Cars and Ninja...whut?

[doggiedynasty]

What in the world?

A new dream that I can mostly remember. My week has been good, so I guess it's a reflection of that. Two words that describe it entirely:

Sports Cars & Ninja

Kinda cool.

Still, I have bad car dreams. During the dream, while in an urban city, my Ford broke down and the steering wheel snapped off. Then, my car was replaced by a black Toyota or Chevrolet.

As for ninja...um...I was with a group, there was a mission, we were disguised (and had alias), and we infiltrated this convention center?

The race cars were near the end of the dream where I was waiting in line to get into one (like at an amusement park). The dream ended right before I got in! According to this, seeing race cars reflects a stubborn working nature. Or I'm in a hurry?

Race dream Meanings.

So I woke up pretty confused.

So why ninja and cars?

I assumed it reflected what I like. What does dreaming about ninja mean? I have no idea. What I do know is that I try really hard to research on them. The Shōninki (True Path of Ninja) is at my library. Amazing thing.

But my late fees are too high and I can't bring it home...

In the news, a NY Shooting at the Empire State Building?

Comments

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

That is interesting :/

Good Lord, I heard about the shooting in NY. :O

[doggiedynasty.livejournal.com]

The human mind is a strange thing; aside from my car breaking down, it was a cool dream.

[alice-the-raven.livejournal.com]

Ninja Cars!

Any book by Masaaki Hatsumi is good for ninjas. :)

Also, Stephen Turnbull writes a good historical reference.

[doggiedynasty.livejournal.com]

I saw a Hatsumi book but didn't open it for some reason.
maybe I feared contradictions between the two books (Shoninki and hatsumi)

Hayes or Turnbull?

[alice-the-raven.livejournal.com]

Turnbull.

I'm not as familiar with ninjutsu, but you're probably right with contradictions. Various books on kenjutsu are often written by masters of different ryuha or schools and show very different techniques and philosophies. I practice Eishin-Ryu and I can recognize waza in Seitei Iai, Shinden-Ryu and Mugai-Ryu. Even within Eishin-Ryu, different schools have different patterns.

[doggiedynasty.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, I just like to go with common sense or whatever sounds the best to me. One of the authors of the translated Shoninki is a historian, and a member the ninja Research team. From what I glimpsed from the Shoninki, ninjutsu is not a conventional martial art. It's more like a collection of espionage skills. Like, there are spying skills, there are psychological skills, identification skills, etc

Another thing that baffles me is the ninja sword, which is apparently a wakizashi.

I also read on a message board that creating a straight sword is quite difficult to do.

[alice-the-raven.livejournal.com]

That's what I understood about ninjutsu too. Much of the skills are in creating traps or warning devices, how to climb or sneak without being detected and the use of tools. Only a portion of it involves fighting. If the ninja had to fight, they probably had failed the mission.

If I recall, the ninjato was shorter than a katana, but longer than a wakizashi and straight too. They were probably not forged to the same high quality as many katana as it was considered more of a tool.

I was surprised to learn that the curvature on the katana is not forged in, but is due to the final quenching process in which the hot metal is plunged into ice water and the softer steel on the back contracts more and curves the blade.