[quote]evil-monkey
Member

Registered: 03-28-07 Posted 05-06-07 06:59 AM They didn't use the technique because it's running across a mat. Not walking on water.[/quote]

and using wood attached to your feet is not walking across water either.. besides in the middle of the night running across a mat suspended by the water gives the illusion of running on water..

I agree I can't imagen a ninja wearing large wooden shoes to walk on water since once they've crossed said body of water it would be rather clumsy on land and there's nothing stealthy about wooden shoes on rocks. but a large leaf mat that can be made to look like trash or large leaves that can disperse the body weight seem beliveable.
think the cornstarch tub an replace with driftwood and leaves.

oh and no ninja would ever catch a sword with bare plams directly over head. i any thing side step and go for the back of the blade, the non sharp part

sorry but i forgot to post this as well, a katana was a drawing sword not chopping so when a blade came down if connected the sword was pulled back to cut deeper like pulling a saw or the way you cut a steak you don't chop but rather glide the blade across. and that motion wasn't taken in to consideration.

Wooden shoes might have worked if it wasn't flimsey i mean come on instead of using strings to connect the parts of the shoe why not use light weight wood that could float?

i think that the water myth was approached all wrong. they examined buyoncy instead of vescosity. if you hit water hard enough it will react the same way as the corn starch, and simulate solid at the point of impact. ninjas where fast, and would have ran across the water not walked. look up the jesus lizard, as it is an animal that can do just that.

I think the Jesus Lizard (basilisk) is the place to start. They have webbed feet which provide a greater surface area and can trap air, which provides some buoyancy. The wooden shoes obviously didn't work. Could a more modern design work? There are already lighter than water "shoes" that support the wearer by floating. Could heavier than water ones work? Suppose you start with flippers. If you made them out of hard semi-flexible plastic, you could run in them on land and get a fast start. If you add one or more one way hinges, then when you take a step forward you wouldn't scoop up water. Another approach would be shoes that move forward through water with little resistance but have a lot of resistance moving backwards: perhaps soft plastic cones that collapse when moving forward but which fill up and expand when moving backwards. That would help maintain speed. I have a hunch this would only work with people with low body weight. Remember, the basilisk is a small lizard (a few ounces). Maybe you should test this with gymnasts or swimmers.

Im replying for the arrow myth. When you really know you history they wouldnt use a modern day bow.They would use a hand made bow. And the string on the bow was made when they got grass hair weeds and many other things and wove it together. Dont know if it makes a difference but what the hey??????

Duncun Smith Age 12

call me crazy but do they even exists.

My question: Why would a Ninja walk across water in the first place???? Too loud, too conspicous. They were all about stealth right? The logical thing would be to make a snorkel and swim under the water, Navy SEAL style......

just becuase you saw it on tv doesnt mean it can be done. its called special effects. not refering to mythbusters but when peaople said i saw it on tv.

There has not been a real ninja for about 900 years. When they did exist, the clan began training as soon as the toddler could walk. I looked at that angelfire site and read two paragraphs the author, darth something knows next to nothing about the ninja. At one point, spotted when I skimmed the article, he said they would disguise themselves as a blind masseur. I think he has watched a few too many Blind Swordsman movies starring Shintaro Katsu. He also has the ninja traveling all the time. The ninja was only effective if he lived in one place and lived a life that meshed well with the life of the ninja. The ninja has always gotten a bad rap, in comparison to the samurai. The samurai would compare to our Marine Corps, and the ninja would be the Navy SEALS. Both were needed, and each had his own purpose. The ninja was not at war with the samurai. I hope someday to be able to go to Tokyo and go through the ninja house.

theres no ninja house in tokyo theres one in shiga, mie, and nagano

also theres a myth (just to ad) that somebody threw a throwing knife at somebody who cought the handle and threw it back killing the original thrower

To "walk" on water a ninja would create a "floating shoe" for the lack of a better definition, and use a pole probably around the size of the bo (1,80m wooden pole) to propel them trough the water. trying to run on water is foolish, it compromises your balance and get's you nowhere. Another interesting fact is that it took many years of training to reach the balance needed for such a feat.
(snorkels, fukiya if I'm not mistaken, were also used =] )

Actually the last person to be oficially considered a trute ninja was Seiko Fujita (1899-1966) 14° Soke of Koga Ryu ninjutsu and 3° Soke of Nanban Satto Ryu Kenpo.

Ninjutsu was used throughout WW2 and was extensively used in the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868)hardly 900 years.

about sword catching i would believe it to be plausible... but extremly unlikely...
being a martial artist myself i know there's a huge difference between a martial arts skill display, than what it is to acomplish the same thing under a real scenario...

even though i've also seen the catching sword act in karate and aikido circles (twice in person) it was all trained between the guy catching the sword and the guy weilding it...
sure the motion and speed were all almost realisic, i seriously doubt it could have been acomplished by the same bloke in the same position, but with someone actually trying chop him in 2...

about arrow catching, i do believe they got the myth wrong...
using old and era arrows and bows at a significant distance would make the catching a lot easier and possible...

Sword catching is not possible.
SpikeWesker...the sword catching you saw was staged, as is a lot of the things in Aikido. Sadly it really does not work that easily in real life.

Catching an arrow...It doesn't matter what type of bow they used. What mattered was the speed of the arrow. All this talk of "traditional bow and arrows" is hogwash. It isnt necessary.
Although I do agree they should of used more distance.

NINJA WALKING ON WATER - guys, if the busters are looking to walk on water, UN-NINJA sytle, hasn't their "researchers" seen this video in "THAT'S INCREDIBLE" back in the late 70's early 80s? The inventor made made some sort of skis on stilts with a hydrofoil. he travels sidewards, not forward.

CATCHING ARROW BARE HANDS - also saw this on THAT'S INCREDIBLE with Fran Tarkenton (the football player), cathy lee crosby (i think), when i was a kid. a man cathing arrow with bare hands.

Even saw a man catching a .22 bullet with mouth. of course, he wore some kind of plastic dentures with a metal canister in mouth, about the size of a 135mm film canister. nothing to do with ninja, of course. but hey, what do i know?

i saw the ninja series a few months back. i'm in hte philippines.

the catching arrow myth. Man you guys gotta stop looking at Japan and the ninja and samurai. even in the middle east and europe during the middle ages it was a practiced thing by archers. you go into a battle where it would inevitably come down to archer vs archer and they don't have an unlimited supply of arrows they would either pull they arrows that were in the ground from the enemy or catch an in coming arrow to fire back. Like most medieval societies both europeans, japanese, etc used broad heads only for hunting as broad heads had not penetrating power against most armours of the times. whereas the bodkin or the modern equivalent field tip had huge military use. DO not discount Japanese warriors trvelling either to learn of technologies and techniques to give them advantages. There has been a lot of records of Japanese warriors using the mongolian style horse bow which because of the way it is made for a recurve has even more energy released for a similar poundage bow. just like that of a comound. as for the actual catching yes it is always done in a sweeping motion mainly so you can make sure it is not going to hit something vital. If people want to know i am a combat archer within the SCA in NZ and although have yet to get any arrows close enough to try and catch have seen some of the heavily armoured fighters hitting arrows out of the air with their hand held weapons. I will also agree range is an important factor to catching an arrow.

Sea

paul68 wrote:
> Even saw a man catching a .22 bullet with mouth. of course, he wore
> some kind of plastic dentures with a metal canister in mouth, about
> the size of a 135mm film canister.

That’s a magic trick. A *trick*. If the show you saw that on passed it off as the real deal, then I have to call into question *anything* you’ve seen on that show.

Seafury wrote:
> Man you guys gotta stop looking at Japan and the ninja and samurai.
> even in the middle east and europe during the middle ages it was a
> practiced thing by archers. you go into a battle where it would
> inevitably come down to archer vs archer and they don't have an
> unlimited supply of arrows they would either pull they arrows that
> were in the ground from the enemy or catch an in coming arrow to fire
> back.

Pull arrows out of the ground, yes. Out of mid-air, no.