Enter the American Ninja, Ashida Kim, a legend and name of renown in the realm of how to be a ninja book publishing.
The History of the History of Ninja – The Fourth Segment in an on-going series
Greetings, quick catch up. First, I promised to share when I got published in the Journal of Emergency Mediccal Services; here is the first piece: A First-Timer’s Report at the FDNY Search and Rescue Field Medicine Symposium - JEMS: EMS, Emergency Medical Services - Training, Paramedic, EMT News There is another JEMS piece awaiting publication for next week. It will focus on spider and scorpion attacks and venoms and their treatment and is more technical. I will share that when published. Second, two weeks ago, I wrote about Burma / Myanmar and the historical reasons as to why it has so many problems. A Burma scholar caught it and offered feedback. While deadline prevents me from doing so now, I hope to share these next week. Please stay tuned and come back then. In the meantime . . .
Welcome to “Mostly Asian History,” a weekly publication that deals with, no surprise, mostly Asian history. And while my formal educational background is mostly in China studies, this week, aside from my usual random news article sampling at the end of this email, I am returning to writing about the history of the history of ninja. I say this because in previous segments I have argued that almost everything ever written about the history of ninja, IS NOT real history. While said to be the world’s greatest assassins ever, raised from birth to commit superhuman feats for those who know how to find them and hire them, I argued this is pure fabrication. I argued that although many who wrote about ninja history sincerely believed that what they were writing was real history, it wasn’t. I argued that most of the things written about ninja history never happened and explained how these false beliefs came about.
If you would like to see exactly what it is that I wrote, please consider reading my previous pieces:
The Ninja Articles Begin -Enter the Ninja! (substack.com)
The History of the History of the Image of the Ninja, Part Two: Globalization (substack.com)
If you would like more information on how non-events and things that never happened and are actually pseudohistory and not real history can become widely believed to have happened and then entered the realm of common belief, please consider reading:
The truth behind Nazi UFOs - by Peter Huston (substack.com)
Patterns in Pseudo-history & How to support this project (substack.com)
Or my book review of Gus Roe’s book:
History and Pseudohistory in Asian Martial Arts (substack.com)
History, pseudohistory, the differences between them, and the origins of pseudohistorical beliefs is a recurring subject here at Mostly Asian History, and, ishl Allah, I plan to return to it regularly.
Enter Ashida Kim, the well known, all-American author of many, many, many “how to be a ninja” books.
How do they fit into this narrative?
While I have written that ninja as described did not exist in the time they were said to exist, many people will be quick to argue otherwise. In fairness to them, these people can find a lot of books and other materials on ninja. Many of these, claim to be sharing real events and real historical happenings. These books argue that not only were ninjas a real part of Japanese history, but they were a significant presence in the great Samurai Wars of the late medieval / early renaissance era of Japan shortly before Japan was unified under the Tokugawa shogunate.
But these books are not all history books. There are actually many, many books out there on how to be a ninja, how to perform the amazing feats that ninja are said to have performed and do the things they did, and how to fight like a ninja, both while unarmed and equipped with the often unique weapons of the ninja. Often they include peripheral references to ninja history or the ninja lifestyle or the alleged sub-culture of the “historical” ninja, but these are not intended as history books, but instead as instructional manuals
And, a surprising number of these how to be a ninja books are written by a man using the pen name, Ashida Kim. If one explores the realm of ninja, sooner or later one must ask the question, “where does Ashida Kim enter into all this? Who is he? Where is he getting all this stuff that he is putting in these crazy books?”
“Ashida Kim” is the pen name of one of America’s most notorious and well known authors of how to be ninja books. His books are easy to find, and often available cheaply second hand. Some had inexpensive paperback editions back in the late 1980s. A quick internet search finds countless references to him, and a quick search of YouTube or other internet video sources finds many, many videos of either him discussing his martial arts abilities and philosophies or demonstrating things he claims to be able to do, including both levitating himself by meditation and dodging bullets, or people mocking him for saying he can do these very same things. (Some of his videos are not exactly impressive. Links are below. Judge for yourself.)
While I will spend time later in this article discussing who he actually is and some thoughts on his books and the martial arts techniques and martial related skills they claim to teach, and the picture of the ninja they portray, in this article I am going to focus on how he fits into the history of ninja claims.
How does the man called “Ashida Kim” fit into the rise and spread of the concept that real ninja were an important part of history? Why and how did he become so well known?
In a previous segment ( The History of the History of the Image of the Ninja, Part Two: Globalization (substack.com) ) , I wrote the following:
“ . . . although, I am still doing research, I currently theorize that all of the major appearances of the spread of ninja and ninjutsu that entered the west before the 1980s, had some connection with at least one of these three people.
They were:
Fujita Seiko 藤田 西湖 (1898-1966).
Okuse Heishichirou 奥瀬平七郎 ( 1911-1997).
Hatsumi Masaaki 初見 良昭 (1931- still living ).”
I introduced these three people more fully in an earlier segment, The History of the History of the Image of the Ninja, Part One, Enter the Concept and the Image of the Ninja (substack.com)
Now:
“What connection does Ashida Kim have to do with these people?”
“How does he tie in with these claims?”
Quick answer to both questions:
Ashida Kim does not have a connection with any of these people.
(But you said . . . -yes, I’ll explain shortly.)
First, I chose my words very carefully. While it’s very difficult to trace the exact history of Ashida Kim’s publishing career, [ 1 ] it appears to me that his first book was either “The Book of the Ninja” which was originally intended as a dojo handout at his school and not for outside publicaiton, or “Secrets of the Ninja.” While some sources say both of these came out in 1980. “The Book of the Ninja” was intended for his dojo students, not pubication, and thefore my edition of “Secrets of the Ninja,” published by Citadel Press in 1981, was arguably his first published book aimed at the general public.
This would make it published after 1980, the year I mentioned and the time when Americans were beginning to be exposed to frequent media depictions of ninja and were also beginning to enthusiastically embrace them. Here, I will be focusing on “Secret of the Ninja.” It’s undoubtedly Ashida Kim’s most easily available book. (Links are included below for free online copies with the permission of the author.)
1980, for instance, was also the year after Chuck Norris’s film, The Octagon, was released. In the film, Chuck Norris’s character is a white guy adopted and trained by ninja who must use his martial arts skills to stop his evil adoptive brother, someone also trained in the ninja fighting arts. While not exactly high brow, I saw it at the theater back in the day and loved it. And this was only one of many such fictional representations of ninja as seen in film, television, comic books, role playing games, and elsewhere. As these fictional representations were often based on books such as the Andrew Adams or Donn Draeger “non-fictional” ninja history books, books that I have argued were using bad sources so while their well-intentioned authors thought they were writing non-fiction they were actually writing nonsense, the entire issue of what is ninja fiction and what is ninja true history were blended and intermixed at the time. For a full description of what was going on the on-line resource “the ninja timeline” at
https://vintageninja.net/ is excellent. (To see their amazing timeline in pdf form click on: https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrFaCYcbH9mR_sD64RXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1720836381/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fvintageninja.net%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2020%2f05%2fVintageNinjaTimeline-%25C2%25A9KeithRainville-V1.3opt.pdf/RK=2/RS=7QG6CDU5Xg4vPaDdxbsWXssMXPo- ) 2
The images were out there. I think it’s safe to say that when Ashida Kim sat down to write this book, he had been exposed to fictional representations of ninja. Obviously, he is enthusiastically interested in martial arts.
Ashida Kim is the pen and professional name of a Caucasian American reportedly named either “Radford William Davis” born (1948) [Wikipedia and elsewhere] or perhaps Chris Hunter [Believer interview]. While the discrepancy seems quite significant at first, and I tend to lean towards the “Radford William Davis” name, ultimately it does not strike me as terribly important. While one can find several discussions on the identity of Ashida Kim online, ultimately it seems to me that it is not important what his birthname is. I mean does anyone really care about the real name or identity of “Alice Cooper” or “John Wayne,” or for that matter “Tracy Lord”? I mean the performer called “Divine” is, of course, “Divine,” and knowing their real name only diminishes one’s enjoyment and distracts from their films. Who cares what they are called in other contexts? “Ashida Kim” is “Ashida Kim,” and always wll be, and it’s not important if they are “Radford William Davis” or not, is it? What is important is what he does and what he has accomplished.
There’s a lot out there on the web about Ashida Kim, most of it sarcastic and mocking, but occasionally one runs across discussions praising Kim and there are martial arts schools, clubs, and instructors that advertise their connection with him.
If one reads interviews, watches videos, or reads books or articles by or discussing Ashida Kim, a couple things become clear. First, he has enthusiastically read and learned all he can about martial arts and related subjects, particularly the more esoteric, mystical aspects of these arts. He has worked hard at this. However, he does not have a particularly scholarly background, does not expect his readers to have one either, and has not been terribly selective when doing his research.
He has then tried to reproduce these skills, teachings, and feats, and repackaged them and how to do them in his ninja training materials. He has done this in some cases even when they don’t really fit the ninja milieu.
In other words, if one looks over the book “Secrets of the Ninja,” it teaches the things that Ashida Kim thinks a ninja would and should know. The book provides an introduction to subjects such as hiding and concealing oneself, moving in a stealthy manner, climbing, covert entry, sentry removal and attacking from ambush, and the basics of escape from captivity. And while the book does not teach any of these in great detail, and one must really ask how much of these skills really can one actually learn strictly from a book, for a 152 page book, it does provide a pretty good introduction to these things.
A reader in 1981, particularly an unsophisticated teenager as many of his readers were, would probably have been quite satisfied with the book.
But wait! There’s more. In addition to the above “closet commando”/ “soldier of fortune” type skills, there’s mystical martial arts stuff. And, of course, readers seeking to learn to be a ninja or perform ninja skills would want these too
For instance, the book teaches introductory meditation and kuji-kiri ninja style finger meditation / mudra type techniques of the sort seen in the books by Andrew Adams, Donn Draeger, and Stephen Hayes (Hayes was a student of Masaaki Hatsumi who had actually spent time in Japan and released his first two how-to-be a ninja books in 1980 as well. Hayes most certainly did not teach Ashida Kim, although they did meet briefly many years later [ 3 ])
It also teaches the basics of using shuriken (aka throwing stars), hand to hand combat, and the use of nunchaku. Oh my!
And this is where issues with scholarship and authenticity arise.
The nunchaku was or is an improvised weapon developed from a farm tool in Okinawa that then became incorporated into the teachings of Okinawan Karate and from there spread to other martial arts particularly after Bruce Lee demonstrated its use in a very flashy and impressive way in his movies. The ninja are said to be assassins and saboteurs trained from birth who had mastered and employed a variety of esoteric and exotic weapons often weapons known only to them. (Obviously, I am questioning the truth of this, but work with me here please.) There is no connection between the nunchaku and ninja if we accept these two premises.
So then, why is there a section in Secrets of the Ninja offering the reader basic instruction in nunchaku use? Well, because twirling nunchaku is fun, it makes one feel like an impressive martial artist if one can do it fast, and, most importantly, if you were the kind of person who in 1981 was interested in buying a book through the mail on how to be a ninja and learn to do ninja skills, you were 99% of the time someone who wanted to know how to use nunchaku, too.
But despite the occasional b-movie, nunchaku twirling ninja, ninja and nunchaku do not go together. In terms of Asian studies scholarship or careful attention to accepted historical detail, well, let’s just say Ashida Kim books don’t have them.
Starting with the fact that “Ashida” is a Japanese name and “Kim” is a Korean last name, and, yes, he has explained where he got this name in interviews, but it is still quirky, and forms part of a pattern of linguistic mixing. His books often use Japanese terms in one chapter to describe something and then use Chinese terms, generally Mandarin words written in the older Wade-Giles transcription system, elsewhere, sometimes even in the same sentence. His historical statements often contain errors. His descriptions of the foundational ideas of Chinese metaphysics and medicinal theory and Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War ( 孫子兵法 ) all seems superficial.
In short, Ashida Kim is not someone well versed in Asian languages, history, or cultures. One could argue that he has never claimed to be, but it shows in his works. But then again, most of his original readers were not either.
In my opinion, he’s a man who saw things, often in movies and fiction, and said “I want to do that. I want to be that guy,” and then pursued his dream, and did so by writing books and videos where he tried to teach and demonstrate that he could do these things and that he was “that guy.”
His books developed a following because, some, such as “Secrets of the Ninja,” gave the majority of the people who bought them what they wanted. And what they wanted was a beginning point for learning the “ninja skills” that they had seen in movies and elsewhere.
To better understand the context of these books and the people who purchased them, it’s important to have some sense of how they were marketed and sold and purchased in the 1980s. His two primary publishers, Paladin and Citadel, both specialized in selling dangerous “how to” books through the mail focusing on subjects like weapons use, self defense, and dangerous things that people wanted to know but were difficult to find teaching materials for up to and including building bombs. It was rare to find them for sale in a bookstore or over the counter, except perhaps at a specialty store or gunshow. 4
If you would like to check the book out and read it for free, Ashida Kim himself is encouraging people to do so. You can read for yourself and follow the links on his website: https://ashidakim.com/stb.html
While there I encourage you to browse the site and get a feel for Ashida Kim and his thoughts and writings. You will find many strongly felt, interesting opinions on a variety of subjects and through them a good sense of who he is and how he reacts and interacts with the world and society around him.
Please understand that here I have focused on Ashida Kim’s early book, Secrets of the Ninja. I argued that it became popular and made him a recognized name in the realm of ninja books and ninja teachings because, while not conforming to accurate historical or linguistic standards, it gave its readers what they wanted, a source to learn the fundamentals of the “ninja skills” that they had seen on TV or the movies. In this sense, in 1980 or 1981, when compared to Stephen Hayes’s two then-published “how to be a ninja” books, while Hayes had a higher level of scholarship, in terms of sharing knowledge on “how to do ninja skills,” they offered less than Kim’s book, despite the fact that Hayes and his books are now much more respected among martial artists and the general public than Ashida Kims are. (I will write more about Hayes later, ishl Allah).
I have not focused on Ashida Kim’s many, many later books some of which are, quite frankly, quite silly. I hope to do so in the future, as I have about a dozen of them. (As always, Ishl Allah. No one can predict where they will be tomorrow, including me.). While Ashida Kim books can often be found through second hand book dealers such as www.abebooks.com or through www.amazon.com and elsewhere, at this point he is selling books by himself and others at what I believe is his own company: https://dojopress.com/
These editions tend to be quite expensive and with hefty shipping and are often more of a booklet than an actual bound book. Some are staple bound. Prices are high. (My guess is that Ashida Kim knows that some people buy them to mock them of for their curiosity value, and figures if they do, he’s going to milk them for all its worth.)
Future Ashida Kim Pieces
In future pieces, I hope to share more about Ashida Kim and his writings.
Yesterday I sat down and read a third each of “Ninja Mind Control,” basically an overview and introduction to martial arts techniques of developing will power and pursuing spiritual development reworked with a ninja flavor and ninja references, and “The Amorous Adventures of Ashida Kim,” a novel that was intended as a screenplay that he says is based on his true experiences as a bouncer in a brothel in South Africa during the Apartheid era. It’s about a 102 pages long, basically an over-priced staple bound pamphlet and not book bound. I’ll try to write a review in a future column after I finish. This is one of Kim’s most renowned publications.
My collection of Ashida Kim books. It’s tough to say but this may be half of what he has written, perhaps much less. Honestly, at this point, I am a little confused on which ones I have read and which ones I have not.
And, yes, here it is, the Ashida Kim classic, Amorous Adventures of Ashida Kim. -front and back covers.
Ashida Kim Interviews and Videos of Ashida Kim in Action —First hand materials from the man himself
Interview One
Print interview in Believer magazine several years ago.
https://culture.org/archive/an-interview-with-ashida-kim/
Interview Two
A lengthy podcast interview that is available in both written transcript form as well as in audo recording.
https://www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com/blog/104-ashida-kim
Ashida Kim Videos
— I doubt if these videos helped his reputation much and I am sure they came out after “Secrets of the Ninja.” I think that what happened is that “Secrets of the Ninja” got him enough positive attention and reccognition that when the sillier stuff came out later, it got noticed, and then got attention on its own instead of simply being dismissed.
Ashida Kim demonstrates Ninja Levitation
Ashida Kim Martial Arts “stuff”
Ashid Kim demonstrates and then teaches “The Dance of Death,” a kata that he feels is quite important
Ashida Kim dodging bullets
News Round Up
Let’s start with a good Chinese cooking video. I have made this dish many times and in that context have rewatched the video many times.
While I forget their exact names, the presenters are a pair of sisters from New Zealand, in case you are not able to recognize the accent. In one of their other videos they explain it all saying “We’re Chee-wees, Chinese Kiwis!” I have enjoyed several of their videos.
The mysterious, amnesiac Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban and the horrible reality of Human Trafficking victims forced to work in scam phone centers
Now this has been one of the weirdest assed stories I have stumbled across in years. To recap, and I have shared several stories about this in the last month or so, not too long ago authorities in the Philipines raided an island based phone center intended for overseas gambling operations but discovered several hundred people including Filipinos, Chinese, and other nationalities including Malays and Vietnamese among others who were being held against their will and forced to make internet contact with strangers and trick them out of their savings in various ways.
When the whole thing got exposed, some turned to the local Mayor and asked what she knew about it all. After all, she did at one time own some of the property where the phone center was located. And when they began looking into her background, basically, they discovered she did not have one. There were no school records, her birth information and school records were not really there, no one knew who her family was or could identify them. While she insisted, she had been born illegitimate and her parents had therefore hid and home schooled her and that she was in fact a local Filipina, this week it seems that fingerprint identification has proven her to be a Chinese citizen who came to the country when aged 13 and who seems to be tied to the Chinese crime syndicate who was behind the whole operation.
And while it’s tempting to laugh at the craziness of it all, if one reads several articles a day on this story, as I have been doing, one soon runs across descriptions of blood spattered bathroom walls at the phone center with torture instruments found by the police who raided it and freed the enslaved people, and, obviously, it’s not funny at all.
And there are other equally horrible scam phone centers staffed by enslaved people in Karen State and elsewhere in Burma.
Trump and China
Finally, while I have been trying to avoid mentions of Donald Trump here (despite having written a book on him) , I absolutely think if people consider relations, rivalry, and threats from China to be one of the key issues of the upcoming election, vote Democrat and do not vote for Trump. (and, yes, I did see the debate, and I still think this. I support “TEAM Biden”). The whole outcome of that relationship will depend on the USA having strong commitment and consistency, maintaining its commitment to rule of law, and stable relationships with our allies in the region and elsewhere.
Donald Trump is simply not able to accomplish and maintain any of these things.
Donald Trump’s ego is such that he is easily manipulated by flattering dictators (as proven by his history of interations with North Korea) and his business interests are such so that he will always have mixed priorities when interacting with China. And who knows this? A lot of people, including Jasmine Crockett, among others.
For my very inexpensively priced Trump book,
THANKS!! UNTIL NEXT WEEK!!
Footnotes
Ashida Kim has had multiple publishers, among them Paladin Press and Citadel Press, two of the larget publishers of so-called “mayhem manuals” back int the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, before the internet and a more restrictive legal environment both reduced the need for these books while increasing liability for publishing such information. These companies occasionally changed the names of books or combined two of the books into a single volume with a different name without his permission or consent. And he also self published a lot of things or used print on demand self publishing companies occasionally changing companies leaving the casual investigator with the impression that there had been a new edition with a new publisher. His books are currently being published by Dojo Press, a company that he seems to own.
https://www.jems.com/training/fdny-search-and-rescue-field-medicine-symposium/
If anyone can help tell me how to print this thing out like a banner on paper so I can hang it on my wall, I think that would be really cool.
Ashida Kim shares the story on his website where he has a happy picture of the two of them smiling together. see How Ashida Kim Met Stephen Hayes | Ashida Kim
For the record, I wrote three books for Paladin Press. Tongs, Gangs, and Triads - Chinese Crime Groups in North America, Scams from the Great Beyond, and More Scams from the Great Beyond.