Ninpô Origins
Not all of the Japanese
martial arts went through the
transformation from COMBAT to SPORT.
During Sengoku Jidai, many
samurai warriors who were defeated in battle
fled their homelands and took refuge in the mountains. In the samurai
culture, warriors were taught to accept their duties and accept their
death without question. Not accepting death was an act of
defiance and grounds for expulsion from the Japanese society with
total loss of previous status. These samurai, once at the top of
the social class, were denounced and cast into the lowest of the social
classes.
The warriors who managed to
survive in the wilderness made their homes
in nature and adopted the ways of the mountain recluse. In this
environment, drawing from constant contact with nature, the spiritual
perspectives of the shugendo (mountain mystics), the samurai fighting
methods, and unique clandestine fighting methods, the martial art of
Ninpo ("the way of
perseverance and endurance")
was born.
It should be noted that Ninpo
and Ninjutsu - the physical embodiment of
ninpo - co-existed with the samurai. In an ironic sense, these
low-class mountain warriors were occasionally hired by the upper-class
samurai warriors to perform "dishonourable" acts
(espionage, assassinations, etc.) for which they once were denounced
for doing as samurai.
Based on valuing all life, personal freedom, and family loyalty, Ninpo
was a stark contrast to the rigid codes of the samurai class. Over
time, other warriors adopted this particular path of budo, that later
became associated with the counter-culture of these mountain dwellers.
The art of Ninpo, because of its origins outside of mainstream Japanese
society, was spared the martial modifications of the Meiji period, and
hence it retains its original practicality based on self-protection and
awareness - something generally lacking in most modern sport martial
arts.
