best. weapon. ever.
It's been a fun week. At taijiquan, I finished learning the 38 Form, which is a bunch of moves, some of which I even know how to use on a human. There's this game we play in taiji called "push-hands," where you pair up with someone and attempt to push them off balance while remaining on balance yourself (kind of like a game of capoeira, except with just your hands). At low levels, push-hands is just placing your hand against the other person's and learning to sense and push and react. I got to watch some high-level push-hands, though, and at high levels it evolves into a similar game called "wrestling."
You know how Real Ultimate Power says that "[m]ost of [ninjas'] free time is spent flying, but sometimes they stab"? Well, last Wednesday was that sometime. Ninja weapons theme for this month is "Knives." We learned to stab, and to counter the stabs of various attackers, such as (to use Sensei's technical terms) "the Stabby-Stabby Guy," and the "Guy Who Has A Knife And Tries To Slash You But Doesn't Actually Know How To Do It Except That He Has Seen West Side Story." While demonstrating a move, one of the black belts accidentally slashed me in the groin of my gi pants. I exhaled sharply and announced, "It's a good thing this [indicating the gi] is a heavyweight!" To which Sensei responded, in his best frat boy voice, "Yeaaah, that's what I always say." The night after that, we studied the Kuki Shinden-ryu ("Nine Dæmons School"), founded by (I shit you not) samurai pirates, and featuring such deadly techniques as the Samurai Lap Dance.
I visited Swarthmore on Sunday night to help with Pterodactyl Hunt foam-swordsmithing, which was attended by me, nautiluspq, and ricerurouni, with sinsofthedove arriving towards the end. We broke into George (the science-fiction club storage room in the attics of Parrish Hall) and took inventory of Pterodactyl Hunt crap, which was hot and dusty and oppressive but we were doing a Good Deed so it was OK. tirerim met us for pizza and then we played a confusing board game about palaces with think_too_much and kid_prufrock and then Munchkin which is one of my favorite games. I crashed with appending-doom, somehow sleeping really well despite the heat and so forth, and then came home to New York. I'm sorry I had to miss you, birchswinger3. Spending time at Swat reminded me of my mission to make the world less banal and more exciting and adventurous. I have to get on that. People are depending on me, even if they don't know it yet.
Finally (and this is the good part): on the train I read a book called Ninjutsu: History and Tradition by Dr Masaaki Hatsumi. Particularly interesting was the discussion of the ninja arsenal, which finally answered the ever-confusing "what kind of sword would a ninja carry?" question (answer: a ninja-ken, something between a regular long sword and the fictional ninja-to). Among the grainy pictures of ninja cord and chain weapons was the deadly mamukigama. I'd heard of the kusarigama before, of course, and that weapon is already pretty funny-looking; but this thing …
Another ninja innovation, the mamukigama cord and sickle weapon delivered a bound, terrified poisonous snake to the enemy's body. The enemy would then be so busy dealing with the snake bites, the he [sic] would be unable to counter the ninja as he advanced with his ripping sickle blade.
… did I read that right, Dr Hatsumi?
Yes, yes I did. And there is a picture.
Mamukigama.
Or as I'm gonna call it …
… Snakes on a Chain.
You know how Real Ultimate Power says that "[m]ost of [ninjas'] free time is spent flying, but sometimes they stab"? Well, last Wednesday was that sometime. Ninja weapons theme for this month is "Knives." We learned to stab, and to counter the stabs of various attackers, such as (to use Sensei's technical terms) "the Stabby-Stabby Guy," and the "Guy Who Has A Knife And Tries To Slash You But Doesn't Actually Know How To Do It Except That He Has Seen West Side Story." While demonstrating a move, one of the black belts accidentally slashed me in the groin of my gi pants. I exhaled sharply and announced, "It's a good thing this [indicating the gi] is a heavyweight!" To which Sensei responded, in his best frat boy voice, "Yeaaah, that's what I always say." The night after that, we studied the Kuki Shinden-ryu ("Nine Dæmons School"), founded by (I shit you not) samurai pirates, and featuring such deadly techniques as the Samurai Lap Dance.
I visited Swarthmore on Sunday night to help with Pterodactyl Hunt foam-swordsmithing, which was attended by me, nautiluspq, and ricerurouni, with sinsofthedove arriving towards the end. We broke into George (the science-fiction club storage room in the attics of Parrish Hall) and took inventory of Pterodactyl Hunt crap, which was hot and dusty and oppressive but we were doing a Good Deed so it was OK. tirerim met us for pizza and then we played a confusing board game about palaces with think_too_much and kid_prufrock and then Munchkin which is one of my favorite games. I crashed with appending-doom, somehow sleeping really well despite the heat and so forth, and then came home to New York. I'm sorry I had to miss you, birchswinger3. Spending time at Swat reminded me of my mission to make the world less banal and more exciting and adventurous. I have to get on that. People are depending on me, even if they don't know it yet.
Finally (and this is the good part): on the train I read a book called Ninjutsu: History and Tradition by Dr Masaaki Hatsumi. Particularly interesting was the discussion of the ninja arsenal, which finally answered the ever-confusing "what kind of sword would a ninja carry?" question (answer: a ninja-ken, something between a regular long sword and the fictional ninja-to). Among the grainy pictures of ninja cord and chain weapons was the deadly mamukigama. I'd heard of the kusarigama before, of course, and that weapon is already pretty funny-looking; but this thing …
Another ninja innovation, the mamukigama cord and sickle weapon delivered a bound, terrified poisonous snake to the enemy's body. The enemy would then be so busy dealing with the snake bites, the he [sic] would be unable to counter the ninja as he advanced with his ripping sickle blade.
… did I read that right, Dr Hatsumi?
Yes, yes I did. And there is a picture.
Mamukigama.
Or as I'm gonna call it …
… Snakes on a Chain.