copyright
© 2013 Douglas Tong, all rights reserved.
Disclaimer:
I feel
I must put this little note in before I begin. And that is to state
that the following article (and any articles I write in fact) in no
way represents any official stance by anyone or any organization. As
a writer, I like to speculate on events or issues, to bring them up
for the audience to chew on and ponder. These types of articles
should be thought of as purely that: speculation and conjecture, for
fun and frolic and in some cases to force the reader to do some
mental gymnastics. As a writer, sometimes I want to challenge the
prevailing view, sometimes to reinforce it, sometimes to shock the
reader, sometimes to entertain. So, I just wanted to clarify my
outlook and approach when I have my writer’s hat on.
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All things become
obsolete. One of my students cannot watch any movie from the 80’s.
They are too obsolete. The special effects are too rudimentary. The
technology displayed is too primitive. It’s like the Stone Age
compared to what is displayed now, 30 some-odd years later. From a
certain perspective, I must agree. Movies from the 80’s really
look dated now. But it’s funny, we both grew up during that
time. I can still appreciate the creative genius in some of the great
movies from that time, like the John Hughes movies (The Breakfast
Club, Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles) and the Spielberg movies (the Back
to the Future series, E.T., the Indiana Jones series), to name some
famous ones. When I was growing up, the technology in those movies
was cutting edge. Now, it is an anachronism. Time marches forward and
technology evolves and keeps on evolving.
Remember the old Mac
II? Now it’s The New iPad. Big, old desktop models are now in
museums. Tablets are the in-thing.
Whilst I was practicing
kenjutsu one day, this same thought popped into my head. At our dojo,
we practice both Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and Katori Shinto Ryu. As is
common knowledge, Yagyu Shinkage Ryu traces its roots back to Katori
Shinto Ryu. Katori Shinto Ryu is the ancestor, the parent art, from
which Yagyu Shinkage Ryu evolved. Why is this important? Well, let’s
explore it.
Everything comes
from something before it.
Modern Homo sapiens
evolved from Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, the species that
mastered the control of fire and the creation of advanced cutting
tools. Homo erectus and Homo ergaster both evolved from Homo habilis
(the species that first left Africa and spread to Europe and Asia,
and the species in which we first see evidence of the use of stone
tools). Homo habilis had itself evolved from Australopithecus, the
species that achieved full bipedalism and loss of body hair.
* see:
Human
evolution
Every generation
builds upon the achievements of the previous generation.
First, we moved on all
fours. Then we evolved to bipedalism, or walking on two feet. Our
ancestors climbed trees. But with a more terrestrial lifestyle, this
prompted an adaptation in the form of reduced digit length. In Homo
habilis, we see the evolution of the fully opposable thumb and with
this giant leap forward came the advanced grasping-capable hand and
the precision grip.* With the precision grip, that is when we find
the early development of stone tools.
* see:
Precision
Grip
Each new iteration
improves upon the advances of the previous iteration.
With the grip, the
upright walking thus freeing the hands, and a larger brain (greater
encephalization), early hominids would learn to find and use tools.
First, we used simple tools* such as a sharp rock, bone, or a stick.
* see:
Human
evolution: Use of tools
Sharp rock cuts. Let’s
sharpen the rock to a fine edge. This equals rudimentary knife.
Sharpened stick equals javelin or rudimentary spear. Sharp rock plus
stick. Sharp rock tied onto end of stick equals better spear. Well,
you can imagine where this discussion is headed.
Homo erectus was a
“tool-equipped savannah dweller”. Then they eventually
learned how to smelt ore. That signalled the end of the Stone Age and
the beginning of the Bronze Age. With the technological discovery of
bronze, all sorts of weapons became invented. Starting from the basic
dagger gradually evolved longer daggers which became the sword.*
* see:
Bronze Age
sword
After the Bronze Age
came the Iron Age. I am not here to lecture on the history of
technology but you get the picture. In human evolution, the trend is
that later generations improve upon the technological gains of the
former generations. Each new iteration improves upon the advances of
the previous iteration. In mathematical parlance, they call it
successive approximations. Technically speaking, it is
a problem-solving model or process that sees the ultimate achievement
of the problem as the result of a series of successions of
approximations, each building upon the one preceding it.
Let’s put it into
the context of what I’m getting at. To create a better bladed
weapon, you approach it through a series of successive
approximations. Sharp stone becomes stone or flint arrow head. This
becomes longer to become a flint dagger. Once we can smelt ore, the
flint dagger becomes a bronze dagger. Once we learn we can shape the
bronze into any configuration we desire, we can make it longer, more
pointy, sharper. Hence, the development of the sword.
Each new iteration
improves upon the advances of the previous iteration.
To create a better
swordfighting style, you approach it through a series of successive
approximations. Let’s look at a common example. In old times,
they believed that you needed a lot of kamae*. Kamae are like a
castle. You can’t get me in my castle. You’d have to
break through my walls or break down my walls to get me. I am
immovable. I am unassailable. I am strong. I can hold you off.
*
defensive postures like gedan, sha/wakigamae, jodan, chudan or
seigan, in/yo or hasso, etc…
Placing
a great deal of importance on the attitudes of the long sword is a
mistaken way of thinking… The reason is that this has been a
precedent since ancient times…
Attitudes
are for situations in which you are not to be moved. That is, for
garrisoning castles, battle array, and so on, showing the spirit of
not being moved even by a strong assault. In the Way of duelling,
however, you must always be intent upon taking the lead and
attacking. Attitude is the spirit of awaiting an attack. You must
appreciate this.
Miyamoto
Musashi
The
Wind Book, A Book of Five Rings
Here, substitute
“attitude” with “kamae”. Musashi is right.
Kamae are for awaiting an attack, for showing strength, and for
forcing the opponent to attack to a certain side or towards a certain
opening. Musashi is also correct in observing that this type of
thinking was a vestige of the ancient ways of thinking about
swordsmanship. But the thinking changed and evolved toward the mid-
to late 1500’s.
Whereas previous styles
had 10-15 kamae in their repertoire (e.g., Katori Shinto Ryu), newer
styles eschewed these. Musashi boiled his style down to five
attitudes only (upper, middle, lower, left, and right). Other styles
like Yagyu Shinkage Ryu dispensed with kamae altogether, regarding
them more or less as archaic and obsolete from a tactical
perspective.
Where older styles
would wait for your attack from a certain kamae, parry it, and then
respond to your attack, newer styles which cropped up at around the
beginning of the Edo Period shifted their thinking. Instead of a
reactive approach (waiting for an attack, parrying it, and then
responding to it), the newer styles favoured taking the initiative
and taking the fight to the enemy, a much more aggressive and
proactive approach. Waiting for an attack, and successfully parrying
it is fine… if you guess right. If you guess wrong or the
opponent does something contrary to what you expected, you are dead.
A dicey situation to be sure. In many ways, you don’t control
your own destiny very much.
Musashi alerted us to
the danger inherent in too reactive an approach:
The
sure Way to win thus is to chase the enemy around in a confusing
manner, causing him to jump aside, with your body held strongly and
straight… By their study of
strategy, people of the world get used to countering, evading, and
retreating as the normal thing. They
become set in this habit, so can easily be paraded around by the
enemy. The Way of strategy is straight and true. You must chase the
enemy around and make him obey your spirit.
Miyamoto
Musashi
The
Wind Book, A Book of Five Rings
If you think of it in
kendo terms, it is similarly difficult to await an attack and to be
able to parry it successfully. There are just too many possible
things the opponent can choose to do.
The
subject of the previous chapter – the universal desire for
relative numerical superiority – leads to another desire, which
is consequently no less universal: that to take the enemy by
surprise… Surprise therefore becomes the means to gain
superiority, but because of its psychological effect it should also
be considered as an independent element… The
two factors that produce surprise are secrecy and speed.
Carl
von Clausewitz
On War
Book 3,
Chapter 9
What is Clausewitz
talking about? He is saying that it is the advantage of the attacker
in that he controls those two crucial elements: secrecy (e.g., you
don’t know what he is going to do) and speed of the attack
(i.e., I think of it more in terms of the timing; the attacker
controls when the attack will come so the defender is never sure when
it will come). That makes it very difficult from the tactical
perspective of the defender to predict what the attacker will do:
when is the attack coming and how is it coming? Styles that base
their tactics on reactive response
theoretically will have a
hard time dealing with any attack of a high-calibre.
So, I believe that
later styles changed their approach (and this is only my personal
opinion and conjecture). In this example from Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, we
see the shift in thinking from reactive to proactive:
Whatever
else may be said, the point of swordsmanship is to win – by
trying various moves and by constantly
changing...
Yagyu
Munenori
Heiho
Kaden Sho
So, in other words, not
waiting for an attack. Instead, let’s initiate the action, even
if it is only mental. Munenori also talks about “constantly
changing”. In other words, he means no fixed stance. The Gulf
War (Operation Desert Storm) taught us this. Fixed emplacements are a
thing of the past. The same is true of fixed formations, like in the
Napoleonic times. They are easy to target and easy to take out. A
mobile force is much more difficult to track and pin down and stop.
Lessons from the engagement of the US and British armor in the Gulf
War showed how devastating superior mobility (faster acceleration,
faster top speed, superior maneuverability) can be. It is the modern
equivalent of mounted cavalry. Excellent generals like Alexander,
Caesar, Napoleon, and Genghis Khan realized the importance of
mobility.
Fixed stances (i.e.,
kamae), once the battlefield fighting was largely over, became
obsolete in the new reality of one-on-one or one-on-a few duels and
fights in the urban scenario (in a teahouse, in an alleyway, at an
intersection in the town, etc…). There is no more armour,
there are no big open spaces, no more big, heavy weapons. Mobility
and fluidity now become paramount.
The opening kamae in
the majority of the kata in Ono-ha Itto Ryu typically are gedan or
chudan. In Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, there is mu-gamae (the stance of no
stance, I guess you could call it). However, the uchi-dachi
predominantly adopts chudan or seigan (akin to hira-seigan in Ono-ha
Itto Ryu or kendo) as opening positions. The Edo Period styles have
pared down the kamae to a few basic or generic ones.
Each new iteration
improves upon the advances of the previous iteration.
Let’s take
another example: cutting. In older styles, we see the prevalence of a
multitude of cuts. Some famous examples include a maki-uchi, yokomen,
do giri, ogasumi, sune giri, kesa giri, gyaku kesa giri, and the list
goes on and on. 10, 15 different types of cuts. And of course, some
designed to cut at openings in armour. But once armour became
obsolete, so go the diversity of cuts. Why do you need 15 different
cuts now? You don’t. In the Edo styles (Ono-ha Itto Ryu, Yagyu
Shinkage Ryu among others), you see a paring down of the multiplicity
of cuts to one cut or a few cuts. One cut, one slash, if it connects,
is going to do some serious damage. It doesn’t matter where.
I think
it is held in other schools that there are many methods of using the
long sword in order to gain the admiration of beginners. This is
selling the Way. It is a vile spirit in strategy.
Anyway,
cutting down the enemy is the way of strategy, and there is no need
for many refinements of it.
Miyamoto
Musashi
The
Wind Book, A Book of Five Rings
The multiplicity theory
is dead. One cut is all you need. Ono-ha Itto Ryu? Kiri-otoshi. One
cut. Yagyu Shinkage Ryu? Hakka hissho. One cut. One cut to rule them
all…
Alongside the
multiplicity of cuts viewpoint is the multiplicity of targets aimed
for. My contention is that the paring down of the multiplicity of
cuts also reduced the number of targets aimed for. Where you needed a
multiplicity of cuts was in the context of armoured encounters where
you could not count on one cut dispatching the opponent. You might
have to take him apart piece by piece. Because of the helmet and
shoulder boards and breastplate, your chances of landing a decisive
blow in one stroke diminish rapidly. Add to that the possibility
that, on the battlefield, your sword could be dull or damaged or in
some way unable to cut due to constant banging and clashing of blades
with other opponents as you try to fend off or advance through the
hordes of the enemy rank and file. Hence, a multiplicity of cuts may
be necessary. Different strokes for different occasions.
But my contention is
that in the Edo times, with peace and the gradual reduction of
battlefield encounters, a shift happened in the thinking about
targets as well. In street brawls and urban fights, with no armour,
you only need one cut. Consequently, you also don’t need a lot
of different targets. Hit the hand or hit the head. That will end the
fight quickly enough. With only one or at most two targets, you only
need one type of cut. In this case, it really is a stroke for all
seasons.
In Yagyu Shinkage Ryu,
it is either the head or the fist. In Ono-ha Itto Ryu, it is the
same: head (men) or wrist (kote) predominantly.
Every generation
builds upon the achievements of the previous generation AND in so
doing, renders the previous generation obsolete.
The styles of the
Sengoku Period (the Warring States Period) employed big, wide
stances, deep stances, frequent use of han-mi (body held sideways),
big movements from side-to-side. For example, in cutting yokomen
(side of head) or do-giri (side of waist), they would employ a big
wind-up and move the body from one side to the other. Big, physical
actions: jumping in, jumping out, crouching, moving to one side,
moving to the other side, twisting, twirling, springing up, lunging
in, etc… They can come at you from the sides, they can come at
you from below, from all angles and trajectories. Very athletic, the
agility required being very physically taxing.
Methods
apart from these five – hand twisting, body bending, jumping
out, and so on, to cut the enemy – are not in the true Way of
strategy. In order to cut the enemy you must not make twisting or
bending cuts. This is completely useless. In my strategy, I bear my
spirit and my body straight, and cause the enemy to twist and bend.
Miyamoto
Musashi
The
Wind Book, A Book of Five Rings
Edo Period styles were
much more compact, movements kept to a minimum. Any turns were
rotations on a pivot but the emphasis was on staying centred,
controlling the center. Actions were more energy efficient,
conservative. Movement direction was much more linear, forward and
back. Stances more upright, more frontal. Big and flamboyant moves
wasted a lot of energy and were too obvious, too easy to defeat. They
were also impractical in an alleyway, on a flight of stairs, in a
hallway, in an enclosed room, anywhere in fact where you have walls
and nowhere to run to. The battlefield now was in the towns and
cities, in the intersections and in the various establishments in a
town, in the backstreets, in someone’s front yard or rock
garden, or on a bridge. The shift occurred to a more centred
approach, less grandiose movements. This excerpt from Musashi
illustrates well the unique conditions of fighting in urban
scenarios:
In
buildings, you must stand with the entrance behind you or to your
right. Make sure your rear is unobstructed, and that there is free
space on your left…
When
the fight comes, always endeavour to chase the enemy around to your
left side. Chase him towards awkward places, and try to keep him with
his back to awkward places. When the enemy gets into an inconvenient
position, do not let him look around, but conscientiously chase him
around and pin him down. In houses, chase the enemy into thresholds,
lintels, doors, verandas, pillars, and so on, again not letting him
see his situation.
What’s the
significance of this?
Conditions change,
circumstances change, and evolve, which make previous understandings
obsolete.
An interesting thought.
Let’s look at a common example, the situation where you have a
series of blocks or parries, for instance. In some of the kata of
some old styles, you will see 2 or 3 blocks in quick succession.
Block waist, block head, block waist. Or block head, block wrist,
block waist. Will it happen? Maybe, but here we must think of the
circumstances carefully.
Conditions change,
circumstances change…
If we are wearing
armour, this slows you down. If you’ve ever worn armour, it is
heavy and awkward and your movements are severely restricted. The
increased protection comes with a price: reduced mobility and
agility. It’s a trade-off. You want more mobility? Take off the
armour. So, if we are both wearing armour, with our speed reduced,
the opponent’s cuts will come a bit slower. In this
circumstance, three blocks in quick succession may be possible.
Without armour, it’s too fast in real-time.
Take another example.
In some old styles, we see the lifting of the opponent’s sword
out of the way to open up a line of attack. Physically lifting the
enemy’s sword up and pushing it off to the side or lifting it
up so that when the opponent brings it back down into chudan, he will
expose his wrist. Without the issue of armour, it doesn’t make
much sense.
So, there you have just
two examples of some of the techniques and ideas of some of the older
styles that I believe became prehistoric once the circumstances and
conditions of their creation became a thing of the past.
So what is my point
with all this discussion?
There are people who
study only one style and become immersed in it, naturally. And of
course, those devotees will come to see swordsmanship only through
that one lens. If you are hinging your success in a swordfight on the
lessons learned through only one lens, this is a dangerous and
precarious assumption.
It is
difficult to know yourself if you do not know others.
Miyamoto
Musashi
As I said at the start
of this article, at our dojo, we practice both Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and
Katori Shinto Ryu. Yagyu Shinkage Ryu traces its roots back to Katori
Shinto Ryu. Katori Shinto Ryu is the ancestor, the parent art. Why is
this important?
To know the child, it
is beneficial to know the parent. My teacher, Kajitsuka Sensei,
remarked to me that we are in a unique position in that we know the
parent. We will understand the child in a wholly different way than
someone who knows only the child but has never known the parent.
Likewise, in kendo,
those kendo practitioners who also study Ono-ha Itto Ryu will likely
have an appreciation and understanding of kendo far superior and more
encompassing than the regular kendo practitioner. The serious ones do
the research; the ones who want a deeper understanding of their art.
At Sasamori Sensei’s dojo in Japan (Ono-ha Itto Ryu), I saw
many kendo teachers there.
As a school teacher,
each year, I meet the parents of the children I teach at
parent-teacher interviews. Where I only knew the child before, once I
meet the parents … ah ha, now I understand the child. And
surprisingly enough, conversely, from knowing the child, from knowing
his strengths and weaknesses and quirks and foibles, now I know
something about the parents too.
Confucius say: To know
the child, you need to know the parent. To know more about the
parent, know about the child. Knowing all this, you will see the
evolution of the species.
And why things are the
way they are…
Mr. Tong has a Master’s in Education in Curriculum Studies.
