Ninja training, how does one train to be a ninja? What do ninja need to be good at? How can we get want we want?

Ninja are overall good at many things, being stealthy, being able to avoid detection, being able to avoid capture, surveillance and martial arts. I’m going to give you some tips on what you can do to train yourself and your body in a ninja way.

In japan, ninja training used to be based on training in aggressive environmental conditions, so that the ninja could adapt and perform in any situation. The theory goes that if you can do it in the hardest of conditions, then you should have no trouble at all in regular conditions. It allowed the ninja to become used to being in stressful situations and have their body and mind trained to be able to react in such a way that was objective and unbiased.

The ninja believed in some principles derived from Zen-Buddhism, these principles in our current modern time are outdated and will not prepare you for any kind of modern surveillance, stealth or avoiding capture.  I believe that in these modern times a more sophisticated approach is required.

Things ninja need to be good at

• Sneaking
• Evading capture
• Avoiding detection
• Combat
• Interpersonal skills
• Broad knowledge in many areas
• Disguises and ability to lie

Sneaking can be learned through rigorous training, refer to this article on how to sneak. To become good at sneaking and stalking simply takes practice and learning how to move swiftly and quietly on any surface and environment. Practice makes perfect stands true here.

Evading capture requires you knowing your environment and where you are better than the people chasing you, and putting your resources to good use. Its very important for ninja to be very fit, you want to be able to sprint and keep moving very quickly for long periods of time. Parkour is an excellent way to train evasion techniques. Almost nobody will be able to keep up with someone who is able to scale a 10ft wall within 3 seconds. Refer to this article on parkour training for ninjas for a more detailed explanation of how to apply parkour to your training.

Avoiding detection is simply a combination of knowing how to sneak and your environment, if you are doing surveillance on an area make sure that you know how the guards move and when they take breaks. Avoiding detection means using your environment to your advantage, wait until the guards go for a break – make a distraction so that they move to check it out. This take creativity and you will get better at it as you apply it. Other methods include using unconventional entry strategies. Being good at rock climbing and being good at parkour are two things that a modern ninja will benefit from greatly. Almost nobody will expect you to climb up through an open window or some other exposed entrance. Stay safe and use it wisely.

Combat is an important skill, not only for ninjas but for survival in general. Hopefully you will never be in a situation where you need to apply force to escape but being good at martial arts will save your butt in many instances when things go wrong. This doesn’t only apply to being a ninja but life in general, if you are walking home late at night and you are approached by some shady characters, you can either try and run or fight. If you can’t run and they are looking for a fight, then you only have one option. I suggest you read my fighting and martial arts article. Specific martial arts that are useful in real life and that have genuine carry over are muay thai, Brazilian jui jitsu and boxing. Most other martial arts are a sport and aren’t designed for real combat. Muay thai involves training your body to be able to take hit and deliver vicious hits with your head, elbows, hands, knees and shins – search a muay thai video and you will find out why this is one of the most practical martial arts that exists.

Interpersonal skills, being able to lie your way out of situations and lie your way into places you aren’t meant to be is a very useful skill to have. Social engineering and the ability to lie and detect lies is absolutely invaluable, if someone asks you why you are somewhere you aren’t meant to be, getting caught lying is definitely not something that you want. Refer to the article on how to tell if someone is lying for a more thorough guide and tips on how to detect liars. Charisma and a smile are also very important and highly overlooked. Saying thank you and please will get you very far, always smile and always be polite – people want to be nice to those who are polite to them. If you want something from someone and they are working a boring job, chances are your politeness will stand out to them and they will be more inclined to give you want you want. Try it out, it really works.

Having a broad knowledge in many areas means that you can talk at length on many topics and that you know a lot about the world. Its important to be knowledgeable as you will often find yourself in situations where you will need to talk your way into or out of something. Stay up to date with current world events and read all the classic books that you can get your hands on. Developing a large vocabulary and having a lot of general knowledge is never a bad thing.

Being able to disguise yourself and stick to a personality that isn’t you real one takes significant skill – not many people are able to switch in and out of different personalities very easily. It takes a while to master this, and being able to lie and having a high level of general knowledge will equip you well for slipping in and out of different disguises and persona’s to establish your reasons for being places you aren’t meant to be, or to gain knowledge you aren’t mean to know. If you assert yourself as a person of power in a company – and you are on the phone to an employee who doesn’t know you personally, chances are that if you are convincing and a master of disguise and all your research and surveillance is done correctly… the person on the other end of the phone is going to tell you anything you want to know. For all he knows you are the boss of his boss.

A modern ninja doesn’t train with chopsticks and practice catching flies – he uses his environment and knowledge to get what he wants and needs. If you develop a skill-set like this, you will find that many things in life seem to fall into your lap and that you never go wanting. An understanding of human dynamics and psychology will take you far, many people are easily manipulated and tricked, especially those who work boring jobs. Do not do anything illegal, and if you plan on doing anything at all make sure that you have done thorough research and you know absolutely everything about your mark, your target and your goals. Focus on building rapport with people who can give you information you need – but do it under a disguise.

Good luck

Imagine if you could sneak around, anywhere, completely undetected…

Sneaking around is very important. Being able to move without detection is one of the most useful skills you can have. There are many different techniques to sneak, the most effective is to train your foot and ankle muscles to be very strong. The stronger they are, the most stable they are and the more control you have over them. Being able to move silently is one of the most effective ways to avoid detection, but there is more to it than not making noise as you sneak around an empty house. How about blending into the background noise so you don’t stand out? What about following someone and having them not realize you are there? Avoiding detection is absolutely crucial to any ninja.

So how exactly does one avoid detection and sneak? Ill give you a couple of tips, I’ve found that these work best when I’m rested and fresh. Its important to be focused.

• If you can – wear only socks. Get some thick woolen ones. The more rigid and hard your footwear is, the more noise its going to make. Wear two pairs of socks on top of each other. You can use them indoors and outdoors this way.
• Wear clothes that are tight. You don’t want to wear anything that’s going to create friction and flap about, try and go as light as possible. Skip the tights though – definitely want to be a stylish ninja, and stylish ninja don’t wear tights. Tuck your shirt into your pants if it gets in the way, tuck your pants into your socks.
• Learn to breathe deeply and fully. Make sure you are fit enough to not start panting when moving quickly. You will find it difficult to move silently for long distances because you’re going to be keeping so many muscles tight. A high level of fitness is very useful.
• Look where you are going. When you are walking you are probably used to looking ahead of you, which is fine and normal – but this wont work if you want to stay quiet. Make sure you pay close attention to where you are putting your feet. Try and avoid anything that looks like it might creak. Stick to carpet.
• If you are following someone, try and match the cadence of their stepping. Use the noise they make to mask your own – try and practice this before you try it out for real for the first time because it takes some getting used to.
• Walk on your toes, try not to let your heel touch the ground. Do NOT step on your heel and roll over to your toes. Simply use the balls of your feet and toes to walk.

It takes some training but moving silently is a really effective way of avoiding detection and an extremely cool trick to sneak up on your friends with. Practice in your house, practice when you are at your friends houses. If you plan on using this kind of trick for surveillance I suggest you have a backpack stashed somewhere that you can run to and quickly slip into sneakers on so that you can actually run – should you need to. Try and dress in black but keep a colorful sweater or something that doesn’t look suspicious with you until you arrive to your destination. Leave it with your bag, well hidden. Seeing someone moving around in all black at night is a dead giveaway that they are up to no good.

Most definitely, you want to check out the places you plan on observing before you go at night – spend a couple of days walking around during the day. Walking the dog is a good cover, so is throwing a ball over the fence “accidentally” so you had to jump the fence to get it.

Use your imagination, don’t do anything illegal, have fun

What better way to avoid capture and escape from people than training parkour?

What is parkour? This is best explained by a video -- you’ve probably heard of it or seen it. Parkour is the art of moving efficiently through your environment. Its getting from point A to point B as fast as you can and as efficiently as you can, doing flips and tricks along the way is cool and flashy, but is not efficient -- that is called free-running. Many parkour practitioners also practice free-running as it is fun, and an excellent way to training your body.

Keep in mind, the person in that video has been training for almost 7 years, but imagine with even basic training, you are already going to be able to escape from any potential pursuant, almost nobody will be able to catch you.

I have been training parkour and free-running regularly for the past 4 years, I use it as a way to condition my body and mind. The training I do to look after my knees and joints while I practice parkour helps keep my fitness overall at a very high level, I will share with you some tips and how to get started in parkour training.

Can anyone do parkour?

Of course, if you go to youtube and you search parkour or parkour training you will find videos from people of all ages and both genders practicing parkour. There is no limit to how old you can be, both men and women can do it, you don’t need anything to start (like a ball or a racket) and you can do it anywhere you want, as there are no laws prohibiting parkour like there are for skateboarding.

Before you go out and start training you’ll want to find yourself a light backpack you can carry around and put down at your training spots to hold onto your valuables and water as you don’t want to fall and land on your phone. Dress in light clothing, shorts or tracksuits and a shirt. Wear old sneakers/trainers as your shoes will get torn apart after some time.

How do you train parkour?

There’s many aspects to parkour, first you need to have a body that can handle the forces involved with jumping around and doing things that you wouldn’t normally do. I recommend you either find a good bodyweight training guide, or a weight training guide, depending on what you wish to do. I will go over some basic bodyweight techniques and training you can do and how to train for parkour.

Having good balance is very important, having a high level of balance and being sure-footed will make you safer and make performing movements easier. I recommend that you practice balancing in whichever shoes you are going to be training parkour in -- do not practice your balancing barefoot if you are training in sneakers as this will put your proprioception off. You can walk along rails and practice jogging/running on narrow paths to increase your balance. Running along a low wall that is fairly narrow is good training as often you will find yourself needing to sprint along a narrow wall to jump to the next one.

When you go out to train parkour, I suggest you find some local traceurs in your area, simply search in google “your city name, parkour”. There are parkour organizations world wide that are designed to help beginners starting off.

If you want to train on your own then its important not to watch some youtube videos and start doing roof gaps or anything silly. Start by practicing moving around rails and doing cat-passes and other vaults.

Kong vault

The aim is to pass over an obstacle, start small then move up to bigger and larger objects. Run towards the object, jump and plant your hands on it, let your momentum carry you over it, then use your hands to readjust yourself so you land on your feet.

Precision Jump

Stand still and focus on where you want to jump, bend down and explode up as hard as you can, trying to launch yourself UP as opposed to FORWARD. Land on your toes and try and stay still, without moving. The goal of a precision jump is to land on something that is small or narrow, such as a railing. Practicing on concrete (as above in the picture) is a good way to start.

Wall-run

Run towards the wall at a fast pace, kick off the wall at about knee height and push yourself upwards while reaching with your hands to the top of the wall. Grab the top and pull yourself up.

These are three basic techniques that you can practice today and go out and try. Take a look at a few videos to get the concept sealed into your mind and try them. There are MANY more techniques such as rolls, different kinds of vaults, arm jumps and rail/bar techniques but going out and practicing moving around with your friends is an excellent way to train.

Conditioning

This is by far the most important part, having a strong body will make everything a lot easier and you will be a lot safer in performing these movements if your body can handle it.

• Pushups (regular, diamond, hands at hips, wide)
• Pullups (regular, chinup grip, wide grip, close grip)
• Dips (weighted/unweighted)
• Planks
• Pistol squats
• Handstand pushups
• Crunches
• Sprints

These are exercises you should spend 15-20minutes doing after your training sessions, depending on how fit you are you should make them difficult enough for you to be dead tired after you are done. Mix it up and train with friends and it will be a lot easier to complete.

Weight training is also a highly effective way to train and I recommend you find yourself a program incorporating squats, deadlifts, overhead pressing, rows and bench presses if you choose to use weights to condition.

Wouldn’t it be really great if we had a skill that we could use to tell if someone was telling us a lie?

Imagine how useful that kind of skill would be with our friends, family, police and enemies, the list goes on and on – there are endless possibilities for its use. Luckily for us there are some tell tale signs when people are trying to conceal something. Ill go through the basics and give you some easy steps and tricks so you can put it into action in your life.

The coolest part about all of this is that after reading this article, you’ll understand how to not give yourself away when lying. Wouldn’t that be useful

The things I’m telling you are standard in the security industry, the FBI and all security agencies will have this as basic training for their employee’s, there has been plenty of scientific research into the measurement of physical changes when lying, I will give you a brief summary.

What happens when we tell a lie?

When we tell a lie, we experience a number of physical changes – almost every human being will experience these things, some people who lie more than others will experience them at a lesser intensity, while others may not be so comfortable while lying. You may notice that when people are lying they will:

-Give you a fake smile.

-Touch their nose.

-Lean forward a lot.

-Sweating, around the palms or on the top lip.

-Playing with objects, fiddling with hands.

-Averting their gaze.

-Touching their face a lot.

-Avoiding eye contact.

-Guilty people tend to get defensive, innocent people will more often go on the offensive.

-They may unconsciously place objects between themselves and you (eg: a book, a cup)

-A guilty person may add more details than is necessary in an attempt to convince you of their innocence.

-They use humor or sarcasm to deflect.

-Liars are often uncomfortable facing their  accuser, they will shift their body language away.

-Try and change the subject, if they follow along willingly and become more relaxed there is a good chance they are lying. A person who is innocent will be confused and will want to go back to the previous topic.

As a note, its important to realize that just because someone does these things, they aren’t automatically lying. Experts in the field of security and interrogation agree that its important to use a number of body language and verbal cues to make a prediction of whether someone is telling the truth or not.

Who is good at detecting lies?

We’ve all heard about polygraph machines, or “lie detectors”, the truth is that they are easily beat. How does a polygraph machine work? Well its fairly simple. They hook you up to some detectors that measure certain physical features, like how much you are sweating and how fast your heart in beating etc. The theory goes that, someone who is lying will experience more “stress” response from their body, as they are under pressure and nervous. So when they ask you control questions you are calm, and when they ask you a question that you are going to lie about, you become nervous and the machine registers this.

To beat a lie detectors, you could place a tac under your foot, and press down hard to elicit pain when they ask you a control question, such as “Is your name John?” – then when they ask you a question where you may want to conceal something “Do you like dressing up in women’s clothing?” and you become stressed and nervous because you’ve secretly been cross-dressing for the past 3 years it registers the same as when you pushed down on the tac.

Here is a psychology study performed in 1991, and 1999 that compares the accuracy of detecting lying.

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As you can see, CIA officers get it right almost 3/4 of the time, but don’t misinterpret the table – there are two outcomes to a lie, true or false. That means that 50% of the time we will be right (by luck). So foregoing any advanced mathematics and statistical analysis, federal officers get it right 3/4 of the time. Interestingly the polygraph only gets it right 55.8% of the time. This isn’t unexpected as the polygraph isn’t an accepted scientific method of lie detection – it isn’t used it courts either.

In the end, when you are lying to someone – make sure that you don’t touch your face, you keep looking at them and you don’t get defensive. An experienced liar will naturally be good at doing these things, so it will be a lot harder for you to detect. As they say, practice makes perfect – if you keep lying eventually you will get very good at it. You also now know how to beat a polygraph machine, not that they are used often – but still