<P><B>The memoir of a puny boy in a rural town who grew up to become a Ninja Grand Master</B></P><P>By turns thrilling, funny, and spiritually enlightening, this story is a real-life <I>Kick-Ass</I>. Martin Faulks grew up in a Norfolk village, England. Returning from the rec center with a friend one day, they were attacked by a gang of older boys. Martin ran away leaving his friend to be beaten up, but he vowed that would never happen again. He trained in the martial arts, and in his teens he began to hear intriguing rumors of two local ninjas said to have been in the special forces and to have trained in Japan. They proved highly elusive, but one day Martin was watching a stage magician in a club, and realized that the man on the stage was one of the guys he had been looking for. So began a series of initiations that would take him eventually to being trained by the Dalai Lama's bodyguard and living with the Yamabushi, the most secretive of the ninja sects, located in the mountains of Japan.