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The Art Of Invisibility Part Two - "Can You Hear Me Know"

Author: Rick Tew
Date Posted: June 13, 2008

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.

Note: when watching for things in low light, you will have a better chance of seeing them if your eyes remain unfocused. You can do this by looking in a circular motion around the object, for example a circular or figure eight pattern.

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."

About The Author

Rick Tew
CEO College of Martial Science
http://www.RickTew.com
http://www.TheNinjaCamp.com

Article Source: JKD Street Combat - online collection of Ninjutsu articles.

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