Friends,
Today, let’s look at part 3 of Ashida Kim’s “Sentry Removal Techniques”.
Here is the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkuj-h3JZUI
Starting out, the narrator says that hiding in corners is an “excellent” place to observe the enemy. This is not completely incorrect, but Ashida Kim is in someone’s house. In a house, you don’t want to try to conceal yourself (Look at the evaluation of part 2 for a complete explanation of how you want to disguise yourself when doing urban stealth instead of sneaking around) anywhere. It’s foolish, be cause the lights of the house will nearly always be on. So hiding in a corner isn’t any better than sitting on the kitchen counter eating a cabbage.
Next, we cut to a scene showing a few students practicing some kenjutsu drills that were ripped off from the Bujinkan, then done incorrectly and choreographed ridiculously and unrealistically. What’s amusing is the narrator calls it Iaijutsu (which he incorrectly pronounces as “eye-jitsoo”), when they aren’t drawing their swords at all, just taking baseball bat-style slugs at each other.
After we try to endure the horrible kenjutsu for awhile, we go back to Ashida Kim who demonstrates the “forward pivot”. This extremely difficult technique involves taking a step forward and turning around. I have yet to master this master-level technique - I believe it is on the black belt test so I’d better get to work. The narrator then says “Stay low”, and Ashida Kim immediately drops low - as if the narrator were telling Ashida Kim what to do as he went along.
We have to endure lots of footage of how to get across a hallway without being detected. Another technique is called “ducking out of sight”. Another ridiculously-hard technique.
Next, we get to some footage of Ashida breaking into a file cabinet while the narrator is solemnly rambling nonsense such as “To follow the moonlit pat, take with you a lamp and a map. Learn to become small... when Draco is rising below the moon, look for round circles of light to mark your path... this is the way of the rat...” and other such strange wording. I guess this was filler-narration while Ashida tried to get into the file cabinet. He finally does, and takes out a little box. Upon opening it, he finds something in it, then puts it down and gets out a package out of the cabinet, then puts it back, and grabs a little bottle. All this is happening while the narrator talks about nonsense like gods and genies and walking through walls.
Upon doing all of this, Ashida sneakily leaves the room, goes back to that dreading hallway where we have endured much ridiculous footage. Next, he goes to a little room and sneaks through it, and the footage fades out. A sigh of relief can be heard from the narrator, solaced that he has made it through the film without laughing.
This footage gets another 1 out of 10. Ashida Kim does not demonstrate any useful stealth in this film.
Stay tuned! Part 4 is coming soon.
The Truthful Warrior
