Friends,
This is it! The final chapter of our evaluations of Ashida Kim’s “Sentry removal Techniques” series.
This review is of Ashida Kim’s “Ninja Sentry Removal Techniques 5 of 5”.
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXInxCDRde4
Without further delay, here we go.
The film starts by repeating a clip seen in part 4 from a different angle. This angle makes it harder to see what happened, so I advise you to go back to part 4 to see it better. Basically, Ashida Kim is seen hiding behind a telephone pole, approaching a sentry who has his back turned to Ashida. Ashida, being then ninja master he is, apparently makes a noise and the sentry spins around and points his rifle at Ashida, motioning with his hand for Ashida to come closer. Ashida then takes the gun and flings the sentry to the ground, then knocks out the sentry with the rifle butt.
Let’s break down this technique and find out how practical it is. First of all, the reason Ashida has to get so close to attack the sentry is because Ashida insists on ignoring ninjutsu’s principle of adaptation. Ashida refuses to carry modern weaponry, so he’s stuck in 17th century Japan, carrying nothing but shuriken, cheap Hollywood ninjato, and flour (metsubushi - or as the narrator says in part 1, “Mitsubishi-Ko!” Yep, like the car!). So, Ashida could have avoided the confrontation with the sentry if he’d just brought a silenced rifle with him. Heck, he could even stay in the 17th century and use a fukiya (3-foot blowgun) and avoid the confrontation that way too!
So anyhow, Ashida is seen by the sentry as he tries to approach from behind. The sentry spins around and, instead of calling for back-up immediately like an good sentry would, he actually motions Ashida to come closer. “Hey ninjer, come here so you can reach my gun and take it from me!” Any real sentry would immediately back up to make sure his gun was out of reach. That’s how guns work, you know? You pull the trigger, they go “boom,” and the bullet will fly quite far. I guess the sentry missed that day of firearms training.
The sentry lets go of the gun with one hand so he can motion for Ashida to come closer. Ashida quickly steps forward and grabs the gun, and takes it (unrealistically easily) and knocks the sentry out. Mr. Kim then promptly adjusts his mask. We don’t want any sentries to see my face! That would be baaaaad. For some reason, all through this video, a loud noise keeps cutting in and out. It sounds like a helicopter or something. Anyway, next we see Ashida slipping along the horizontal supports of a fence. I’m not sure why one would risk this. Of course it’s useful if there is a railway with no ground beside it, but Ashida has a very welcoming-looking ground just below him, yet he thinks it is necessary to risk making a heck of a noise should a support break with his weight, by climbing onto a fence. To be fair, if it were a dirt floor that might be an okay thing to do to avoid footprints. But Ashida wouldn’t have to avoid footprints if he used a disguise to get into camp, but that’s covered in an earlier post.
The “Spider Climb” is demonstrated next. Although this climb looks impressive to the untrained eye, it is one of the most useless techniques ever devised by Mr. Kim. The technique is used to climb a wall, but if you look at the film footage, Ashida Kim has two two-by-fours to hold onto and to grip with his feet. These boards are just the right distance from each other for Ashida to hold onto and climb with. So, unless Ashida Kim plans on infiltrating a location and is hoping that there just happens to be a few boards at exactly the right distance from each other, and at exactly where he wants to climb, then he’s out of luck. I would bet that Ashida even had to buy a few boards and nail them to the wall, just for that climb.
Kim even speaks of this climb in a book of his like it is magical or something. He claims that by practicing “climbing” on a horizontal floor for three years, then practicing climbing a wall with bricks protruding for three years, that someone can develop the ability to climb completely flat surfaces. I hope with all of my might that no one has ever been gullible enough to waste six years trying that.
We then go back to the “Wall-Walking Technique,” and the narrator lies by saying that it takes great finger strength to accomplish. It doesn’t - I’ve tried it.
Next, Ashida is seen climbing around the upper supports of a barn. He then finds a nice little hole and stays there. Just like the Spider Climb, this technique looks cool but isn’t useful. It is too high a distance to leap onto someone without injuring yourself, it would be difficult to shoot at someone from up there (the hands are mostly busy balancing the body and the aim would be off), and espionage should be done with disguises, not with hiding in a barn.
Next, we cut back to a clip seen in part 1. Ashida descends from a roof onto the top of an open door, and leaps onto a sentry, knocking him out.
This technique isn’t useless, but the way Ashida does it is. First of all, Ashida is on a tin roof. A roof like that will make far too much noise for a sentry directly below not to hear you. Also, instead of leaping directly from the rooftop, he descends first to the top of an open door. This move is risky. If someone were to close the door, Ashida would take a hilarious fall. Also, the door’s hinge may swing with Ashida’s weight, also causing a fall.
Ashida then demonstrates some ukemi. His ukemi has improved since previous parts, but he’s still no better than a beginning parkour student. His rolls are fit for sport, but are not tactical for ninjutsu. See my youtube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/ninpo4life and find a video called “Bujinkan Ukemi: Zigzag rolls demo” for ninjutsu rolling. The head should never touch the ground (Ashida’s head most definitely does touch), and the eyes should remain forward throughout the entire roll (see my video).
While the ukemi is being performed, the narrator mentions that a kneeling stance is useful for distorting the human silhouette. This doesn’t make any sense - the kneeling stance is just as distinctive as the standing silhouette. Trying rolling up into a tight ball if you want to distort your silhouette, not kneeling - especially not like how Ashida kneels.
More footage from part 1 is played again, and video quality is horrible. It’s as if Ashida played a scratched VHS (remember those!?) and filmed his TV as it played.
And of all clips, it’s the clip of Ashida stealthily moving in front of, instead of behind like a good ninjer should, a nice-looking patch of woods. He clumsily rolls back into the woods and branches can be seen shaking noisily from it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ashida wouldn’t need to roll back there if he was already back there. I guess he was two wrapped up in his mystic mumbo-jumbo.
Next, another scene from part 4 is shown again. Ashida is seen crawling underneath an elevated porch. Those elevated porches are hard to come by first of all, and also, he is evidently fleeing after having bowed to the sleeping fat man and stolen some bottles (see my earlier posts if that doesn’t make any sense). So why would he flee so slowly? The man inside is asleep, so RUN!!! And take your mask off - you look like a terrorist!
Next, Ashida ascends to the rooftop. In this situation, it is more practical because the roof appears to be a shingle roof, which is quiet enough to ascend without arousing suspicion through noise. But if you look to the bottom left corner of the film from 3:29 to 3:30, you can see a car driving down the road. Since Ashida is in a populated neighborhood, someone who sees a masked figure on a rooftop is likely to call the police. This is where hensojutsu comes in handy (see an earlier post).
Ashida then descends the roof via a wireless antenna, and leaves fingerprints on it. Also, look at the zoom-in at 3:50 until 3:53. At the left of Ashida’s head, a bright security light that Ashida set off shines in his face. Did he really think his viewers wouldn’t notice it?
Next, some footage from part 2 is shown again. Ashida ducks underneath two windows with the blinds closed, then rises his body high as he passes by the window with the blinds up. He then pretends to pick a lock, and gets his nasty fingerprints all over it.
And finally, the painful series reaches an abrupt end.
Whew! That was a long series. I would give part 5 of his series a 4 out of 10, his highest rating yet. The ranking of 4 out of 10 is described as “Horrible. Not completely useless though, as it is good for laughs.”
Ashida Kim is, well, a con artist. His entire series of “ninja sentry removal techniques” consists of nothing more than low-budget camera tricks, terrible actors performing impractical techniques, and the occasional technique that isn’t completely useless, but still is nothing more than common sense.
As of now I have next to no subscribers to this blog, but the point of this blog isn’t to become popular, it is to get out as much information about Ashida Kim is possible. People need all of the facts, so they can stay away from frauds like this man. So as long as an occasional Ashida-worshipper finds this blog and it opens his/her eyes, I’m doing my job.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the series of my blog, “Evaluations of Ashida Kim’s ‘Ninja Sentry Removal Techniques.’” Have a great day.
Stay tuned, more to come.
The Truthful Warrior
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