"Awareness is the most important Physical skill and Spiritual skill"
Two ancient traditions, evolving on continents a world apart, that independently teach how physical awareness skills and non-physical awareness skills are needed for us to become our complete self. A place of heightened awareness where physical reality and non-physical reality are merged to create a greater, more complete state of awareness, near and far.
Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, headmaster of Japan's Bujinkan Dojo, and Tom Brown Jr., founder of the Tracker School, spent their lives teaching the same underlying truth: that awareness — physical, situational, and instinctual — is the foundation beneath every other skill. Neither tradition treats the unseen world as a symbol or metaphor. Both treat it as something a practitioner can learn to perceive, navigate, and act from.
"We stand at the end of a long chain of transmission. Our intent is to build a bridge, so that those who feel the pull of this way of being may find the door a little easier to open."
Drawing on Randy Walker Jr.'s and Rien de Rooij's shared three decades under Tom Brown Jr. at the Tracker School, alongside Rien's parallel four decades inside the Bujinkan under Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, this book lays the two traditions side by side for the first time — not as academic research, but as a working manual built from lived practice.
This book is dedicated to Tom Brown Jr. and Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi — two teachers who taught when teaching was difficult, and never stopped.
Different terrain. The same discipline.
The Ninja's situational awareness
- Banpen Fugyo — the immovable heart, unmoved by ten thousand changes
- The 5th Dan test — sensing and reacting to a strike from behind, the moment the strike is initiated
- Nine schools, transmitted from Takamatsu Toshitsugu to Hatsumi Masaaki, form the core of the Bujinkan organisation and consist of three ninja traditions and six samurai traditions
- Hatsumi emphasized natural movement, real-world adaptability, intuitive response, and spiritual discipline over the rigid execution of physical techniques.
The Eye of the Scout
- Tracking & Awareness - Always asking the Sacred Question: What happened here? What does this mean?
- Sensing presence — Non Physical senses of expanded awareness reveal identity and enhance two way communication.
- Grandfather transmitted to Tom the ways of the Scout as Protector, Visionary, Master of the physical and non physical skills of survival and as a Healer of the Earth, and of his people.
- During 48 years of teaching, all of the classes Tom offered focused on the many physical and spiritual skills one needs to become a 'complete scout'.
— both converge on a single, trainable sixth sense —
A map, read in order.
The book is built as a journey, not a syllabus — each waypoint building the ground for the next.
Why Ancient Skills Still Matter
The connection between Lipan Apache Scouts and Japanese Ninja, and why this book exists.
Two Traditions, One Goal
The Apache Scout's survival, spirit, and service. The Ninja's discipline and adaptability. One shared foundation: awareness.
The Way of the Warrior
What it means to be a warrior today — the Scout Prayer, the precepts of the ninja, and inner strength.
Foundations of Nature-Based Awareness
Dirt Time, daily sits, prayer, the 5th Dan test, the Prayer of Warning and the Critical Edge — the core exercises of both traditions.
Flow and Movement
Reading water, wide-angle vision, and the walking methods of stealth and balance.
The Caretaker, Healer, and Protector
Living with purpose beyond self — healing, service, and the role of protector in community and nature.
The Elements of Survival
Food, water, fire, and wind as teachers — and the lessons of the seasons.
Skills of the Scout and Ninja
Escape, evasion, invisibility, and the games that sharpen the senses.
The Spiritual Dimension
Vision quests, sacred questions, and the eternal now.
Power of Place
Sacred places, wilderness encounters, and the Earth as teacher and healer.
Afterword
Applying ancient wisdom to modern challenges — and living as a light: humble, aware, connected.
A history in photographs.
Correspondence, training, and ceremony — documenting both authors' decades inside these traditions, from a 1989 dojo photograph to the present day.
1989
Correspondence with Hatsumi.
One of many letters from Hatsumi to Rien, dated April 1989, explaining some of the concepts of ninjutsu that are featured in the book. The letter was signed with the martial name Tetsuzan that he used at the time — the same name that appears on the envelope, listed as sender alongside Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi. Read more about Hatsumi and the teacher who trained him, Takamatsu.
"The blue-eyed ninja."
Japanese newspaper features from 1990 on Rien's research and training in Japan — studying by day at the National Museum of Japanese History and training in ninjutsu by night, on a government research scholarship.
2015
2017
2018
Randy at the Tracker School.
The same living lineage, documented from the other side of the book. Read more about Tom Brown Jr. and Stalking Wolf.
2014 · In the Pine Barrens
2019
2020
2022 · Lecture Area
2022 · Grandfather's Camp
Sensing Presence
The energetic boundary every scout and every ninja learns to feel — and the one doorway both traditions approach from opposite directions.
"The Sensing of Presence has two parts — Identity and Communication."
"Presence is in all the Spiritual Realms and Temples."
Grandfather's people, the Coyote clan of the Lipan Apache, used a non-physical training tool to teach a skill they called Sensing Presence. Sensing Presence is also a way to enter a place the lineage named the Sacred Silence. In the Sacred Silence, there is an equal balance and connection between our physical, Force, and Spirit selves.
Grandfather said that we should not try to figure out how this doorway works. He said that if we try to figure out the mechanics of how Sensing Presence works, we will temporarily lose the ability to enter it.
Grandfather taught that in order to reclaim our birthright, we must live our lives not only through our physical selves in a physical world, but also recognize the world of the Spirit that moves in and through all things, the Life Force, or simply the Force. The Force embraces the understanding that every aspect of nature is animate, each with its own unique energy signature, alive in its own way. To accept this is to embrace the reality that every entity in the natural world emanates an energy field, and that these fields can connect and communicate with one another, including with our own.
This allows us to discover new ways of interacting with the world around us.
Sensing the presence of a person, object, or entity of nature becomes possible through awareness of the energetic field that surrounds the body. Tom described this field as our Critical Edge: a sphere of energy that envelops us, rising above and extending below the physical body, reaching outward as far as our natural striking distance. This sphere is part of our non-physical and spiritual self, a doorway to reclaiming our birthright, our total self of flesh, Force, and spirit.
Living in our Critical Edge, beyond the boundaries of the physical body, also enhances our ability to connect and communicate with our spirit self, the part of us that reaches into the unseen and eternal, the Great Mystery. Living in connection with our spirit self is part of embracing our birthright.
For students who had never experienced these states before, Tom would tell them to imagine these worlds as being real until proven otherwise. With repeated successes in sensing presence, you eventually realize you are not imagining this energy field at all, it is a genuine part of you.
Through experience gained in the exercises we lay out below, through repeated successes in sensing presence and through the lessons learned from failures, a personal belief system begins to form. As your ability to sense your training partner's approach to your Critical Edge becomes more accurate, your confidence in your ability to sense their presence increases.
For the Apache Scout, this was not a philosophical exercise, it was an essential survival skill.
Scouts first learn to empower their connection to the Critical Edge through the practice of sensing presence. They learn to feel when something enters or touches this energetic boundary. Thinking and figuring are set aside. Reliance on the physical senses evolves into an equal balance with Force and Spirit communications.
A scout's instinct, the ability to sense presence through their connection with the Critical Edge, becomes a main driver of their expanded state of awareness. Scouts learn to expand and contract this sphere, even sending a part of it ahead or behind them in an amoeba-like manner.
As a scout's connection with their Critical Edge develops, it becomes the doorway to the Scout Spirit. The place of the Scout Spirit is taught only in the advanced scout classes. To earn the honor of receiving these teachings, a scout must demonstrate a deep and consistent commitment to living the Scout Prayer.
Shadow Walker's prayer can be broken into four parts. The first is a request to be taught the way of the scout. The second is a willingness to be tested through all "hardship and pain." Third is a declaration of devotion, turning one's life toward protecting their people, the Earth, and doing the will of the Great Mystery. Finally, if honored by the Creator's acceptance, the scout promises to live their life in the ways of the scout.
One aspect of the Scout Spirit can be described as a heightened awareness of the Critical Edge. Through a series of exercises, the scout becomes acutely sensitized to the full sphere of this energetic boundary. With focused intent, you learn to merge your ability to sense presence with your connection to the Critical Edge.
As this connection deepens, the sphere of the Critical Edge becomes empowered. It can extend outward like an amoeba, shifting, stretching, and flowing, or it can be projected as a separate sphere of awareness that can be sent out to explore and gather information from places beyond your physical line of sight.
This type of reconnaissance could be used to answer questions such as: Is there an enemy ahead? If so, where? How far? On which side of the path are they hidden? How many entities with negative intent toward me and mine are hidden there? What intent is the person ahead holding? The purpose, the mission your Scout Spirit reconnaissance serves, is limited only by your need or your imagination.
It is important to understand that one's Critical Edge is not merely a static sphere of energy floating around the body. This sphere of energetic awareness can be expanded if it is your will to do so. The 5th dan test and the scout's ability to sense presence are both essential elements on the path toward mastery. In the Bujinkan tradition, this expanded field of awareness is cultivated in a similar way: the practitioner learns to sense intention and movement before it becomes physical action. Both lineages point to the same doorway, approached from different directions.
"The accumulation of knowledge does not lead one to mastery, only experience will lead toward mastery."
"Those who desire only techniques will never understand this art. It is everything beyond that."
The First Lesson: The Basement
The first time Grandfather introduced sensing presence, he chose a simple setting, and from it came one of the most profound lessons Tom ever received.
It had been raining for several days, and Grandfather, Tom, and Rick were looking for something to do out of the weather. Rick was Grandfather's grandson through family association, and like Tom, was mentored by Grandfather throughout his youth. The two boys trained side by side, learning and integrating the primitive skills and philosophical teachings Grandfather shared with them.
They were fierce competitors, always pushing each other to grow, yet their rivalry never interfered with their friendship. If anything, it strengthened it. They became the best of friends, sharing countless adventures as they learned the ways of the scout and the deeper teachings of the lineage.
Ninja, Apache Scout, and the sixth sense.
What is the connection between ninjutsu and Apache scout tracking?
Both the Bujinkan ninjutsu tradition of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi and the Apache scout tracking lineage passed down through Stalking Wolf to Tom Brown Jr. teach a heightened state of awareness sometimes called a sixth sense. Hidden Traditions of the Apache Scout and Ninja is the first book to trace this shared discipline of perception across both traditions.
Who was Stalking Wolf and how does he relate to the Tracker School?
Stalking Wolf was an Apache elder and scout who mentored a young Tom Brown Jr., passing on tracking, survival, and awareness teachings rooted in Southern Lipan Apache scout tradition. Tom Brown Jr. later founded the Tracker School to carry these teachings forward.
What is the Bujinkan and who is Masaaki Hatsumi?
The Bujinkan is a martial arts organization founded by Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi in Noda, Japan, tracing its lineage through Takamatsu Toshitsugu. It teaches ninjutsu and related warrior traditions, including advanced training in awareness and perception.
What is Inner Vision, or the "sixth sense," in these traditions?
Inner Vision — sometimes called the sixth sense — is a form of awareness that both the Bujinkan and the Tracker School describe as arising when the five physical senses combine into a single unified perception. Both traditions teach it as a trainable skill, not an innate gift.
When is the book being released?
Hidden Traditions of the Apache Scout and Ninja is targeting a Fall 2027 release in print and ebook. Sign up below to be notified the moment there's news.
Manuscript status & comp titles.
Comparable titles: The Comfort Crisis (Michael Easter, Rodale/Harmony, 2021) — a New York Times bestseller and the strongest recency signal for a hungry mainstream market in "primal capacity is recoverable and trainable" nonfiction — alongside The Art of Learning (Josh Waitzkin, Free Press, 2007) and Left of Bang (Van Horne & Riley, Black Irish Entertainment, 2014), both actively-selling practical-wisdom nonfiction that make a similar crossover-appeal case. The Gift of Fear and Angry White Pyjamas round out the comp set on audience size and tone respectively.
Platform: both authors publish original, researched essays on the book's Notes page — on the history behind the manuscript's key figures and the practices at its core — building an audience ahead of publication.
Download the one-sheet (PDF)For queries, review copies, or press: reach Rien via LinkedIn or Randy via his Authors Guild profile.
Hidden Traditions of the Apache Scout & Ninja
Re‑Awaken Your Sixth Sense
Fall 2027
Targeting Fall 2027.
Publisher and exact release date are still ahead on the journey. Leave your email and we'll send word the moment there's news.
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