ty em ~~ ~ 2 + UNARMED COMBAT Insects chirped somewhere in the darkness. Distant bullfrogs croaked, On a windless night of little moon, I looked out over ‘acres of shallow water, out of which rice plants poked tentatively. Tetnod next to my teacher in the night of Japan’s rural Saitama Prefecture, half'a world away from my American birthplace. We were clad in black cotton jackets, loose-fitting black leggings, and black Jabi (split-toed footwear). My teacher's tattered sash was em- broidered with the Japanese characters FIRSIt@Zi for Togakure- ryu Nimpo, the Togakure family school of the art of stealth. “My first training session was to deal with unarmed combat. ‘Tanemura-san had arrived at the inn as promised and we had driv en through the darkness to his home in the country. He stressed again that there were two aspects to real fighting—striking and grappling. Our training would blend both elements. ‘THE NINJA FISTS In the darkness of that night my initiation into the way of the ninja began. Tanemura-san, now my teacher, asked me to dem- onstrate some punching techniques. I slammed my right fist 48 + rue NINA 18. Unarmed combat training. straight out in front of my body, while snapping my left fist back to my left hip. I knew that he would be impressed by this punch that could smash through three planks of wood. “Well, that is a rather old-fashioned punching technique. It was devised by the Okinawan farmers hundreds of years ago to combat the armored samurai who dominated them. Ido not think it is very reliable against today's fighters. I’m affraid that they are much faster today since they usually wear no armor.” The sa- murai of old were clad in bamboo and leather armor. Naturally, this slightly slowed their movements. Therefore, the Okinawan farmer could afford to concentrate on delivering single blows with ‘enough power to smash through the adversary’s armor. “What does the ninja’s punching method look like?” I asked. “There is no one punching method. The hand can be formed into many different positions. ‘The experienced fighter uses his hand in whatever way it can best be used. Different targets of the body should be attacked by appropriate striking surfaces of the hand. 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