Episode 662 - Renshi Nikki Wulfe
Renshi Nikki Wulfe is a martial arts practitioner and instructor living in South Africa and trains in the rare horse arts of Bajobugei and Bajutsu.
I’ve had very real attempts on my life and I’ve also learned what works and what doesn’t. Get armed and get trained. Self-defense should not stop in the dojos. Self-defense is a much bigger thing, it’s a defense of the self. So, I do a lot of self-defense training for women in my country…
Renshi Nikki Wulfe - Episode 662
It’s very rare in this show that we encounter something relatively new. In this case, Renshi Nikki Wulfe introduces us to Bajutsu and Bajobugei; horse martial arts that originated in Japan, brought to South Africa by Japanese monks. Having a father who does martial arts, Renshi Nikki Wulfe practically grew up in the dojo. She also learned Martial Arts and some form of acupuncture from the Shinto monks.
In this episode, Renshi Nikki Wulfe tells her journey into Martial Arts, self-defense, defending herself and others from poachers, and her time with the Japanese monks. Listen and join the conversation!
Show Notes
You may check out what Renshi Nikki Wulfe does and follow her on Instagram.
We mentioned the Musashi Shinobi Samurai.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Welcome, everyone, you're listening to the whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 662 with today's guest Renshi Nikki Wulfe. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host for the show I founded whistlekick. Well, because I love martial arts. And that's why we do all the things that we do. You want to see all the things that we do, well go to whistlekick.com check out what we have over there, you're going to find links and highlights of our products, our projects, our services. And one of the things over there, yeah, we sell stuff in a store, use the code, PODCAST15, get yourself 15% off anything we have over there. And I don't think I've mentioned it lately, but all of our apparel ship free internationally. So, if you're one of our listeners, in another country, just keep in mind, you can grab a shirt and not pay any shipping, it's all built in. That's why we do some of the things the way we do them because it makes it easier to do stuff like that. Other stuff that we do well, this show, which you already knew about because you're listening to it, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And you can check out every single episode we have ever done. They're all available for free. Audio links, video links, photos, videos, transcripts, social media, there's a ton of stuff over there to go check it out. And get yourself some more context for the interviews or the topic episodes that we do twice a week.
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Here we are more than six years into this show. And we still find opportunities to bring people on who train martial arts in a different way. And in this case, they train different martial arts Renshi Wulfe. I'm not even going to explain it because I'm going to mess it up. But it is fair to say we have not yet had someone on the show, doing what she is doing. And suffice it to say there are very few people doing what she is doing. It's an amazing conversation. And let's be honest, not a lot of conversation because I was just transfixed at what she was saying. The stories that she's telling the way that she took her martial arts out into the world blows my mind. Exciting stuff. And I'm excited for you to hear so here we go. Hey, sensei. Welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.
Nikki Wulfe:
Hey, good to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's great to have you. You're on the show representing some things, some practices even I think if I remember correctly, so locations maybe that we haven't had on the show before. So, I'm going to let you wear those mantle's however strongly you want, but I know we're going to get into some cool stuff and I've been pumped for this one. What are we six years in? It's not often we get firsts anymore.
Nikki Wulfe:
Yes. So, I'm actually in my proper title as they come from the Japanese council for Musashi clan order of Shinobi Samurai. That is like real Japan stuff right there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So cool. Very cool title.
Nikki Wulfe:
Yeah. So, when people say to me, are you a real ninja? I'm like, yeah. I do get that. It's like, are you a real ninja? Absolutely. I am.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, of course when anybody says Musashi, most of us are going to go to Miyamoto.
Nikki Wulfe:
No, but that's like saying, you know, Mr. Johnson, are you the same as Mr. Jones?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, it's a common family.
Nikki Wulfe:
It's a name. Yeah. It's a name but the Masashi clan was a very big group of people and they have a lineage that goes all the way back. My master is Kiyomi Vanessa Shibata and she is the current head of the order of inertia over the samurai Musashi clan. And quite a fantastic lady to talk to too. And I answer to her, and yeah, she likes to say ninjas are not what the movies make them. And we know this. A lot of us know this. The movies that are great for Hollywood stuff, but it's not really what Ninjutsu is, Ninjutsu is very spiritual. And it involves the collecting of information, and, you know, spy stuff and tracking and that sort of thing and all the disguise that goes with that. So that's, that's, that's real ninjutsu and then jitsu for martial arts, talking about ninja to martial arts. A lot of people get mixed up and think that jitsu is a martial art. It actually isn't. Thai Jitsu, which is the collection of martial arts that belong to ninja or Shinobi, is the correct way to say it? We're getting history lessons; we're getting etymology lessons. I appreciate it. So, yeah. So, under the spanner of collective things that ninja or Shinobi is the proper word to do. You talk about sharing or reading about the 18 skills of ninja? And one of them is the question. The question is about art or what is known as Bijutsu. It's one of the 18 skills. So, most people know about that. And I specialize in the question Arts, which is Jitsu, or actually horse martial arts, which is [00:07:11-00:07:13] and that is something that is seen and very little was known about it. And because horses became pretty much a non-thing in Japan, it kind of went away.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so you said bujitsu, but the simplicity that my mind is trying to make of that wants to interpret it as kicking butt while on a horse. Is that accurate?
Nikki Wulfe:
Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Nikki Wulfe:
And as we go forward, you're going to see exactly, I'm going to show you the modern application of an ancient martial art. So, we need to start somewhere at the beginning. So, we're going to start with the origin of me. And how did I come by this basic question. So, thanks for it's like a big round circle. So, this started for me before I actually ended up where I should have been. So, my father lived in Japan for some time, and he trained with [00:08:24-00:08:29] and arrived in South Africa, and my father and another partner, and they kind of set it up. And so, I grew up in the dojo life. And so, they opened a dojo in South Africa under the shugoki banner. And I grew up in this system, but I was quite a wild child. And I spent it when I wasn't in school, and my father's third dojo probably slept more than anything else. I was introduced by my Japanese uncle to a small group of Shinto monks who happen to be living in South Africa. And nobody knows a lot about them or how they came to be here, just that they were and I spent most of my afternoons and I spent a lot of time with them. And they trained me in a number of things. And that is something that not many people can claim or get to do. And If I'd known as an adult, how much I received from them. I would like to go back there and ask them again and again to explain more. And yeah, so it's like when you're a child and you don't realize what a wonderful situation you're in and then you become an adult and you go damn, I should have really paid more attention.
And yes, so they trained me in everything from acupuncture and acupressure which can be [00:09:58-00:10:02] is the martial arts, acupuncture. I think Korea shows modern fanciful words in the last couple of 10 years, which is hitting and striking pressure points. So, I've learned martial acupuncture, which is Battlefield, acupressure and acupuncture. So you go, okay, well, what the hell is that? Well, on the samurai battlefields who would often have been the horses with terrible injuries, men without arms, legs, and these, let's call them battle, medics would have been on their battlefields, checking who would need what, and sometimes the walk was a vein press to stop the heart, or stop the heart beating, I mean, a horse with no legs not going to be helped, you know, that sort of thing. And no one thinks about that side of acupressure, or acupuncture, or where it may have come from so long ago. So, Marshall, acupuncture is very different. To acupuncture, you go and study in adversity, because it's sort of here and now you have a headache, I'll take it away now. You just got something, bruising up, I'm going to apply acupuncture or acupressure, and tomorrow, you'll be barely bruised, and very fast healing, that sort of thing. So that that that art from the monks was something that I've used over and over and over and over again, and actually went on to study acupuncture more seriously and found that I was practicing something that was hadn't been seen in 100 years, according to Dr. Lee, who is the Cape Town, acupuncture lady doctor from China, who does all the examinations. So it was interesting to hear that from her that the monks had trained me to do something that has not been seen in the acupuncture world in 100 years. So, I knew that was something different and strange going on. And then I learned a lot of empty here and a lot of different weapons, and this thing called [00:12:12-00:12:14], which is martial arts on horseback.
So, I had horses. I grew up with horses, my father kept horses. And this was a natural transition for them to teach me these things. So, I found out much later when I started digging and scratching that these monks had come from the shrine on the edge of Fukushima. And that wasn't difficult to find, actually, because there are only two shrines in the whole of Japan that have both statues. The first is that you're going to love this. The one is the Musashi shrine, the main Musashi shrine, in Kyoto, and the other shrine with a wolf. The wolf statues are of the age of Fukushima in the, in the village, just outside the village, village of lactate in Fukushima province. So, the shrine had the wolf statutes that they had described. And so, they came from there for sure. And that was very interesting. Another one of those synchronicities was like Musashi clan Kiyomi was talking to me, we did some research, we said, central searches to sort of find out and we came back with this and it was like Musashi, Clan Wars. Yeah. Okay. We are all given names in the Musashi clan, which are very important. That used to be very important. Very important now, to the Japanese. And this was my name, so as chosen by them, so it was all synchronicity, just incredible amounts of synchronicity, all telling me that this was the right path. So okay, so let me not digress. So, we have the monks and where they come from and what I was trained for, which is just incredible. Questions?
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, just keep going. I'm taking it all in. There's a flow I don't want to break.
Nikki Wulfe:
Okay, so horseback martial arts, so a lot of what I was doing as a teenager and a child was from a perspective of someone who is training and listening to people who don't speak English very well but have to explain everything and you know, getting it right and so instead of working with the nagamaki, I'm working with a sort of a long stick. Instead of working with a Yari, I'm also working with a long stick. Instead of working with a katana. I'm working with a bot and, you know, I was being taught all the stuff all the time, without actually realizing that I was being trained for an art that's pretty much gone. So, I carried on with the monks for quite a while when I was about 17/18, I went to work for a local Tang family. There's a lot of Chinese Tang in Cape Town where I grew up, it is actually a very, very large Chinese contingent even more so now that we're a full-on communist country. And they're very comfortable here. And they have a lot of community here. And so, I trained with them as a bodyguard, which was very interesting work. And I got to do a lot of very heavy [00:15:57-00:16:01] because Chinese bodyguards train in Chinese kickboxing, and variations of that, depending on who's training you. And so, I got to a firsthand version of real Chinese martial arts to go with my already Japanese martial arts. And that was kind of interesting.
And from there, I sort of, I was just there regular body, God, if you get such a thing as just a regular body God for a while, the Chinese like to use half Japanese half, they like halfwords. So, I started writing. And then and then as I got sort of a little bit further along or matured a bit more, I started to realize that I needed to get back to doing things with the horses. And so, for a while I joined the South African military, specifically the question training side. And, and that for a while it was fulfilling because I was doing back with the horses. I couldn't do what I wanted to, but I was definitely in a military setting. The discipline was there, and I was teaching and training horses for the military. South Africa at that time, had a massive, very strong martial art mounted, sorry, not martial art mounted units, who patrol the borders really well. And so, I was sort of very, very versed in and stuck in that training, horses for border duty and so on. And then I was asked really nicely to come back and do a little more body guarding. And so, I did, and I returned to my previous employer and ended up in Botswana, actually, the country. I don't know if you know where that is, but it's a country above, well above South Africa. And at the time, my employer had meetings and things to do with the Botswana government. And I ended up in long conversations with Lady, who was the wife of or the mother of the tenor general, [00:18:35-00:18:38] who was the president, and I got into long discussions with Lieutenant General who was at the time the, the young General of the Army, and he had been raised in the UK, but he was, you know, very much back in his country, love horses, his mother loved horses. It was British, she loved horses.
And the discussion came around that I had this martial arts horse background and everyone was very excited. And then I was asked if I would assist in training from officers' courses, and my employer sort of, you know, was a lovely Chinese man. And he said, of course, with his blessing, not a problem and he kind of I obviously came back and did my paperwork and everything and then and then I ended up there for quite a long time. And within a year, I was in uniform. And I did a lot of training back in the army, very happy about the symptom again, and this time, a little bit more a little bit freer because I got to do my thing. And we were training. I mean, Rhino was rhino poaching, elephant poaching in Botswana, and Africa in general. This product caught a big hectic problem and Lieutenant General in common is an absolute icon in the anti-poaching world and he did teach in Botswana around really quickly about anti-poaching. And then I answered him, and I helped him train a very large mounted anti-poaching unit. And within a year, I was no longer a consultant. But I ended up in uniform. I still don't know how that happened. It was very fast. That's how I ended up in uniform. And I completed ranger training, I was awarded Captain see much to the absolute horror of the men in the military around me, because what's one at that time did not take in women at all, and definitely had no pale skins in the army. It just wasn't there. So, I was like a pariah female and pale, it was just wrong or wrong. And I was doing something very masculine, which was, you know, horses, women, Botswana, they don't ride. They don't get on horses. They don't. It's just not done. They do woman things.
So, I was the most and woman in the army. And yeah, I had, I was in uniform, I was in charge of a very large contingent of men, I had about 600 horses to train and command. And we did a really good job. And I found that a lot of the poaching problems were actually not the purchase, but the lack of training. So, they had little to no actual training, there were soldiers that could get on horses. And so, we set about working with proper weaponry and Botswana's very, very lucky, they trained with the best of the best in the world. So, we have instructors from the British, and the US Marines come and still do, and Israel, so Israel, us and they all train the Botswana Defense Force units in different things. And so, this was a fantastic opportunity for me, because I got to train with these wonderful people from the soldiers from all over the world, these ranking trainers from all over the world. And then it was a wonderful time in my life, I was just, you know, I was training and in the military at the same time. So, and getting all this knowledge was unfolding. And what I was unfolding was all my budget of a guy and but jitsu with the horses, I was getting to test it on real people. And real horses, it wasn't just me testing things. I was testing it on units that I was training. And I found what worked and what really didn't work. And things that I thought worked, didn't work, and things that I really didn't think work sometimes really worked well. And that was eye opening. And then, you know, you take full responsibility when we train men to do a certain thing, and then it doesn't work. Or you train men to do a thing and it works well. So that was a fantastic opportunity. We were so very successful.
That I was, you know, I was given a specific task which was to train men in bladed combat from horseback in horseback combat to be a ranger unit. So, we trained 40 men specifically, and you could call them, Ninja if you actually looked at them properly, but they were obviously in uniform. But the directive was to make everything look like infighting. And so, they had proper alleles and proper training from the Israelis and the British in their firearms and that they carried but their main mode of combat was blade combat or horseback and they carried banshees Banshee down, so it's a much harder, sort of, it's like a machete actually, I don't know if you're familiar with it. But it's like a sort of a machete, it's got a slightly longer handle. Look it up some time. It's really a nice weapon to superweapon actually. And so, I trained them with banshees from horseback. And yeah, so the objective was, don't wait for the poachers to come kill stuff, hunt them, track them, find them, eliminate them. That was the plan. And it worked. It worked really, really well. So, poaching went from 80% down to 2%. With this unit backed up obviously, the military is supported. But a lot of the places that poachers were poaching Rhino and elephant you couldn't get to with a vehicle. And if you could, the poachers would hear the vehicles coming.
So, the horses were like these silent deaths. They really weren't. They would track and we would track and find them, find them and sort them out so that they didn't come back. Because what happens in the poaching world in Africa is that you have these very experienced poachers who are very good at their jobs. Deadly actually. And if you take them out, then the guy's underneath them are normally their sons, and cousins and brothers who are training to be poachers. And if you take that Lot out, then the Dum Dums are left and the Dum Dums make a lot of mistakes, and they skate. So, they get dead even quicker. And slowly but surely, you wipe out a whole, two, three generations of poachers. And you suddenly start to have peace. Because if you make the reward of poaching, not just about rhino horn, but about your life, if it's too risky to die doing it, then people get scared, and they stop doing it. And then people wreck people out. And the stronger we got, the more people ratted our people and the more poachers just couldn't exist in that environment. And we really did a good job. And hunting and tracking the poaching problem was the way to go. So that was a very long and busy career.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, this is powerful stuff. I kind of want to go back a little bit because there's a piece that I'm unclear of that doesn't but maybe did. thread that I didn't hear thread through any of this. And that is whether or not you enjoyed it.
Nikki Wulfe:
Oh, absolutely. I loved my job. I really did love my job. In that environment, I had the occupancy options, you take all the Kudan and the secret knowledge that I've been trained for with the monks. And not only practice it, but train it and use it to actually see what works and doesn't work in work in a real-world environment. So, it was hugely successful. And for me, successful when I say successful, I'm not even talking about what the units did. I'm talking about for me as a martial artist to see this ancient [00:22:30-00:22:31] become this modernized thing that worked. It was just an incredible experience for me, too. It was a unique, unique experience for me. And I really did enjoy it. I loved what I did. I really do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think quite often when we talk about traditional martial arts, people are very quick to dismiss the practice of certain things or certain weapons of certain training styles. Because oh, that doesn't apply today. That's irrelevant. Here's a great example of something that is so long past as to not be practiced, still relevant. In a certain context in modern day, absolutely. Not only relevant, but more effective. It's what I'm hearing definitely was pretty much anything else you could do.
Nikki Wulfe:
Yes, well, they're still going. I left quite a long time ago, after several hits on my life, which was very unpleasant. Three really bad ones to be exact. I just, you know, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Strangely enough, huge cartels, they are cartels, they do drugs, and they do rhino horn, and they do everything. But they would kind of drop in on helicopters, and give directives like how much they wanted to watch. And then the guys on the ground would sort of collect kill and slaughter. And then so it was. It was the thing that was terrible, because the outside influence, Korean and American influence on the poaching was mind blowing. And that was out of the intervention because when I arrived in Botswana, what was happening was their wildlife department was corrupt, rotten to the core. And this was the problem. So, what he said was, I'm going to make my own units. And he did. He took a piece of his military. And he said you are not dedicated to overseeing wildlife. So, they didn't answer to the wildlife department. They just do their own thing. And if the wildlife department was kept corporately hand in the cookie jar, it was easier to dismiss them and fire them that way. And that's how he just went in like a black rhino himself. But generally uncommon. He went on to be president.
Quite a while after I left, but I went home. He just said to me, I don't want to be at your funeral. And I very sadly did. It was very that Major General at the time, who is actually now Lieutenant General, gave me the biggest compliment. I think that an African army general could give a strange white woman from South Africa. And he said to me it's famous, it's actually famous at a walkout at one of the war councils in government, which is their capital. He said, Nikki, I do believe you are becoming like a man. And my retort was I do believe, Major General Fisher, that you're starting to think like a woman and the whole room erupted in laughter. And it's actually it's, it's so famous that I had the cheek to speak to a major general in that manner, and that he fired back in good nature, because he was well known for being a bad-tempered sword. And, yeah, so that was a huge compliment that I'm becoming like a man because for four men in the African army of Botswana women did not have any place in the army, that's for sure. Not even secretaries. They just didn't have any women as I said, so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow. So that was a lot. That was a pretty big opening salvo from you. And we could probably go back in detail and pull, I don't know, five, six hours out of unpacking things.
Nikki Wulfe:
It gets me going and you'll have soldiers and they have got stuff that happened to me and things with wild animals, and we could go all day, but I'm sure we could.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely positive we could. This is the best part of my job is if I do my job, right. I don't have to do very much. And I love it.
Nikki Wulfe:
I mean, I can just... I'm not going to obviously, but I could. I mean, there are things like strange antidotes. And I'll give you just a small one, like I'm camped out in the [00:32:09-00:32:11] I had as a female. So, I had a corporal assigned to set up my tent and sought out all captains. And we had this problem with some jackals who kept on reading stuff in the tents. And I thought that I had gotten it. And I was going to chase it away from my stuff because it was in my tent. And I jumped up, I was in army fatigues, I jumped up and I ran at a yelling and fell over, tucked over a log which wasn't far from my tents, and it was out of the light of the campfires. And swore and kicked at the log and went back to my tents thinking that I had been outsmarted by a jackal. And the next morning, very, very early. One of our... We had Bushman trackers in the army, they're very good.
They can track over rocks, they're incredible. And he said to me, in his funny little way, because they don't talk, they don't speak the African languages. They don't speak English, they use sign language. If you can't speak Bushman, which is a bunch of clicks and clocks and you don't understand what they say. And he called me over and he pointed to the ground, where we talked over the log, there was no log, and he pointed out these massive lion poles and what happened was I'd run out of the tent out of the lights, and I tripped and literally fell over a lioness. And there were three of them. And I kicked her, and then I booked back in temper to my tent. So, I have lots of lots of anecdotal stories like that of things that happened to me. It really probably should be written down at some point. But yeah, you're talking stories. I have tons and tons at her house.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How many people can say that they've kicked a lion and live to, I suspect, I think she's hard while in the group, I think.
Nikki Wulfe:
I think the lionesses must be absolutely horrified. You know, crazy humans come screaming at her and then fall over. I mean, there was a touch and go. I mean, when the Bushman showed me the size of those poles. I was like, holy shit. I mean, I was probably interested in her face and I didn't even realize it because it's pitched off.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because yeah, it was only because I suspect she was surprised because it was not the behavior of humans. No predator or prey.
Nikki Wulfe:
Just get the hell out of you. Back it off as I got up, dust myself off just in case I kicked her again. Yeah, strange, crazy. Lots of stories like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a common thread in the way that you're delivering all this and it sounds very matter of fact, this is what I need to do. Is that really how it was? Or are you maybe simplifying the emotional aspects of this just because it makes for a shorter story?
Nikki Wulfe:
Probably. Just, you know, when I started talking about it, there's so much flooding back. And there's so many small things like that, some really strange and funny things that happened. And things are not so funny. But yeah, a lot of the time, my nature is very matter of fact, I was in charge of a very large contingent of men, I was in charge of 600 horses' welfare. And I had to be very matter of fact about a lot of things. You talk about African time and the African army. And yeah, it really was. So, you know, getting things done my way. I had to work in the first few years with military police because I was laughed at everywhere I tried to teach or do something. In Belgium, the horses are trained in the Zen manner, so we don't put butts in the mouth. So, if you look at my Instagram, and you look at pictures of anything, I'm doing forces, you'll see there's that one theme is that there are no steel bits in a mouse. This is a Zen practice. We do not work with rope spurs whips, we do not work with bits in the horse's mouth, which is really weird, because most people you talk about more horses, there's going to be bits, but in this particular practice.
They aren't. So, as I said before, and then just who's very spiritual, and it's about peaceful coexistence. Whilst being I think this might take on this incredibly violence of something else, assassinations, and those sorts of things that used to be carried out. So, when I talk about my military career, I really have loved mine and jitsu and still do live mine and Jitsu, which is, I mean, that was my job. Track finds. Eliminate that that's very much right up there with stuff ninja do. So, you know, and then all the things that happened while I was in the African bush. So that's a unique thing on its own. So yeah, unique, because I think the theme here, everything is unique.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Very much so. Now, on the other side of all this, we've had guests on the show who have talked about their training, and then whether by intent or by accident, they end up in some profession, where they're testing those skills, and they're finding the things that that work and do not just as you talked about. And in most cases, they come back out, they remain training, and it has changed the way they train or the way they think about training. How about you?
Nikki Wulfe:
Yeah, absolutely. So, after a very long service, I think I was there for about 12 years, it's been a long time to me. Off the bat, here are 12 years. But so, this assassination attempts on me got steadily worse. And so, I returned home to South Africa. And for quite a while I just sort of floated around not knowing what to do. My life has been very disciplined and structured. And so, I sort of trained problem horses for a living. And that gave me sort of a measure of, but it was like I was a freak freelance, you've got a problem to solve or fix your problem also, as often speaking to people and dealing with people who had no idea where I'd come from, or what I'd been doing, and why I worked with horses with problems with such ease, because it's what I've done my whole life. And then I did that for quite a time. And then I was asked to engage with the police and Metro Police for Riot training leading up to the soccer World Cup in 2010. And I was like, whoa, here we go. Again, this is cool. And, I was engaged and I found that my military training version of a guy and Biju Tsu was suddenly booming.
It was there again and it was you know now you're talking armored hosts you're talking riot shield; you're talking right. It's all a sword and a shield to me. So, it was like just, you know, go again, this time the horse. The [00:39:54-00:39:56] was really very prominent in training police for ride work because your horse needs to control a whole bunch of people. So, one well trained horse and one officer can control 10 or 12 people easily. And if you go back, if you go way back to what Shinobi samurai needed to do with their horses. Remember, something I haven't mentioned yet and what will go there but Shinobi Samurai, and Shinobi are two different things. And Shinobi samurai would have been like special ops, and they would have practiced Dojo guy, and they would have been the ones who trained Shinobi [00:40:40-00:40:41] to do jobs. So, the common folk would not have had the warrior training. And they would have you know, been pulled in and taught things. So, it would have been samurai who are doing Shinobi your ninjutsu ninja ops who would have worked with horses like in this manner? Well, my particular ancestry. So, also share with the right words that the horses are taught to kind of take control of the situation much like you train your ride control.
So, the horses in the version of a guy are needed to be able to push people to move into people. The horses are not naturally aggressive, they're herbivores. So, to teach a horse to behave in that manner takes quite a lengthy process. And horses are clever humans not so much. And horses learn quite easily. Like well trained dogs. These warrior horses learn to do all kinds of things that involve not normal horse behavior. If I'm being understood at this point, yeah. So yeah, right work. Right up there with things horses can learn to do well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Almost everybody listening to this conversation? Are martial artists thinking maybe a few of them also own or ride horses? It's probably unlikely we have too many. I'm going to guess zero other than yourself. Or people that maybe you know that listen to this episode when it comes out that are trained in a martial arts horse discipline. Jujitsu, I'm assuming that there may be others. Other names?
Nikki Wulfe:
No, not that I've run into in Japan. Wonderful my counterpart in Japan, he does not live where the horses live. And he needs to take like a four-hour train ride to go to be with horses and he can only do that weekend. So, I'm extremely blessed that I live with my horses. I own horses. I have a small ranch where I live with my horses. So that you know that's how it is. The Japanese don't have it like we have in America. You have smallholdings and plots and small ranches. You call them ranchettes, they're, I think we can call them small holdings, where you can have a small piece of ground and you can keep horses in Japan. That's not. It's not possible. It's not available. It's not the way I said my counterpart and he has not been able to practice so he goes to the two or three main places where they breed and keep the Japanese key. So, which is a wonderful animal. And yeah, he goes there and he can access the equipment and he can access the archery side. You know, the yumi bow thing that still very much when you think about samurai people think about samurai doing that. Right, that's a normal thing. People think about mounted archery. So mounted archery all over the walls has really taken off in the last 10 years. And a lot of course, people call what they do horse martial art. And there's a couple of large groups that have organized themselves but they only do mounted archery.
So, I've had a lot of martial artists reach out to me on my own as my own Instagram and Facebook has grown with interest because I post all the time the stuff that we do and the horse train, that's all I do right now. So, I post the stuff and people go oh my goodness, holy cow, look, chiefs. How do you get the horse to do that? The horses just lay down and now you're shooting, you know, arrows over his back. And now he's moving sideways while you hide behind him. And you advanced with a bow and arrow. Oh, my goodness. And now I'm working as a spear and then I'm you know, so people have reached out to me and martial artists are very interested in this. So, in America, there's lots of martial artists who also have horses, particularly in Texas where I would like to go one day, I might stop. And it takes us like horses for Africa to make it upon horses for Africa is hundreds and hundreds of horses and martial artists. Those are two things that are in Texas. And I'm sure if I dig a little bit, there's lots of other horsemen who also like martial arts like you're saying. So yes, I have had people reach out to me all over the place like how do we start? How do we get going? So, this is a lead to training manuals with the Shibata Ryu Musashi clan, we've been putting all of this stuff back into paper.
And personally, I'm hoping to sort of get a YouTube channel to help people get going, because how's the people going to get going? So, a lot of the stuff is my secret technique. And we're working with horses in a way that's, you know, you could call a trick work, except that there's no force of ropes. There's no force of bits in the mouth. So that's sort of out the window for a lot of people saying, oh, well, how is that done? Yeah, it's Ninpō. It's the secret ninja to stuff. We're really communicating with the horses on another level entirely. So, I've, yeah, I've known Kiyomi, the current head of the order of Shinobi samurai for about eight years. And she invited me to join them. And this allowed me to research on a much deeper level over the last eight years, because I had access to researchers and me University and you know, all the scrolls and the things that are written down, and it's been wonderful.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome. Well, how about the martial artists who are likely never going to end up on a horse? One of the things that you're talking about is there's cooperation, there's mutual effort. That's there, right, though the horse, you know, I've spent a little bit of time on horseback enough to know that building that relationship building that trust with the horse, you know, which is a two-way street horses are brilliant, insensitive animals, and anyone who doesn't know that likely has just not been around them for long. Yes, yeah. Context of other, let's say more conventional, commonly trained martial arts, we rarely train things where it is, let's say against, you know, myself and a partner in the sense that you and your horse are partners, towards whatever end. Yes, that can't be easy. Are there lessons perhaps, in your training and building those relationships with a horse that we unmounted folk might learn something?
Nikki Wulfe:
Oh, absolutely. Think about students trying to get students to understand and perform technique correctly. I'm working with a student who can't speak my language. I'm working with a student who does not understand my language at all. I have to find another way. Sometimes I'm working with human students, but I'm talking about the horse students. So, we teach the horses. What if you look at it, it would be, you know, horse aikido. But that's not correct. Korean terms. So, we talk about [00:49:11-00:49:15]. And if you know a bit about Aikido, then you know that this is n't okay and you have the person who's doing the technique. So, it becomes that sort of a relationship and horses just suck it up. They rarely do. They suck it up. And one thing you cannot be with horses, angry or violence now. You say you've ridden so you know that you can't make it, I'm going to use my South African kilograms. I don't know what that is, but an average horse of 500 or 600 kilos, that's quite a heavy weight.
Jeremy Lesniak:
1300 pounds.
Nikki Wulfe:
So, 1300 pounds. Horses cannot be where you can actually put a bit of these marks and you can use a weapon you can force him, you can force him from point to point, because at some point a much larger size is going to flatten us. And so, you should really from the beginning try to find a different way to communicate with him other than, you know, pain in his mouth, or work or whatever. So, when we train them, everything we do, and everything we start with is that we prefer to call them [00:50:32-00:50:34], so we refer to the horses, the dragon. And if you look at a dragon, this says several things you would not do to a dragon when you were training, it's one would be aggressive towards it at any point because it can a fly away, it can be crunchy, can eat you, it could breathe fire on, you could smack you with its tail. So, you would go about being very, very exceptionally careful how you present to this dragon to get it to let you ride it and do things with it because you can't control the dragon with pain and fear. So, when you apply that to a horse, you suddenly find him incredibly cooperative because you as the human have had to take your ego and shove it right down far away where it never gets seen.
In order to make the horse understand we'll help the horse understand we don't make the horse do anything to help the horse understand what to us, you know maneuvers. So being able to stand up on its back legs and being able to strike a target, we teach our horses to strike a target with one leg, we teach them to target. And then we teach them to target us with shields. And I mean, I put this on my own Instagram and do plenty of videos showing me this sort of thing. And we ride them with no bridle on at all. We do things that are considered probably trick work. But it's not a trick work. It's martial arts. And then the horse when I'm on the ground was my sword drawn. The horse is also your problem. Big time. He's your problem. Because he's like 10 of me on steroids. And he's able to block and push you some few sharp you like a sumo. It's like having a, you know, a friendly sumo wrestler working with you. So, we refer to them as dragons. And everything is about dragons and doing things with dragons. And all the terminology has got to do with that, to remind us constantly to be very humble when dealing with the horse. So yes, for non-riders, even working with the horse on the ground without riding it is a huge experience in this. And we just like to think of it as trying to deal with a student that maybe doesn't speak your language at all. And then everything applies. Everything.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You've mentioned your social media a couple of times, let's make sure we get that in there for people who want to check out what you've got. I've looked at your Instagram account. There's some cool stuff on there.
Nikki Wulfe:
Yeah, it's not normal stuff, that's for sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, no, it is not.
Nikki Wulfe:
So, I do try and get sort of more into it. And I've been told repeatedly by my masters that I need to really, you know, pull my game together and make sure that I'm in more traditional gear. But you know, when you're working with a horse, you say you've written them. So, when you're working with a horse, you know, the hat is the most important thing. Yeah, and the African son, and it's not cowboy stuff at all. It's like, let's not fry our brains. Yeah, so real, real, real life, equestrian martial arts. So, I'm hoping that a lot of the definitely Americans and there's a lot of Europeans that are totally into like, how do we get going with this? How do we start this because it is something that if you don't bring it back to people, if you don't bring it back to people, it'll just get archived and become dusty scrolls somewhere. And that would be really sad. I think. Are you available to teach? I would imagine, I teach. I have a few students, but their horseman, their horse people, and they say they enjoy the connection. That's the word I'm looking for. They enjoy the connection. It gives them a much closer connection. Even if they don't do the whole martial art, the whole nine yards.
The whole nine yards, of course, we taught the horse or the horse Aikido and then we taught the horse all about taking weapons. And then from there we work through the weapons. And then we do a lot of sword work and then from the sword drawing and everything we work with a longer sword so Katana that Nagamaki and then which has a very long handle it's like a katana with a very long handle. And then from there we will work with the bow. And because we started weapons on and around the horse, and then we and then we the last one we do is the weapons that you throw away. So, the bow and arrow, the bow gets, you know, you want the horse to understand the weapons, we throw the weapons away last. So, we throw blades, we do all of them. But you have to be able to do all of that on the ground. First you need to be able to work with a sword. So basic ninjutsu is quite necessary. Basic everything is very necessary.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, martial artists. What's next? What's next? There's a lot and you know, we certainly talked about how we didn't talk about everything. So that there's a lot of substance there. I don't get the sense that you are seeking a quiet, hidden life. If you probably wouldn't come on the show.
Nikki Wulfe:
Well, it's been a quiet hidden life for a very, very long time. And Japan needs the US and Japan needs things like this to be out there alive, awake, you know, ninjas are real. So real. Course martial arts is not just mounted archery, it's real. It's bigger than that. And, you know, if you don't tell people about a story, then they don't know. So, I have undertaken to do that. Now, I will make it known. So, I've got to talk about it, I've got to talk about it. There's going to be a big move to get all my stuff onto YouTube because people keep asking me, how do we do this? And how do we stop that? And I'm like, you know what I need to do? I need to do a YouTube channel. So that's in the pipeline. Because you know, there's nothing like seeing something in order to be able to practice it. And so I can be here in South Africa, and I can put it on YouTube, and people can get the start that they are looking for. So have horses, not a lot more slots. And yeah, maybe COVID eventually just goes the hell away. And Japan can open up and everything can open up. And yeah, we've got a couple of things planned. And there are a lot of people in Europe, Germany who are really very interested in having me there. And definitely the states, you know, so I'm definitely going to come and visit so probably takes us because that's I mean, I think you got as many martial arts Dojos as you can in Texas from what I've been speaking to, as you...
Jeremy Lesniak:
There are quite a few in Texas. Texas found martial arts in an early home in Texas.
Nikki Wulfe:
Yeah, I couldn't believe it. So, you know, the gun culture there, the martial arts culture, the host culture there, I definitely got to go and take a peek. And there's a whole bunch of good people there that have said, you know, if you want to come this way, just say if you want to come this way we were going to, we're going to host you for a bit and I'm like, hey, I'm getting if someone's got a horse. And the wonderful thing about horse martial arts is it's a big sky dojo, and I don't need anything indoors. But you know, I need an open space to start. And I think so. I definitely will come and visit us. I definitely will visit Europe, there's just too many people asking me to migrate in that direction. And you can only get so much out of YouTube and Instagram videos and Facebook videos. So yeah, for sure. It's such a wonderful thing and it shouldn't be lost.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree. I agree. I applaud what you're doing. Please continue when that YouTube channel is live, make sure you let us know. We'll put out a post and we'll update the show notes because it sounds like this show will come out before it is ready to go. You know? Yeah, well, anytime anyone is chronically in something that is at threat of being lost. I want to make sure we do what we can.
Nikki Wulfe:
Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think the Musashi clan also appreciate that because, again, you know, a wonderful group of real, you know, real people, real ninja and Shinobi samurai that are still around today, and they can trace their history way back. It's just insane. I think that I will also send you the link. If you know the people who are listening want to know more about that. They've got a Wikipedia link that has been established properly now. So, I'll send you there. And my Instagram links.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anything that you want in the show notes, send it over, we'll make sure it gets published.
Nikki Wulfe:
So yeah, okay, so the website is www.musashi.ninja. And so, they've had to really, and the information for the Wikipedia is under order of Musashi, Shinobi, Samurai, they've had to really get onto the Internet in the sloth, the COVID has done this to them, they've had to, like come out of their shell, and get onto the Internet. Because nobody knows about them. There's enough about them, you know, you want to go and tour and do a ninja to a samurai tour in Japan. Yeah, you can, you can go do that, you'll find that if you're looking for it. But the bigger part of who they are is just incredible. And if they didn't do this, and they wouldn't, nobody would know, just raise their head. Nobody would do this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, this has been quite the ride. And I appreciate your time and these wonderful stories that you've told. So now, it's time to start to wind down. And really the last part that I ask of you, what do you want to say? What final words for the audience today?
Nikki Wulfe:
Well, I do have a message for the martial arts in general out there. I live in South Africa. So a very, very violent country. And in fact, I think we made the red capital of the war two years in a row. So as for female self-defense, it is based on very practical aspects. I've had very real attempts on my life. And I've also learned what works, and what works, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you to get on and get trained. Self Defense should not stop in the dojos, self-defense is a much bigger thing. It's a defense of the self. So, I do a lot of self-defense training for women in my country. I think South Africa has five cities in the top 20 most dangerous cities in the world. And we have a murder rate of 64 day. So, when I speak about self-defense, it's very real, very realistic. You know, your life has gone in an instant. And it's very real. And it always bothers me just a little when martial artists teach self-defense. And they teach techniques, which really should be looked at, pardoned, strong, whether they actually stand up to a real attack, that sort of a thing of mine, that is, as a woman living in this kind of country. That's a big thing to me is that this word self-defense or defense of the self should be, should be for women.
There's a lot of men teaching women's self-defense, and there're women teaching women's self-defense. And if you look at it, you've got to ask yourself, does that stand up to a real attack? Because someone with a machete is never by himself, there's always more and all those fancy techniques about all dock dock-less ways and I'll block like that and then I'll grab the machete someone's hit you about five times. At that point. Someone stabbed you about 16 times at that point, then all these knives disarm do not work. And yeah, people please go and relook at things that you think work. That's a big message to women out there who are vulnerable women who are taking self-defense classes or doing some kind of martial arts, they need to be trained properly. So, if you're an excellent karate teacher, teach good karate, don't delve into you know teaching about gun disarms. We have no business teaching gun designs that the gun guys do that tell the woman to go find somebody to teach you proper range work. That's the thing. Make sure that martial arts are where martial arts should be. And weapons should be because for instance, you know, this, like I said before, ready it is there's a lot of that, where you look at the martial arts and you go, wow, that's not very applicable. No one telegraph's a knife attack. It comes fast, hard and horrible, like somebody on crack. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I told you in the intro that this was a unique and exciting episode. And well, I think we delivered. I had a great time. There were points during this conversation where I kind of had to wake back up. Because I was so immersed in listening, that I forgot that I had to host the show. So, say thanks for coming on. I do appreciate your time. I appreciate the amazing stories you told. And I think we're going to have you back to go a little deeper on some of these things. Because, man, you want the links that we talked about, you want to see some photos, you want to go deeper, check out other stuff, sign up for the newsletter, well, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. That's where you're going to get all that stuff.
And if you're down to support us and all of our work, remember, you got quite a few choices. You could buy one of our Amazon books, tell people about the show, maybe this episode in particular, or consider supporting our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. And if you're looking for an amazing martial artists’ design research backed flexibility program. Well guess what? I wrote one. I had some help. It's awesome. You can find it at whistlekick.com or whistlekickprograms.com, and it's free. Yep, completely free. So, check that out. If you want to buy something else, whistlekick.com. Don't forget the code PODCAST15. If you've got topic suggestions, guest suggestions or feedback, I want to hear it. Jeremy@whistlekick.com Our social media is @whistlekick as you might expect. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.