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Saito Ninjitsu is a form of
Ninjitsu developed by the Saito family. From the mystical side of its
history, one finds that the art was given as a gift to a desperate boy
from a community of villages being raided by powerful warlords. The gift
was the art of Saito Ninjitsu mastery from a mysterious monk known as the
Shorinjin. As he travelled back to his village, he came upon a forest
where a group of mysterious
Tengu
demons swept him up and took him to the Tengu King (Dai Tengu). Here
he told the story of his village, his journey, and the gift the Shorinjin
had granted him. The king was moved, as the Shorinjin had been, and he
granted the art of double-spinning Tengu Swordsmanship (an art that, to
this day, is unique to the Saito family) to the mortal and saw that he was
safely escorted out of the forest.1
As is implied in the article mentioned later on, there is likely some
truth to this "fairytale." Shorinjin literally translates to "Man of
Shaolin." This implies the art and its remarkably smooth and flowing
movements probably have a Chinese origin. The origin of the Tengu sword
indicates that it was indeed developed by farmers. It is two-thirds
handle, made of wood, and one-third blade, double-edged, but maintains the
structural curve of the
katana. The double-edged blade can cut from any angle. A wooden sheath
covers the blade so that the unpolished wood looks more like a stick. It
could be carried by farmers without alarming a soldier. Because it is
two-thirds wood it is much lighter than a katana. The long handle allows
it to be used like a small staff or jo, striking without cutting. It is a
spinning sword with the balance point in the middle so that it can be
easily shifted from hand to hand. This allows the weapon to be spun like a
rotating fan, which has three advantages. First, it is faster due to
inertia--"an object in motion tends to stay in motion"--the blade is
always on its way to the target (it becomes a disc). Second, the blade
becomes invisible because there is no way to determine the plane or
direction of attack. Third, it presents an "animal" unknown to the enemy;
he has no reference points from which to figure out what he is
confronting--it captures the mind. The sheath, only thirteen inches long,
can be used as a
yawara stick or it can be thrown. Because of its center balance point,
the sword can be thrown like a horizontally rotating fan or a spear. It
was a weapon for all contingencies--not the user's "soul."
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