When I was a kid some friends of mine and I created a club we called the “Black Ninjas”. In our 9-year old minds we are going to dress all in black and go on covert missions with dubious ends. I loved to watch the movie “The 3 Ninjas” and sometimes I would hide in the low branches of a tree near my house just to “spy” on the passersby.
One of the core principles of our teaching philosophy is to utilize so-called “child passions” to inspire kids to really get into the activities that we are doing. When kids are fully engaged in something that they love then they don’t feel like they are learning, it just happens. Examples of such child passions are digging, jumping, singing, running, asking questions, telling/hearing stories, and being invisible.
That last one, being invisible, is at the core of what we will be doing at Way of the Earth Ninja. One of the many skills that we teach kids at these camps is “Scout Formation” which is a way of moving through the environment without being seen and while maintaining hyper-awareness of our surroundings. A couple of years back, while Anna and I were running a similar camp that we called “Wilderness Ninja”, we took a group of kids in Scout Formation walking through a popular park traveling through the forest parallel to a running path. As we crept along the leader put up his fist and everyone froze. We did a move called sink and fade and everyone melted into the forest floor. Just then several runners came by only 10 feet form where we lay and passed by without even noticing our presence. Kids have a natural aptitude for this stuff.
If your kids dream of being ninjas like I did then take a look at Way of the Earth Ninja.
Recommended reading:
Way of the Scout by Tom Brown Jr.
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