Went to see a visiting Ninja at an inner west dungeon. He’s not into BDSM – he’s a 73-yr-old Texan ninja master and former airline pilot whose stepdaughter is a pro-domme in Australia, so he taught her a few moves to use with her domming and for her protection. He visits her once a year and does demos for other dungeon dwellers, by request.
He showed us some rope tricks with a difference – he can do fancy tying but he’d rather gain control and get the other person off-balance, mentally or otherwise.
“Never play by the rules. If you follow rules, you’ll train yourself to follow them, then you’ll get eaten alive by someone without rules.
“And never play the other person’s game. Set your own rules and play your own game.”
When playing with rope, he said it was best not to think of it as “tying someone up”.
“Think of entangling them. Then, when you have control, you can spend time doing your fancy knots.”
He showed us how to put someone off balance without touching them and that the most important thing is to be able to get out of the way effectively, with small movements.
“People misunderstand what’s effective – you just need positioning and very quick movements. Power = mass and speed. Speed is not genetic – the more relaxed you are, the faster the strike.”
He said most people “misunderstand what’s effective”, and demonstrated on all of us by touching pressure points. As he did relaxed flicks or pokes, he got me to feel his arms as he did them and I could feel no muscle contraction, it was completely loose and relaxed.
“I want you to all feel it [the pressure points] and press them yourselves too. This is not a demo – it’s training. Pain is a very powerful motivator for learning.”
He told us a story about how five Japanese police officers could not control a drunken tall Swede, so they ran to the nearest Sensei (ninja) – a shrivelled little old man – who came out and slapped the bloke once and he was out! Then he showed us the slapping move! Much dropping to the floor ensued.
Ninja in action. Note: ninja footwear.
