A Killer Moon…
April 25th, 2007 | 
Author: In keeping with the theme of close-in fighting implements, I thought I’d blog about an interesting variation on some traditional Asian weapons. Basically a modernized variation of traditional Chinese hand weapons, such as the sun and moon ring, or deer horn knife, they feature a crescent blade in either side of the handle, and a central standoff in the middle of each knife. This weapon is:
Black Ronin Ninja Ring
The Black Ronin Ninja Ring is an interesting design, in that, in addition to having excellent slashing characteristics, it also incorporates the thrusting abilities of a straight blade, an ability that was notably absent in the last set of knives I blogged about.
Black Ronin Ninja Ring - Closeup
Now one point I found quite interesting is how this knife is referred to as a “ninja” weapon. Personally I think it’s a little misleading, for many reasons. First, to my admittedly non-comprehensive knowledge, pretty much every weapon this knife could possibly be based on is of Chinese origin, while ninjas are of Japanese origin. Also Ninja, by nature, like to travel light, and would be more likely to carry a somewhat more compact close-in combat weapon, like Kama. So it seems to me unlikely that they would carry a weapon like this. This would be more suited for Chinese Kung-Fu than Ninjutsu.
But regardless of the idiosyncratic name, these weapons represent an interesting mix of old and new, combining several old weapon designs into a unique new contemporary design. Very cool.
Black Ronin Ninja Ring – [Gung Fu]
Category: Knives | 
Tags: Black, Chinese, Dark, Deer horn knife, Japanese, Kung Fu, Martial Arts, Ninja, Ninjitsu, Ring, Ronin | 
6 Comments »
Finally, a post about one of my specialty styles of fighting, Ninjitsu. You are entirely right that this is not a weapon that would be used in the fore mentioned style. While it is a nice design, Ninja were and are more interested in weapons that mislead. say a sword cane or Iron Fan are common examples of Ninja weapons of stealth. This weapon is much more suited to traditional Chinese styles and not Japanese.
Yeah, it seems like the in thing to slap the “ninja” moniker on anything and everything, whether it has anything to do with Ninjas or not. In this case… Not.
pretty much
Hmm, that is interesting, I knew that Ninja were traditionally trained to counteract the Japanese Samurai, though I had always thought them Chinese not Japanese. Glad to know that there are things I am still able to learn as time goes by and I realize that I know nothing at all lol.
Hmm… is it possible to have been both a ronin (masterless samurai) and a ninja? More likely,as mentioned by phyreblade, this is probably just a “ninja overuse” scenario. Just a thought
Well it is theoretically possible, for there to be such a thing as a ninja samurai, however historically and culturally speaking, Samurai and Ninja had had such different backgrounds, it would be extremely unlikely.
Though Ninja are frequently portrayed as super duper uber soldiers, In reality, they were really trained as no nonsense, get it done at all costs, special forces foot soldiers. They were not as concerned with how honorable their methods were as the samurai. They were trained for asymmetrical guerilla warfare, assassination, and covert ops.
Samurai, on the other hand, were trained primarily for battlefield prowess. That was not to say that a samurai could not learn the ways of a Ninja, however one major thing differentiated them. In addition to being the elite soldier of the Japanese army, were generally also high born, the equivalent of the medieval nobleman.
They were men of great honor, and would have been unlikely to adopt the dishonorable ways of a lowly foot soldier such as a ninja. Now a ronin may have been less inhibited in this fashion, however I think it would have been hard for a samurai to turn their back on years of training as a noble warrior, even if they were now dishonored and masterless.