Friends,
I first found out about Ashida Kim when I was only 13. I had gotten really into the "ninjas are cool" phase of my life, and while most other people my age went to Naruto, I went to see if anyone really taught the art. I searched through martial arts catologs and the author who stood out was a mysterious-looking man named Ashida Kim. He seemed perfect - an expert at the ninja arts, as he claimed. The Supreme Grandmaster of "Ninjitsu". I went to his Youtube account and watched him take out drugged-looking sentries, and I was hooked. That Christmas I bought a mainstream $25 "Shinobi Shozoku", some inexpensive velcro tabi and shuko that hurt my hands too much to climb with.
No sooner had February come following that Christmas when I found a book at my local library entitled "How to become a ninja: secrets from Ashida Kim's training camp". I was intriuged so I checked out the book, and read it cover-to-cover several times. The author was "anonymous", which made it very mystifying. The book began with the author detailing a morning ceremony in the first day of the camp. One of the teachers explained the symbolism of sunrise in Japanese culture (Or should I say, in cheap Kung-Fu Thriller Novel culture). The camp was complete with teaching a ninja how to run 80 miles a day, how to use "ninja bullet evading techniques", how to sleep on a tree branch without falling out, and more exciting topics. Toward the end of the book, the mysterious author detailed the last night of camp which involved sleeping outside and meditating. While the author was meditating in the night, a sinister-looking black-garbed figure (presumably Ashida Kim) appeared and communicated with the author via physic mind-reading. The black-garbed figure told the author that he had done well and had truly understood the path of the ninja, unlike the other students attending. Having said that apparently to give the author a big ego, the mysterious figure vanished.
This book kept me intruiged for a very long time. I checked it out numerous times at the library, and finally bought another book by him, "Secrets of the Ninja". I read through this book and found it pretty exciting, although lots of the techniques in it were also covered at the secret training camp in the other book. I also noticed something subliminally that made me a bit suspicious. I noticed that Ashida Kim's writing style was identical to the anonymous author who wrote "How to become a ninja". I eventually realized that Ashida Kim had simply written "How to become a ninja", put "anonymous" as the author, and made up the entire content in the book. I was crushed that no-such training camp existed. But that didn't stop me! "It's still a good, useful book," I said to myself.
Soon I took my Ashida-studying online. I found his website (http://www.ashidakim.com/) and was interested in a few things... his $10,000 Challenge, his Official Sh*t List, and his Instant Self-Defense free E-book. I also became a member of his forum, but I was later blocked (I'll talk about that in another post).
I went to Youtube to study his videos more, and then went to Amazon.com to read reviews about his books. I was disgusted at the negative reviews, talking badly about the last ninja master. How dare they! The more I read, the more I thought, "Maybe they're right..." and the more I blocked that out, the more I couldn't stand doing so.
So, I left Ashida Kim, once and for all. I found the Bujinkan.
Since then, I have trained in true warrior disciplines and I've made a vow to do all I can to help other aspiring martial artists find real martial arts, real honorable teachers, and not con-artists who sell the idea of being a ninja.
More to come,
The Truthful Warrior
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