Silent assassins, vagabond thieves, master less samurai, and all round bad guy. That's the image portrayed of the Ninja in movies and the media ever since the Ninja Boom of the 1980's, and it's an image that's hard to shack off.

Like most things that come out of Hollywood, they tend to go for the flashy, most over hyped parts, and then blow it up a bit more. You only have to look at the most recent World War II films released in the past few years to see that.

Well the historical Ninja were just a group of people living in the Iga region of Japan, who didn't want to live like samurai. That appears to be their only crime.

They created their own system of self defence, and strategies that enabled them to survive for over a thousand years to this day. These strategies are now taught around the world thanks to the 34th Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi.

Masaaki Hatsumi has many personal students around the world teaching Ninjutsu, the system created by the Ninja, including 8th Dan Black belt Brian McCarthy, of the Bujinkan Brian Dojo, who teaches traditional Ninjutsu throughout Europe. Here in Portsmouth, Ninjutsu is taught by Andrew Thomas, 4th Dan, who has studied under Brian for 18 years, as well in Japan with the grandmaster.

Andrew has been teaching in Portsmouth, Bognor Regis and Brighton, for 18 years, and has recently celebrated the 1st anniversary of the new Dojo location at Warrior Crafts in Highland road with two days of training and a meal at Rickshaws.

Unlike nearly all the other martial arts, Ninjutsu evolved over a thousand years and is still evolving. Only recently a new throw was created by a student of the Grandmaster, so that he could throw a man much bigger than him. The throw is named after him. Ninjutsu isn't the system portrayed in films and television. In fact, until you've actually done some, it looks nothing like you would expect it to. It's very subtle, and it works.

With Karate you can see the punches and kicks, in Judo you can see the throw. In Ninjutsu, we try to keep things hidden. Why let the person who has just attacked you know what you can do to defend yourself? The other big difference between the other martial arts and Ninjutsu, is that we are not a sport. Ours is a system that was created over a period of time to protect the people of a certain area in Japan, not as a way of keeping fit, and entertaining others.

Does Ninjutsu have a place in a modern society? Yes, of course it does. No only is it a way of keeping yourself active the 33rd Grandmaster trained the day he died, at 82 but in this world with growing crime rates, protecting yourself and your loved ones is always a good thing.

We can punch and kick, throw and lock joints, we can defend against weapon attacks, as well as learn how to use weapons such as the humble stick effectively. We can fight standing up, sitting down, on the floor, in confined spaces and in the open. We train to be able to operate in all environments, and to learn to perceive threats before they become dangerous.

You can't expect to be good in a few weeks, but you will start picking things up. If all you learn the first week is how not to be hit, then you've learnt a very good lesson. A lot of martial arts give out grading's like sweets, but it doesn't mean that you have any real ability, just a nice coloured belt.

In the Bujinkan Brian Dojo, you will only be graded when you have the ability of the grade. This doesn't mean that you could walk into the roughest pub in town and take anyone on, it means that you can recognise threats, and avoid them.

But what does Ninjutsu mean to me? It's more than a martial art, but I don't want to give you the old line,