Renshi,

I really enjoyed black belt club last night, I wanted to thank you for the verbal lesson at the end. Most schools do not do this kind of thing. It made me thing of how much knowledge and perspective I've acquired as one of your students. I have always been a philosophical person, so to have these kinds of lessons is very interesting for me.

In fact, when I post messages on internet forums I get encouragement and praise from a lot of the members, who view me as a knowledgeable person. Many of these people have third and fourth degree black belts, so I don't like telling them that I'm still in colored belt ranks!

Although I have noticed there are a lot of people out there who think ninjutsu is not a true martial art, saying ridiculous things like ‘ninja weren't trained for combat' and such, which becomes tiresome. Far too many people believe the Hollywood interpretation that ninja were just assassins, not guards, spies or foot soldiers.

I have been trying for awhile to learn the Japanese language, and if you haven't noticed I'm big on language in general, so if you would like for me to help some of the other students with the pronunciation of some of the words I'd be glad to do so. I think people are very intimidated by how different the language is and they give up trying to learn it before they begin.

Thank you for making discussion and lecture part of the curriculum, many martial artists do not have this benefit. Yesterday I was talking to a girl who has a black belt in Aiki JuJutsu but has never heard the term ‘sho dan .' I was very confused!

Thanks once again for your time!

-Dan