Preparing Ninja for a Mission

My name is Ichiro Watanabe.  I am a chunin, a middle level ninja of the Togakure clan.

Our small village is secluded deep in the mountains near Mt. Togakushi, otherwise known as Togakure Mountain.  I could tell you exactly where, but I’d have to kill you.  No joke, it’s a matter of survival for my family and clan.

You see the year is 1601, one year after the famous Battle of Sekigahara which brought Ieyasu Tokugawa to power uniting Japan.  There is still much to do, however, and the need for the services of our ninja clan is still very great. Continue reading

Motivate Thyself!

Last night, about 8:30 PM or so, as I was driving home from dropping my daughter off at my parent’s house for a sleepover, I had the following conversation with myself (in my head, mind you!)…

ME: “I’ll workout when I get home no matter what time it is.”

ME: “Awesome idea!”

ME: “What if I don’t quite feel like it though?  Seems like a good idea now, but it’ll be late when I get home and I’m starting to feel a little tired… (hear the voice of Mr. Resistance creeping in there?)”

ME: “True.  Plus you’re getting over that cold too.  You might just want to skip it and go to bed instead. (Mr. Resistance is insidious!)”

ME: “Whoah… hang on there!  You already made up your mind to workout when you get home.  You WILL workout.  Don’t let that negative crap in your head.  Whassamada with you?”

So what happened when I got home?  Continue reading

Ninja Stars and Strength Training

Yesterday I decided to do something a little bit different in my workout.  As an experiment, I wanted to look at the effect lactic acid build up in the muscles had on my ability to throw rubber shuriken (ninja stars) and hit a target.  The theory being that as fatigue in the muscles increased, throwing accuracy would decrease.  Seems like a solid hypothosis, right?  Well, here’s what happened…

Continue reading