{"id":63152,"date":"2017-03-28T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T20:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=63152"},"modified":"2026-10-13T10:19:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:19:04","slug":"podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/culture\/history\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #290: Everything You Know About Ninjas Is Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When you hear the word \u201cninja\u201d what do you imagine?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Hooded and masked men in black garb, stealthily running across tiled roofs? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/how-to\/origami-ninja-star\/\">Ninja stars<\/a>? Renegade warriors engaging in a special hand-to-hand combat system against their sworn enemy, the samurai?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If that\u2019s what you think of when you think of ninjas, I&#8217;m afraid my guest <span class=\"s2\">today<\/span>&nbsp;on the podcast is here to tell us it&#8217;s all completely wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His name is Antony Cummins. He has spent his career researching and translating feudal Japanese texts on samurai and ninjas. Today we&#8217;re talking about&nbsp;<i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/4805314397\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=4805314397&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\">True Path of the Ninja<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/i>It\u2019s a translation of a 17th century text called the&nbsp;<i>Shoninki<\/i>, a field manual for would-be ninjas.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Today<\/span><span class=\"s1\">&nbsp;on the show, Antony uncovers the biggest myths we have in the West about ninjas &#8212; like the fact that there isn\u2019t really a ninjutsu fighting system, nor were samurai the ninjas&#8217; sworn enemy &#8212; and then gives the real history of these ancient warriors. Antony then shares what lessons actual ninjas can teach us folks living in the modern West about psychology and interacting with others in business and life.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The bad news is that we&#8217;re going to ruin your childhood conceptions about ninjas in this podcast, but the good news is that the real story of ninjas is even more fascinating.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you hear the word \u201cninja\u201d what do you imagine? Hooded and masked men in black garb, stealthily running across tiled roofs? Ninja stars? Renegade warriors engaging in a special hand-to-hand combat system against their sworn enemy, the samurai?&nbsp; If that\u2019s what you think of when you think of ninjas, I&#8217;m afraid my guest today&nbsp;on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42376,42385,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-history","category-podcast"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast: What Were Ninjas Really Like? | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Antony Cummins uncovers the biggest myths we have in the West about ninjas, and then gives the real history of these ancient warriors.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/culture\/history\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #290: Everything You Know About Ninjas Is Wrong | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Antony Cummins uncovers the biggest myths we have in the West about ninjas, and then gives the real history of these ancient warriors.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/culture\/history\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-28T20:08:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-13T15:19:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/290.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Brett\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/84a51044fb965564cde35d18f7e0a832\"},\"headline\":\"Podcast #290: Everything You Know About Ninjas Is Wrong\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-03-28T20:08:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-13T15:19:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":240,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/03\\\/290.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Culture\",\"History\",\"Podcast\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2017\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/culture\\\/history\\\/podcast-290-everything-know-ninjas-wrong\\\/\",\"name\":\"Podcast: What Were Ninjas Really Like? 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