How to stealth like a Ninja - The Art of Invisibility - Part Two
Posted: Monday, May 26, 2008
by Rick Tew
Tew's INC
Now let's continue to learn how to stay on our toes when it comes to being quiet as a mouse.
Night vision
It can take a person up to 30 minutes for their eyes to adapt to darkness. Anyone without this night sight will have drastically reduced vision. A flash of light is all that is necessary to ruin a person's night vision for another 20-30 minutes. So, don't lose your night vision and keep your opponent from developing theirs. This will allow the shadow warrior to observe his enemy yet still remain invisible and camouflaged in the night.
Sound
Another major ingredient to the art of staying invisible is your ability to move quietly through various terrains. Following are some practical techniques for stealth. After time and training, you will begin to develop your own style of stealth. Some will be slight variations of what you learned here and unique to your individual style. These techniques alone will not make you move through the night as quiet as the wind.
This information is only a principle to aid in your practice and is of little use by itself. You must practice until you become very good at moving silently, in turn - staying quiet. In order to move in silence, we must pay attention (but not focus on) what it is that makes noise in the first place. The next step would be to reduce these "here I am's" as much as possible. In training, you can practice stealth on various terrains and in a variety of environments to get a feel of the different techniques you can use.
Making choices
Okay, you come to a point where you must choose one of two paths. One path is open and covered with sand while the other is narrow and protected with trees. Which path would you take? The sand path will be quieter to move across unlike the tree path which has leaves and branches strewn about. However, the tree path offers cover and camouflage and as we learned earlier, it is better to be heard than to be seen. These types of questions only help to explain the variety of choices you will have to deal with.
S - stepping
T - touch
E - exhale
A - attention
L - listen
T - tolerance
H - harmony
Stepping
This is your most important skill to staying quiet. You depend on your footwork. Practice will make a difference. Before completing a step, keep your weight on the ground leg until the other leg is in position. This requires balance and harmony to master.
Touch
Stepping is only half the battle. Use your hands and feet to feel for obstacles and for clearing the way. Thick soled shoes make it difficult to feel and manage over a noisy terrain. Either where light shoes or go barefoot. The more you can feel your surroundings, the better you chances are of moving through them quietly.
Exhale
Do not hold your breath when you move. Breath as you step, twist, turn or lower your weight. This will keep you and your muscles relaxed and assist in your ability to adapt with your movements.
Attention
Pay attention to your surroundings and not just the ground. Keep a circular vision at all times - focus when you step, but keep your attention on your environment. This includes all your senses.
Listen
Stay alert to the sounds you are making and pay attention to the way these sounds correlate with your surroundings. Stop completely if you make a sound, listen for any reactions or any signs of being discovered. Keep a constant ear for any changes in the environment.
Tolerance
Patience is your key to staying quiet. If you are not patient, your movements will be jerky and mistakes will occur. How long can you tolerate standing still and remaining absolutely quiet?
Harmony
Stay focused, keep the knees bent and move with all the muscles and joints flowing naturally. Move like a cat - balanced, patient and fluid.
Techniques for stealth
I teach 8 specific techniques at my Ninja Camps to develop footwork skills. These skills must be taught to you by an instructor.
1. Normal stealthy step
2. Cross step stealth
3. Cat stealthy step
4. Sweeping cat step
5. Stealth crawling
6. The dropping squat
7. The cross crouch
8. The fall back
Practice
The only way to develop your skill is to actually practice. Here are just a few ideas - expand on these and come up with a few of your own.
1. Here kitty kitty
Try sneaking up to a sleeping cat and touching it before it discovers what you are doing. Please note that this only works on cats that are active and healthy. Also, stuffed animals won't work and by "cat" I mean a house cat - not a mountain lion.
2. Snap, Crackle, Pop
Another fun thing to sneak up on is a mini-cassette recorder or voice activated audio recorder. Create a distance between yourself and the recorder to sneak up on. Then, play it back to see if you could hear yourself getting closer. Pay attention to all the natural sounds in the environment. Try this in different terrains.
3. Don't turn around
Games are a great way to improve you silent footwork. We play a lot of these at our martial arts training camps; the only requirement is having at least one more person to play with. Here is one that we use a lot:
Have your partner stand about 50-100 feet away. Your job is to sneak up to him/her and touch them on the back or shoulder without them knowing you are there. Your partner is trying to listen and has one chance to turn around, but only if you are within touching distance. You win if you touch him/her first and they win if they touch you first. This requires a lot of patience from both the Ninja and his prey.
4. Boo!
This next one requires that you know your partner or the other person very well. If you haven't guessed it yet - this exercise requires that you sneak up and scare someone. I used to do this to my family and friends all the time and I was lucky enough that they had a sense of humor (well, not always). Some people are not very nice and will get very mad if you scare them. So, make sure you know who you are scaring (and make sure they won't have a heart attack and leave you with a life of guilt). The rest you will have to come up with on your own.
A note on Terrain
Dry areas are the loudest and unless you plan to carry a bucket of water with you, try to either avoid dry areas or practice moving through them. Snapping twigs and crunchy leaves are probably number one cause to losing your concealment.
Smell
You never want to hear, "I smelled you a mile away." Along with clothing, you should also conceal any and all other things that might give you away. This includes your smell. Cologne and perfumes are easy to smell, so is McDonalds. The closer you are to your environment in all aspects, the more likely you are to remain camouflaged within it. Use natural oils from your surroundings to help mask your scent. Heck, take a mud bath. This is important if you want to blend in with nature and avoid animals recognizing you as they have a highly tuned sense of smell.
Other Factors
Remaining invisible is not just a few concepts thrown together to give you an idea about stepping on twigs. You need an overall development and understanding of what it takes to be stealthy. This requires expanding your thoughts and thinking laterally. Many things could have an affect your ability to stay concealed. Here are a few examples:Are the people you are hiding from are expecting company.
Are you in a group - in which case if one team snaps - you all snap.Unexpected weather or terrain.The concealment you had last night - is gone today.
A dog is barking at what smells like a Big Mac and fries.There is a nearby accident and you are the only one to help.Did you go to the bathroom before you left the house?
These are just a few, but if you think about them, you could prepare and or develop a better understanding for the art of invisibility. No matter how much you know, you still need to develop that knowledge into action. If you want to be good at kicking - then kick. This is the same for vanishing into thin air.
That's it for now, until next time - "hocus pocus, I'm out of focus."
Rick Tew-
Martial Science Master Instructor
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Top-level comments on this article: (9 total)haha ill remember to go to the toilet bfore i go ninjaing .. awesome advice
A really good book is "Ninja: Art of Invisibility" Its hard to find except on line.Most of it is useless, but there are allot of good tips in there. You would have to read it at least twice throughly appreciate it.
Thanks for the advice.
Thank you for the advice this has really helped me to understand the art of invisability and i see rick tew has a slight sense of humer. i would very much like to meet you in person. perhaps at one of your camps. you might see me one day. Cameron O'Quinn 15
Cool, this is something I'm really interested in and these tips are really helpful.
haha i remeber one time we were playing a game where you had to capture flashlights without being spotted and my friend almost blew his cover because he had to go to the bathroom.
o and a nother god tip rik and everyone if your in bed and want to sneek out or just want to be stealthy shake and twist your feet like your craking them because i was sneeking to the xbox and my heel and ankles went crack and my mum found me :Dlol yes this happens to me. i learned to shift my weight better so i don't crack my ankles, but it still can be hard sometimes.
This is really good! i wish i had a teacher, but where i live, there isn't a single honest martial art school for miles.
Just a added bonus from my own little research: At night, keep a light source (camp fire, torch, even porch-lights) between you and your "target". you'll find it hard to see past them, the background becoming completely black, and if your target is near the light source, he will be completely visible to you.
Great article! I have always wanted to be quiet, but I can't help but draw attention to myself! Whenever I walk, Bump! Bump! Bump! Even when I try to walk quiet, still, Flop! Flop! Flop! Haha! Anyway, thank you very much! I never thought about it, but I guess being quiet is an art! :)
--CB
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