Ninjutsu on Discovery Channel

Shogun

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June 2nd there is supposed to be a show about Ninjutsu starring Steven Hayes. mark your calendars. I know I am. Hayes is going to try and stealth his way past, I believe its the LAPD SWAT team. Yay.
 

Cruentus

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Shogun said:
June 2nd there is supposed to be a show about Ninjutsu starring Steven Hayes. mark your calendars. I know I am. Hayes is going to try and stealth his way past, I believe its the LAPD SWAT team. Yay.

Yea. I'm sure that'll be wildly accurate and unbiased. :rofl: I'll watch it too though, like the sheeple I that I am. ;)
 
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Shogun

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well I doubt it's going to be super realistic, I'm sure it'll be entertaining. I am looking forward to it. I think the attitude of the SWAT team is going to be a little more relaxed than if it were a real situation.

I also have another question? does anyone's Ninjutsu school do Hojutsu training? I find it interesting, that this is a part of Ninjutsu that was created in the 13 hundreds, and still is very practical today. My Ninjutsu Instructor has 3 different days with 3 different classes. He does Kihon on mondays, General class on tuesdays (pretty much whatever we want to work on), and grappling and weapons on thursdays. its great 'cause weapons, although there is some traditional, is mostly Hojutsu, classical and modern.

Tulisan, might I ask, what problems do you have with Mr Hayes?

Regards,
Kyle
 

Cruentus

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Shogun said:
well I doubt it's going to be super realistic, I'm sure it'll be entertaining. I am looking forward to it. I think the attitude of the SWAT team is going to be a little more relaxed than if it were a real situation.

I also have another question? does anyone's Ninjutsu school do Hojutsu training? I find it interesting, that this is a part of Ninjutsu that was created in the 13 hundreds, and still is very practical today. My Ninjutsu Instructor has 3 different days with 3 different classes. He does Kihon on mondays, General class on tuesdays (pretty much whatever we want to work on), and grappling and weapons on thursdays. its great 'cause weapons, although there is some traditional, is mostly Hojutsu, classical and modern.

Tulisan, might I ask, what problems do you have with Mr Hayes?

Regards,
Kyle

No problems with Hayes; I don't know him but I hear that he is very skilled. My problem is more with discovery. If you saw that extreme martial arts special, you'd know what I mean. Manytimes those specials are chasing fantasy and sensationalism, not reality.

I'll probably watch the special, and I'll probably enjoy it. All I am saying is wear your critical thinking cap when you watch it, thats all.
:asian:
 

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I tend to agree that discovery could be a little more real with some of the things thy have presented as Martial Arts.
When is this great feat going to be aired?? I'll most likely watch also if there are no hockey games on at that time.
 
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Shogun

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I am not sure on the time, but it's "Unsolved History" (good shows) on wednesday June 2nd.


PS has anyone played Tenchu: wrath of heaven, for XBOX? The bonus level, thru the portal, is what I have in mind for Mr. Hayes.
 

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I was glad he didnt put on a black suit and try it... it was very ninja-like the way he snuck in.

Clever clever.
 

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Watched it, in part. Liked how they used scientific techniques to confirm/debunk some of the legendary myths of Ninja practices. Sort of disappointed at the lack of Hatsumi Masaaki stuff, but SKH speaks better English and was easier for the producers to contact I imagine.

I like the general idea that Ninjutsu as a philosophical way of warriorship was seen as similar to special operators approaches of the modern day. They did a good job of presenting a balanced presentation of some of the more mystical stuff as well. CIA "remote viewing" test was creepy cool.
 

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Well, I can give details, but only on what I did see.

They set up an exercise where SKH applied some of his Ninja based skills to try and get to a principle that was being protected in a building at the end of the episode. I didn't catch the whole episode, but I would guess that the beginning was a very good summary of Ninja history, stories, facts... with good interviews with insiders who 'believe' and outsiders who either agree or disagree with the insiders - but presented maturely (I am a Discover Network of channels and History Channel addict).

Anyway, at the point where I jumped in, Hayes was impersonating a maintenance guy and using all his training to try to get to the principle (protectee) and it took him 4 hours of snow jobbing, but he got it done.

After that they addressed the topic of Ninja mind reading/mystical powers. They used an actual CIA 'remote viewer' (clinical term for 'seer'/'mystic'/'fortune teller') who was running a real time experiment (while SKH was doing his operation so that any energies put out by the principal would be strongest) with a room of 'remote viewers' that only had a little info on the building and had to try and locate the principal in the building after only being briefed on the outline and general description of the property (but no details of floorplans or anything else).

The accuracy was suprisingly creepy. Some things were right around 50% accurate (so chancie) but other details were 75% to 90% accurate. Some of the 'snapshot' images that the remote viewers sketched were dead on to the building though. THings like building design details (doors, ornamentations, window gratings...) were exact. I guess the idea was to say that CIA operations were similar to Ninja operations/networks so if it was at least reasonably experimented with and tried now, it had to have some reasonable validity in the past. Of course there were the critics who said mind reading and such were created by the Ninja community to build the legend around them for psych op affect. Who knows. I was impressed with the whol thing and with the idea that projects like the "Jedi Project" and other 'voodoo' types of projects by the government sort of lend credence to the possibility of unexplained energies/powers.

The replay was at 1 or 2 am and I had to get up for school so I couldn't really watch it....:(
 

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Paul, the show wanted to see if ancient ninja techniques were still viable in todays world so they set up a little competition. SKH vs a navy SEAL team. Two pro body guards were assigned to protect a target on the top floor of a house. The guards were told to expect some kind of attack within a ten hour period. The SEAL team attacked first in typical SEAL fashion...sweep and destroy with guns blazing. The target was dead in a matter of minutes. SKH then set about making his attempt. He used ninja invisibility to get to the target. What was cool about the show was that the "invisibility" wasn't portrayed as some jedi mind trick but simply SKH dressing up as a crewman for the camera crew and probing the defenses to gather info and gain the trust of the body guards. He explained that the invisibility was simply becoming what people expect to see so you are simply not looked at closely. After a couple of trips into the safe house he managed to gain the body guards trust enough to actually get into the room with the target and took him out.

The remote viewing case was an experiment conducted about 9 miles away at the time of the contest between SKH and the SEAL team. 11 remote viewers were givien minimal information about the contest and told to go to it. At the end of the contest they were brought to the safe house to compare notes. While no-one was 100% on the mark there were enough similarities in what the viewers saw to the actual scene to be down right creepy. The remote viewing portion was conducted by a CIA remote viewer who was active during the cold war.

The rest of the show was actually pretty good. It really downplayed a lot of the myths that you hear about the ninja having super natural powers and portrayed them as folks who were simply very good at what they did. As far as discovery channel shows go this was one of the better ones.
 

theletch1

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Sorry for the duplicate post, Paul M. Was writing mine up at the same time you were. Well, there's two points of view for ya. :uhyeah:
 

Cruentus

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Thanks for the replies guys. :asian:

Unfortunatily, They are not airing the special again this month, as I checked the schedule. Will they air it again, or do I have to buy the damn thing! :miffer:
 

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theletch1 said:
Sorry for the duplicate post, Paul M. Was writing mine up at the same time you were. Well, there's two points of view for ya. :uhyeah:
No problem, You hit the details that I missed by jumping in late to the program. It is interesting how support, size and budget can help with speed. SEAL teams and elite units in general benefit from a stockpile of technical, personnel and governmental support so their tactical doctrines are sort of 'overtly covert' and they can work for speed at the price of subtlety (using guns and numbers to take out the target).

SKH was employing a tactical doctrine born of technical, personnel and governmental targeting and scrutiny. SKH was working as a single operator with a desire to hide his presense as well as his trail (i.e. his method of eliminating the principal).

During the exercise, if it had been real (he only had to touch the principal to prove that he got within range) would imagine that SKH's techniques of dispatch would have been something sublte and hard to trace back to him. Consider too, that as a Ninja operative, he would be more like a CIA agent/spy than a military elite operator, so maintaining his cover would be part of his plan. SEAL teams wouldn't really have to consider that as much.

Now if SKH had been given the chance to have an equally staffed team of Ninja trained operatives as the SEAL team had, his approach might have been different and much faster.

I don't think it is better/best comparison as much as an example of how so many elements can contribut to how you can operate.
 

Cruentus

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I think the idea of "remote viewing" could be the topic of another thread. But....where to put it?

I think I'll just put it in the general forum, with link ups here and the Russian MA forum.

:asian:
 
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TKDman

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I'm sorry but im sure the guy on that TV show was very serious and all, but I couldn't help but laugh a few times here and there. An old man dressed up like that acting like a ninja was just plain hilarious. I also thought that the whole "Stealth walking" thing was really funny. The mind reading part at the end just went over the top though.

No offense to Ninjitsu practicioners.
 

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