Happy Day of the Ninja: Show off your ninja skills!

Happy Day of the Ninja!

Though some of you probably already know of the ninja’s sworn enemy, “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” today the silent assassins get their due. In a sudden blaze of explosives, shuriken, and katana slashes. Hiiiiiiiya!

Indeed, the reason behind my affection for ninjas is simple: I’m secretly a ninja myself.

And I’ve got the skills to prove it.

Some intrepid readers may have noticed that I occasionally include this tidbit in my bio: “Laura leg-presses sumo wrestlers while drinking coffee and editing her literary magazine, Black Heart.” You may have assumed I was joking about that, but it’s actually 100% true.

Well, okay, I may have embellished on the bit about drinking coffee and editing at the same time. You tend to need your powers of concentration rather undivided for that.

You see, I regularly find myself accosted at the gym because of the extreme amount of weight I am pressing on the leg machine, and I started to wonder why everyone was so taken aback that a 5’2″ woman with a strong set of legs might be able to perform such a feat.

I tallied up the amount I was lifting that day. It was 410 pounds.

I then Googled the weight of the average Sumo wrestler. It’s 412 pounds.

Coincidence? Hardly. I’m a ninja; it’s what we do.

A naysayer – a guy who was clearly peeved that a woman was outdoing him physically – once suggested that since I used both legs to lift 410 pounds, I was “really” only lifting 205 pounds. Um, no, sir. Physics doesn’t work that way. However you lifted it, you lifted it. And the amount I lifted was 410 pounds, according to the measurements printed on the side of the weights. Why don’t you try lifting 410 pounds? Oh, right, because you can’t. As Arnold Schwarzenegger might say, “Are those your legs or are you riding a chicken?”

I will also do this dance, whilst wearing said shirt:

In any event, I thought I would share my ninja skills with you today to celebrate the ninja, those silent marauders, and to ask whether YOU have any ninja skills you’ve been hiding from the rest of us. Leave a comment about your best ninja skill (and how you show it off) to win a genuine miniature ninja!