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Training for a ninja began almost as soon as he could walk. Childhood games were designed to inculcate expertise in unarmed .
combat, swordwork, weaponry, camouflage, escape and evasion. In time, the ninja warriors came to be feared throughout .
Japan. Even the mighty Samaurai looked over his shoulder if a ninja was known to be in the area. Over the centuries, while .
ninjutsu was being practiced in secrecy, no one knew anything about the art except the ninjas themselves. When Japan .
emerged into the modern era, and feudalism collapsed, the ninja were absorbed into Japan's secret service and special services .
groups. The martial arts boom of the 1970's saw two men searching for something different. Doron Navon and Stephen Hayes .
found a ninjutsu headmaster living in Japan who came from an unbroken line of ninja instructors dating back almost 800 years. .
The art was then brought to the western World. When speaking of Ninja, the image of a black clad assassin disappearing in a .
cloud of smoke is what comes to mind. This distortion has nothing to do with the reality of studying Ninjutsu, or "Ninpo" in its .
highest order. Ninpo is a traditional Japanese bujutsu martial art with a rich and viable history that stretches back over ten .
centuries. Developed as a highly illegal counterculture to the ruling samurai warrior class, Ninpo still flourishes today under the .
direct guidance of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi,34th grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu tradition and eight other budo .
traditions. Dr. Hatsumi is the last variable true Ninja grandmaster having a direct line of decent from feudal Japan. The .
instructors at the BBD Newark Ninjutsu Club are directly affiliated with Hatsumi Sensei and his international Bujinkan Dojo. .
Ninpo is a more global title for the nine ryu (families) related. Po is Japanese for 'principle way'.
It is very difficult to actually say where modern day Ninjutsu has really evolved from.
