Benjamin Kuttner's Blog, page 4

Ninja Training

I’ve always been fascinated by the ninja. On a recent trip to Japan, I found the very authentic Ninja Dojo and Store with an excellent ninjutsu master in Kyoto, Japan’s former capital.

Before I experienced my entry-level hour of training, I read up about the famous assassins. Interestingly, the ninja were not just assassins. This smashed my stereotypical view of ninja prior to visiting Japan, which mirrored the fantastic (and terrible as in its plot) movie Ninja Assassin. The ninjas’ primary role was more of a secret service field-agent gathering intelligence about the enemy. The other point of interest was in the down times between missions, they had normal jobs such as farming or laboring. This ability to blend into the every day population was useful on their missions. Ninja would infiltrate enemy territory by disguising themselves as anyone that would allow them to carry out their objectives – priests, merchants, dancers, geishas to name a few.

http://benjaminkuttner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/video-1508974603-1.mp4

My ninja star/shuriken throwing techniques was actually okay in a controlled environment. If I was using it as a distraction in a combat situation I’m sure it would be very different. I was focusing on repeating the same movement each time and at 00.29 I actually knocked off one shuriken with the other.

The ninja sword was shorter than a samurai sword and straight, not curved, for stabbing in an enclosed spaces where a longer Samurai sword would be unwieldy. I had the impression that a ninja versus a samurai in a straight sword fight would not end well for the ninja. However, the ninja had so many other weapons in their arsenal, like the shuriken above, which evens things up considerably.

The sword also came with a very useful scabbard that could rest almost fully unsheathed on the tip of the sword giving an extension to the length. This was used in dark rooms, the ninja swept it from side to side until it touched an unfortunate, then the sword was pulled from the last little bit of scabbard and used to stab. The scabbard could also be used as a snorkel and a way to climb walls where the ninja used it as a leg up then pulled an attached cord to pull the scabbard and sword up after them.

The houses ninjas lived in looked like any other. However, they were filled with secret passages, hidden staircases, booby traps, and hidden weapon caches. In the above photo I’m just about to push on a hidden wall panel with my right hand. The wall panel will rotate round and I will disappear in a blink of an eye leaving just an empty section of wall.

My wife is holding an antipersonnel weapon here. This caltrop was left so warriors who stepped on them were injured by the sharp spikes penetrating through the soles of their shoes. This particular caltrop is actually a dried seed, others were made of metal.

Probably my favorite weapon outside of the shuriken and sword was the chain-sickle pictured above. Used by swinging the waited chain around your head then releasing it to tangle around an enemies weapon or their arms or legs. Once the enemy is tangled then the ninja can use the sickle to strike them down. The ninja used a varied array of  weapons, you can see below weapons for entanglement, daggers, claws for slashing, and so on.

Chainsaw Tip

I’ve always had dramas with chainsaws flooding. I just took it to be part of using them. I’d helplessly put the chainsaw down and go off to do other work till it cleared. (Sometimes hours – sorry the chainsaws flooded I’ll have to sort out the firewood another time…)

I finally did what I should have done years ago, which is jump on YouTube and look up why this is happening and what the hell to do. The answer lay with some guy with a very southern U.S accent and long pauses between each sentence.

I’m still surprised I’m actually writing a post about this. The reason is – it was such a lightbulb moment that I just want to share the knowledge with anyone else who is pulling their hair out (and I’m sure there are millions of us).

Chainsaws flood because there is too rich an air and fuel mix in the engine. This means the fuel will not ignite (I would have thought more air means more explosive, but this is not the case – there is a Goldilocks-perfect mix required). The chainsaw will only start once this over rich mixture has been cleared.

So for everyone out there, the solution for a flooded chainsaw is so simple:

Apply the chain break
Put the chainsaw in run mode and pull up to 30 times – it will start.

Snake Charmers

Just outside the spectacular Amber Fort in India, I had an interesting meeting with a cobra and its “charmer.”

The Snake Charmer opened up his wicker basket and a black cobra rose up. “A thousand rupees,” he said, then started playing the most incessantly annoying pipe music. He handed me a little pipe, which I started to parp on joining in the cacophony. The interesting thing is that snakes do not have external ears and follow the movement of the instrument (if you could call it that) rather than the sound of it.

Even though cobras are not particularly large, there was something so deadly and dangerous about the little black snake in front of me – I could almost feel the toxicity emanating it.

Snake charming itself is a disappearing art. Snake charmers are wondering performers who move from place to place practicing their art. I have read that for safety some of the snakes have their poison glands removed, or fangs, and in some cases even their mouths sewed shut. I wasn’t sure whether this was the case with the snake in front of me. And things became interesting when the snake charmer asked me to, “Touch, touch, touch,” the snake, which had its head turned from me. I reached out and touched the back of the cobra’s hood, the scales felt cool and a tiny bit bumpy. The cobra began to turn back to me and, with a great show of self-preservation, I leaped back (as seen in the video below).



After our trip, I read several articles about people being fatally bitten by snake charmer’s cobras in India. So I think a little respect for the poor snakes is not bad idea. (Not taking a kissing selfie with the cobra)

Despite all the downsides of the performances, it seems that snake charming is under a lot of pressure – there was a law passed in 1972 banning ownership of snakes, and the amount snake charmers earn is not high (I didn’t pay a thousand rupees and ended up giving the snake charmer one hundred rupees for a five minute performance), and the children of snake charmers are not carrying on the family tradition – choosing to find higher paid work.

I will do some more research to find out whether there are other ways snakes can be ‘controlled’ and also interesting cases of individual snake charmers – so watch this space..

 

Get Fighter Shins

I have always had such skinny shins (chicken legs, twigs) that when I used to play rugby I worried they might snap. This year, I went to three Muay Thai kickboxing matches in Thailand where the fighters have the shins I need!

Firstly, I must say what an awesome sport Muay Thai is – from the fighters spiritual pre-fight warm up (the Wat Kru or Ram Muay), to the live music, to the energetic rounds, and the frenetic gambling going on in the crowd – just awesome.

But, one thing I just couldn’t get my head around is how two human beings can kick, full force, shin to shin. I have hit my shins a few times and the pain is pure exquisite agony. Yet, there they were smashing each other shin to shin. In fact, one of the basic blocks in Muay Thai is to raise your shin up to “check” a kick.

I decided that I would investigate how they condition their shins to do this, and maybe find a way to make my twigs stronger.

The old way to shin strengthen was to kick down banana trees, wack your shins with bamboo, and even roll iron bars on the shins to deaden the nerves. This all sounds hardcore, and cool, but the modern wisdom is it is stupid (which is often the case with hardcore and cool things). The only training required to develop a Muay Thai fighter’s shin is to kick a heavy bag hundreds of times. This will deaden nerves and create micro-fractures, which then heal to produce stronger bones. With the correct recovery time and nutrition – hey presto you develop those killer shins.

To recap, there are four things you should do to develop stronger shins (so you can do below):

Kick a heavy bag a few hundred times, two to three times a week. This will deaden the nerves and create micro fractures in your shin bone that cause the bone to heal stronger than it was before.
Allow recovery time so the bone can heal.
Have the correct nutrition to aid recovery, which includes plenty of calcium and vitamin D. Heaps of protein also helps to build muscle which in turn creates more protection and support for the bones.
If you do not do 2 and 3 this may happen:

The Sling and having fun making your own.

Pics of traditional slings from Inca, Romans, Greeks etc

How used. Techniques

This great instructional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-QxP...

Here’s the results

Elephants in Thailand

A mahout is a trainer and keeper of elephants. On a trip to Thailand, I visited the Chiang Mai Mahout Training Center (CMMTC). The programme there is run and owned by the excellent Mr Sun who believes in the happiness of the elephants and uses no elephant hooks and other cruel training methods. The methods I saw the mahouts use during my time at the Center was food (bribery) and verbal commands. I truly believe the elephants at the CMMTC were happy elephants based on my experience before at Ayutthaya, near Bangkok, sitting on a mounted platform held in place by chains around the elephant and noting that the mahouts there held vicious looking elephant hooks. One of the elephants passing in the opposite direction at Ayutthaya even had small bleeds on its head which may have been made by the elephant hook.

What especially surprised me was how intelligent, playful and mischievous the elephants at the CMMTC were. They are like pet dogs with the same loyalty and gentleness. However, what was also immediately obvious was the elephant’s immense power and ability (should the elephant want) to have utterly annihilated me.

The mahout rides an elephant sitting on its neck with his legs behind the elephant’s ears and hands resting on the two massive bumps at the top of the elephant’s skull. The elephant I rode barely noticed me, which makes sense when I worked out that I weigh around 37 times less than the average Asian elephant and elephants have ten centimeter thick skins.

The whole experience was very leisurely, like horse trekking, with each elephant following the next single file and the mahouts walking below talking and telling off elephants that decided to eat rather than walk. The only moments where I became worried was when the elephant went down a steep bank or slope – my fear was if my elephant tripped and fell I would be flattened. But, what also became apparent was how sure-footed elephants are, carefully making their way down with very gentle foot placements.

Elephants also love water, completely submerging themselves and snorting water all over me. All in all, they are truly remarkable creatures and when I looked in the elephant’s eye, while standing drenched with water, I felt a connection like I’ve felt with very intelligent dogs.

Wikimedia Commons

Elephants form an integral part of society in Thailand, until recently they were used to transport heavy loads, and centuries ago were used in warfare as transports, troops positions and tank like smashers. They are now a major part of Thai tourism and a royal symbol.

For writing, there are so many different facets to elephants which could be used in adventure-thrillers – readers will have to wait and see where I go with this.

WW2 Soviet War Tanks

I have a fascination with famous historical conflicts and on a recent trip to Russia was able to get up close to many Soviet WW2 tanks. For writing this is very interesting because only slightly more modern versions of these famous tanks seem to still be in use by many developing countries. If you’re into action-adventure stories in exotic locations, you’re likely to come up against some form of Russian tank.

The legendary Soviet T-34 medium tank was one of the key weapons that beat the Nazis. I was quite surprised at how small it is in reality. Sitting inside must have been incredibly cramped!

iS3 Joseph Stalin (heavy) tank was brought out later in the WW2 to counter the German Tigers and Panthers but by the time it was unleashed there weren’t many German tanks left to fight, so the JS was used mainly to blast entrenchments and bunkers.

I think this self-propelled artillery was made in the 1950s and is a modernized version of the original ISU-152 released during WW2.

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Sword-stick (sword-cane)

I took this rather poor picture of a sword-stick in a Bulgarian museum. I think this is a very fascinating weapon, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as walking sticks today express vulnerability and venerability. Bulgaria has a history of concealment having been invaded and ruled by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottoman Turks. Bulgarians nod their heads to indicate ‘no’ and shake their heads to say ‘yes’ – a tradition which I have yet to get a definitive answer on how it happened, the main story I’ve heard is it grew out of resistance to Ottoman rule to hide true information. So a sword-stick would have been a perfect weapon during the years of resistance.

A little dabbling online shows sword-sticks were popular fashion accessories a in the 18th and 19th centuries and also self defense weapons when it became less socially acceptable to openly wear swords.1

Wikimedia Commons

However they have not completely disappeared into the pages of history as I found a high end sword-stick maker in South Africa (http://www.swordcane.com/mk3b.htm) who ship all over the world. This is interesting because sword-sticks are not legal in many countries (but so long as you never use it I guess no one has to know and if you were very old you could always try claim ignorance…).

One country with a very old tradition of this type of weapon is Japan. Their sword-canes are called “Shikomizue” and from the image below one can see how camouflaged they would look – just like a regular walking cane.

Wikimedia Commons

 

1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstick

Sword stick (sword-cane)

I took this rather poor picture of a sword-stick in a Bulgarian museum. I think this is a very fascinating weapon, a wolf in sheep’s clothing as walking sticks today express vulnerability and venerability. Bulgaria has a history of concealment having been invaded and ruled by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottoman Turks. Bulgarians nod their heads to indicate ‘no’ and shake their heads to say ‘yes’ – a tradition which I have yet to get a definitive answer on how it happened, the main story I’ve heard is it grew out of resistance to Ottoman rule to hide true information. So a sword-stick would have been a perfect weapon during the years of resistance.

A little dabbling online shows sword-sticks were popular fashion accessories a in the 18th and 19th centuries and also self defense weapons when it became less socially acceptable to openly wear swords.1

Wikimedia Commons

However they have not completely disappeared into the pages of history as I found a high end sword-stick maker in South Africa (http://www.swordcane.com/mk3b.htm) who ship all over the world.

They are not legal in many countries (but so long as you never use it I guess no one has to know and if you were very old you could always try claim ignorance…).

One country with a very old tradition of this type of weapon is Japan. Their sword-canes are called “Shikomizue” and from the image below one can see how camouflaged they would look – just like a regular walking cane.

Wikimedia Commons

 

1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstick