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“Ah, very good. These approach the true skills of the ninja. When a man can disguise his true intent, and has the sensitivity to recognize the hidden motives of others, he is capable of becoming a shrewd fighter and a difficult adversary.”

I tried to ask Hatsumi Sensei specific questions about the fighting aspects of ninjutsu, and his school’s training methods. He would answer briefly and then counter with questions about my interests and background. It was surprising to me that my previous martial arts experience was of little interest to these men. Explanations of my past training in the Oriental self-defense methods, into which I was prepared to go at great length, were noted perfunctorily by the master and his assistant. Personal questions, the answers to which I had never really thought through before, seemed to be much more important to them.

At one point I was describing a difficult kata of preset movements that I had learned in order to qualify for my latest blackbelt promotion, when the master shocked me by interrupting my discourse with an imitation of the movements of the kata. His movements were technically perfect, and yet they somehow looked awkward and out of place. The masters I had seen perform the kata series before had made the precise, rigid motions seem dynamic and impressive. The master made them look robot-like and comical. I then realized that the stiff moves did not fit Hatsumi Sensei’s relaxed and natural bearing, and the contrast had produced the ludicrous effect. For a man who was constantly rigid and controlled, however, the stylized moves would fit his personality and appear appropriate. The master merely commented that the system I was describing had been a stage through which he, too, had passed in his youth.