How to Become a Ninja: Secrets from Ashida Kim's Training Camp

by Ashida Kim (Editor)

Enter the shadowy world of espionage as taught since ancient times to the mystic warriors of the night - the Ninja! An anonymous agent will take you inside Ashida Kim's camp to experience the training given only to select recruits. Here you will learn the techniques of ambush, escape from an armed sentry, evasion of an enemy's attack through ukemi, or falling, and battling with the most basic of weapons, the bo. You'll move undetected in the field after mastering the arts on invisibility - cover, concealment, and camouflage - and all the necessary survival skills for the ninja operating in the finding water, shelter, food; making fires; cooking; navigating; and constructing secret caches and hideaways. How to Become a Ninja is a dramatic demonstration of the Ninja's art as well as in-depth instruction for the serious ninjitsu student.

173 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Ashida Kim is an internationally renowned martial-arts expert. In addition to teaching, both at his own Dojo and on contract to other schools, he maintains affiliate clubs around the globe, hires out as a freelance agent to select intelligence agencies, and teaches police seminars.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book.. I read it A LONG time ago.

I had been reading lots of ninjutsu books at the time. I knew that it wasn't really a part of the ninjutsu lineages I was primarily interested in. I wanted to read it because it looked kind of cool, and I was a rather ninja obsessed teenager. I also had always wanted to read an Ashida Kim book, because they had intense and exotic titles such as NINJA DEATH TOUCH and NINJA MIND CONTROL. You pretty much had to order them from Black Belt Magazine back then.

Then there was this book just sitting in a little crappy mall bookstore. I realized that it wasn't really an Ashida Kim book, but an anonymous author who went undercover to spy on Ashida Kim.

It goes on to explain what he learned and what it was like to be in a secret ninja training camp run by the shadowy Ashida Kim. The author claims to be a ninja from a rival clan, and his grandmaster ordered him to go to Ashida Kim's training camp to gather intelligence on him. He writes about early mornings, staying in some rural setting... Then cool stuff, like meditating in pits. Fighting unarmed versus guns. Being sneaky. Using stars to navigate. Survival techniques.

I don't want to be a spoiler, but you are now warned.

The fact that I have to worry about spoiling a practical martial arts book is kind of funny. Later in the book the author has apparently been noticed by Ashida Kim, for being the best ninja at the camp. So they have secret ninja meetings. They compliment each other. Ashida Kim is such a nice guy, writes the author, that he decides his own grandmaster is a dumbass and is really just super jealous of Ashida Kim.

It really is a moving story of ninja brotherhood and meditating in pits, and climbing stuff.There are also a lot of excellent mustaches, and Ashida Kim looks like a Foot Soldier from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.