Throwing Star Capitalism
The 1980's were a time of many marvels; shoulder-pads that could double as helipads, "business in the front, party in the back" Mullet hairstyles, and the (still-today) unequaled consumer coolness of the Sony Walkman. Forgotten by some (but exploited by me in my teens) the 80's also re-birthed the Ninja!
To be sure, there were certainly a lot of really crappy Ninja movies (try watching "American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt" for ultimate b-movie Ninja nonsense) but the genre eventually parodied itself by spawning The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - go figure!
The Ninja craze in New Zealand likely caused a quadrupling of martial art training academies and almost over night Kiwi boys were dropping their plastic guns and picking up swords, throwing shuriken, and generally beating the shit out of each other using movie-inspired roundhouse kicks.
I must admit I got absorbed by some of the craze. I had started doing Judo before the Ninja stuff kicked off, but when it hit NZ I doubled down on practicing and my coolness stakes with friends went up. [To be clear though, regardless of how far my coolness stakes went up, I was still very much "uncool"!]
A sidepoint of note. I hated Judo practice. Seriously hated it. I've been taller than average for all my life and even at age 8 (when I started Judo) I was larger than the average 10 year-old. In Judo terms that translated into two things - on a positive, I could throw and pound down any of the other kids my age in the class - so getting belts early-on was probably easier than it should have been. Brute force often triumphed over lack of technical precision. On the negative, whenever the instructor/Sensei wanted to teach a new throw or disarming technique, you could pretty much guarantee that I'd be called out and used as the crash-test dummy for the class. Some may say that that helped build up my ability to take a punch or two without losing my temper.
Apart from the Ninja craze reinvigorating my less-than-devout mastering of Judo, it also opened the door to some basic capitalistic opportunities.
By the mid-80's I was in secondary school. My school was about 20 minute cycle from home (it was downhill in the morning) and my best uphill return typically had me taking 33 breathless minutes. Anyhow, depending upon the weather and how lazy I was feeling after school, an alternative was to pass by the parents factory in Mangere.
My laziness, the metal improvements factory in Mangere, the Ninja craze, and my capitalistic instincts intersected for a time.
The factory had the full range of heavy industrial metal working tools - 1000 ton hydraulic presses, spot welders, die cutting presses, you name it. Outside the factory were big bins of metal castoffs and scrap. The combination of which resulted in my digging out small squares of high-temperate tool steel scrap and turning them into throwing stars.
If there were just one thing that folks would identify as "a chip off the old block" when it comes to comparisons between my father and I, it will be that if you're going to build something you do it with artisanship precision and over-engineer the f*ck out of it. Nothing petite and cute; pure-form industrial grade utility instead. "Last a lifetime" (TM).
The throwing stars I produced weren't like those light-weight chrome-plated toys you could practice throwing at a dartboard and hoped they'd stick-in on most throws. Oh no. My shurikens were the real (over engineered) deal. They were made of the highest grade heavy-gauge sheet steel I could get my hands on (from the scrap bin), precision cut from the dies I assembled, stress relieved, heat treated in a full carborizing process, and sharpened to a point that they'd stick a half-inch into concrete if you dropped one (or through the top of a leather school shoe if you were unlucky).
Production peaked at an average of three per factory visit and I'd sell them at school - down by the tennis courts, half hidden by the horticultural unit and out of sight of the teachers. If you were a friend, it was $5 - otherwise $10 each. The horticultural unit also had the advantage of having a 6-foot high wooden fence - so it made a good practice target as I gave lessons in how to throw the shurikens.
I must have produced 20-30 throwing stars before moving on to more sophisticated throwing knives and later on to swords and axes. I only ever sold the shurikens at school though - and stopped after things started to get a little hot at school; i.e. a notice by the headmaster to all parents about it being illegal to bring such weapons to school and that the police may be called in to check bags for weapons. No names were mentioned (thankfully!).
The Ninja craze in New Zealand likely caused a quadrupling of martial art training academies and almost over night Kiwi boys were dropping their plastic guns and picking up swords, throwing shuriken, and generally beating the shit out of each other using movie-inspired roundhouse kicks.
I must admit I got absorbed by some of the craze. I had started doing Judo before the Ninja stuff kicked off, but when it hit NZ I doubled down on practicing and my coolness stakes with friends went up. [To be clear though, regardless of how far my coolness stakes went up, I was still very much "uncool"!]
A sidepoint of note. I hated Judo practice. Seriously hated it. I've been taller than average for all my life and even at age 8 (when I started Judo) I was larger than the average 10 year-old. In Judo terms that translated into two things - on a positive, I could throw and pound down any of the other kids my age in the class - so getting belts early-on was probably easier than it should have been. Brute force often triumphed over lack of technical precision. On the negative, whenever the instructor/Sensei wanted to teach a new throw or disarming technique, you could pretty much guarantee that I'd be called out and used as the crash-test dummy for the class. Some may say that that helped build up my ability to take a punch or two without losing my temper.
Apart from the Ninja craze reinvigorating my less-than-devout mastering of Judo, it also opened the door to some basic capitalistic opportunities.
By the mid-80's I was in secondary school. My school was about 20 minute cycle from home (it was downhill in the morning) and my best uphill return typically had me taking 33 breathless minutes. Anyhow, depending upon the weather and how lazy I was feeling after school, an alternative was to pass by the parents factory in Mangere.
My laziness, the metal improvements factory in Mangere, the Ninja craze, and my capitalistic instincts intersected for a time.
The factory had the full range of heavy industrial metal working tools - 1000 ton hydraulic presses, spot welders, die cutting presses, you name it. Outside the factory were big bins of metal castoffs and scrap. The combination of which resulted in my digging out small squares of high-temperate tool steel scrap and turning them into throwing stars.
If there were just one thing that folks would identify as "a chip off the old block" when it comes to comparisons between my father and I, it will be that if you're going to build something you do it with artisanship precision and over-engineer the f*ck out of it. Nothing petite and cute; pure-form industrial grade utility instead. "Last a lifetime" (TM).
Production peaked at an average of three per factory visit and I'd sell them at school - down by the tennis courts, half hidden by the horticultural unit and out of sight of the teachers. If you were a friend, it was $5 - otherwise $10 each. The horticultural unit also had the advantage of having a 6-foot high wooden fence - so it made a good practice target as I gave lessons in how to throw the shurikens.
I must have produced 20-30 throwing stars before moving on to more sophisticated throwing knives and later on to swords and axes. I only ever sold the shurikens at school though - and stopped after things started to get a little hot at school; i.e. a notice by the headmaster to all parents about it being illegal to bring such weapons to school and that the police may be called in to check bags for weapons. No names were mentioned (thankfully!).
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