Common steps and sub-activities
Ninpo mutual masturbation
For every Ninjutsu physical technique, there is a coded Ninpo masturbation technique. There are puns and coded words galore used in textual descriptions, there are ‘swords’, ‘throws’, ‘moves’, ‘locks’, ‘strikes’ – none of which mean what they seem. But there are plenty of pictures that can be used to get a general idea of what was done.
In the picture below we see the very obvious form of mutual masturbation. This picture was done in 1660 and is part of a series entitled Pillow Picture by Yoshiwara. Notice that she is clothed, this is not erotic art, it is spiritual art.
Dr Masaaki Hatsumi - The Way of the Ninja – Secret techniques.
Throws in Ninpo show immense variety. Once you have learned the individual throwing techniques, you move on to combining the throws. This means understanding their flow and practising it and also forms part of randori – free practise.
None of the techniques are actually graphically described, just named. This contrast with Qigong where the techniques are very graphically described.
Dr Masaaki Hatsumi - The Way of the Ninja – Secret techniques.
Tokui waza should really be interpreted as divine techniques, only available to those destined to learn them through consistent training in the arts.
But the allusion is very clear……
Dr Masaaki Hatsumi - The Way of the Ninja – Secret techniques.
Toda Shinzaburo Masahide of the Togakure-ryu said ‘one should be neither strong nor weak, neither soft nor hard. Leave such thoughts behind, awaken to the Void and make your body null to abide by this.
This means in Budo, it is naïve to get caught up in thoughts of strong weak or soft/hard; in the end even concepts such as skilful/unskilful simply fade away.
The book from which I have quoted is based on euphemisms using one word as a code word for others. The sword is your penis, and there are wooden swords which means that somewhere in the process false penises may be used.
There is the hint that they are used to stimulate the prostate from behind. In fact it is clear that stimulation of the prostate and probably the perineum are more important than stimulation of the penis, making this a different set of techniques from Qigong.
All the more frustrating that they aren’t described!
Dr Masaaki Hatsumi - The Way of the Ninja – Secret techniques.
The history of combat also demonstrates that only one out of every forty eight great victories was won by regular frontal attack. As a Budoka might say, the other forty seven were ‘unnatural’ forms which broke the mold. But the martial arts are unnatural in this way, they do lie outside the limits of conventional wisdom.