and assumed that they knew what ninja was. Even more frustrating was that most people thought that the image of a person dressed in black, back-flipping off walls and killing people with katanas was, in some way, cool. It wasn't. Far from it. It was insulting, and degrading.
Kaede entered the forest at a slow walk, wondering how she could work off her anger. Maybe some strength-intensive exercises would help. Couple that with aerobic/anaerobic exercises, and at the end of the day she would be too tired to be angry. Then maybe she could think a bit more clearly. Kaede looked up, and saw a tree branch a few feet above her head. She knew it was out of reach of her jump, and her mind flashed to a section of a video game she had seen. It featured a man dressed in black jumping twenty feet into the air, doing a multitude of flips before landing on the ground as if nothing had happened. She banished the thoughts from her head, knowing they were completely unrealistic. Instead, she backed up a few steps, putting some distance between herself and the tree. She took a deep breath, focussing her mind. When she felt ready, she jogged toward the tree. As she neared it, she jumped into the air. She placed her foot against the trunk of the tree, and kicked off, gaining the extra foot of height she needed to grab the low-hanging branch. She smiled, and waited for her body to stop swinging. Once she felt ready, she summoned her strength, and pulled herself up. As she neared the top of her chin-up, palms of the hands facing away from her, she swiftly used her momentum to roll her elbows over. Now, she pushed down, and raised herself up, getting the whole upper half of her body above the branch in a perfect muscle up. In a controlled manner, she slowly reversed her moves, dropping back down until she was hanging by her fingers from the branch again. A few more of these would get her warmed up.
A/N: Just my views on the legendary "Ninja", represented through the character Kaede. While it may not, to some people, be correct, or even be considered a view, it is, nonetheless, a view, and should thus be treated as such, with respect. I'm not asking you to agree with me, but if you want to disagree, I'm asking you to do it politely. I fully accept that some people have other views or beliefs on what a ninja is or isn't, and probably not everyone who reads this will agree, so instead of a flame, either write a review or your own fic explaining your views.
I do infact know several people who would disagree with this, saying that I failed to mention "Chi" or things like that. In response, I merely say that this is an aspect of the mentality that must be mastered. If you perfect your mind, whether you believe in Chi or not, you perfect your mind, and who am I to say you haven't, based on your belief/non-belief of something like Chi?
Also, I know one person in particular who would throw around Japanese words and references, weapons terminology, different jutsus, things like that and try to undermine my entire work. In response, I would ask him to reread my work. I mention that being ninja is a way of life, and to some, a religion. This means that it deals with things like God, or Kami, whichever you prefer. And all those jutsus and weapons skills you mentioned? I covered it. Adaptation. Those were the weapons and techniques available at the time, and they were used to adapt to a climate which was only war.
And for clarification purposes, when I say "techniques", I'm talking about specific moves. For example, chinese sabre wrap-around moves, those are techniques. I don't believe in things like Chi, spiritual power, weird hand signs or things like that. Anything beyond weapons training, perfection of mind and body falls under spiritualism or something, something unassociated with ninja.
Again, just my views. I'm not asking you to take them as your own, but I'd like you to at least respect them. Thanks. Reviews, comments, criticizm and debate is appreciated.
On an interesting, but related, side-note: This was completed at 3:32 AM. I'm not at my most alert right now, so a bit later I might revise this or upload a second version, which might clarify some things, and simplify others. I tend to go on and on about specific things to make sure my point is across, and I know it can become a bit tedious to read. So, to sum it up, I might upload a little later a second version with refined typing, expressing the exact same views.