The
Iaido Journal Mar 2006
Review: Japanese Sword Fighting Secrets of
the Samurai
Masaaki Hatsumi
Hardcover 240 pages
260 x 190mm 910g
ISBN : 4-7700-2198-4
Publish : Feb, 2006
Price : $35.00
review copyright © 2006 Dennis
Nikitenko, all rights
reserved
Before I start my review, let me state that I am not a Bujinkan student
and have had no prior exposure to Hatsumi’s teachings or writings. The
book, however, appears to be aimed at practitioners of the Japanese
sword in general, and it is from this general perspective that I
approach it. In order to make this review as objective as possible, I
have attempted to look at this book with two main questions in mind:
“What is its purpose and/or main thesis?” and “How well does it
accomplish this purpose?”
Unfortunately, the first question is never satisfactorily answered; in
the very last paragraph of the book the author mentions that his work
is supposed to help a budoka reach a certain “coming of age”, but this
is a little too vague, too little, and too late. Needless to say, this
lack of stated purpose makes it rather difficult to find a meaningful
answer to the second question.
I must admit to one bias from the get go. Any martial arts publication
with the words “secrets” anywhere in the title automatically sets off
alarm bells in my head. Looking at the inside of the dust jacket, I
found that after reading Mr. Hatsumi’s book, I would be privy to the “
Hidden Essence of the Martial Arts and the Spirit of the Samurai.” The
alarm bells grew louder.
The main thesis or purpose of the book is not established at the
beginning. It opens with a preface, which talks about “sword saints”
and “sword masters”. The sword masters listed were the names familiar
to us all, such as Iizasa Choisai, Ito Ittosai, Tsukahara Bokuden,
Miyamoto Musashi, and Koizumi Isenokami. Sword saints are those who
have “reached a position that transcended the sword masters.” This is
about as clear a distinction between the two as we get. “Sword saints”
are held in higher esteem, since they, unlike the “sword masters”,
were, to paraphrase Hatsumi, born in times of war and had experience in
real life and death combat. This premise is rather odd, considering
that all of the “sword masters” listed in the book were born during
Sengoku Jidai and several had died long before the Edo period.
Moreover, all of them participated in “life and death combat” either in
military or civilian settings (or both).
The book continues on in the same fashion, without attaining, or even
aiming at, any particular goal. It is organized in 3 chapters: “Kenpo
in Budo”, “The Essence of Japanese Swordsmanship”, and “The Practice of
Budo”. Each section contains some text, accompanied by numerous
illustrations not necessarily related to it, and a section containing
pictures of several kata with various weapons. I found the textual
descriptions to be rather rambling and meandering. They are written in
a serious, philosophical, and somewhat preachy manner. Hatsumi includes
a lot of personal opinions and accounts; he also quotes or paraphrases
others, without ever properly referencing his sources. The text also
contains some either vague (such as the “sword master/saint”
distinction referred to above) or simply inaccurate statements. For
example, the subsection entitled “Religion and Budo” starts with a
brief discussion of the Cro-Magnon. It is evident from its opening
sentence - “There were approximately twenty types of primitive man, and
of those, the hunter Cro-Magnon (Homo Sapiens), was the only one to
survive.” that Hatsumi does not have a particularly good
knowledge of anthropology. He incorrectly assumes that the terms
“Cro-Magnon” and “Homo Sapiens” may be used interchangeably (Cro-Magnon
refers specifically to the earliest known European examples of Homo
Sapiens, which postdate the emergence of the species Homo Sapiens by
about 70,000 years). He nevertheless makes several more unreferenced
statements of questionable scientific accuracy and proceeds to draw
conclusions from them.
The kata sequences, the second part of each chapter, seem to be
included mostly for dramatic effect. They do nothing to illustrate any
points made in the main text, even if one manages to find any
discernable points. The photographs are too disjointed to figure out
what is going on and the accompanying captions are not always useful.
Furthermore, the shots are often full of motion blur and odd camera
angles. There are also several large photographs where Mr. Hatsumi and
several other demonstrators simply strike dramatic stances with weapons
glistening in sunlight. Such frankly flashy shots notably cheapen the
feel of the book, particularly since it is supposed to be a
philosophical discourse on the “hidden essence” of swordsmanship. There
are also parts of the kata that look really strange. One particular
sequence that comes to mind is entitled “knife hidden in the sword
handle.” Sure enough, when attacked, one of the participants pulls the
tsuka off of his sheathed blade to reveal a small knife. I’m sorry, but
this makes no sense to me. If the tsuka comes off so easily, this sword
will fly away from its user the first time it is swung. If this is a
“secret” weapon, where a knife is mounted at the end of a fake,
presumably solid, saya and the whole thing is disguised as a sword,
then all we have is merely a very short spear with a crooked and
awkwardly shaped haft.
In the end, I was left asking myself the purpose of this book. It
did not reveal any deep “secrets” (I thought the main secret was to
show up for class and to put enough time and sweat into this…) and
hardly mentioned anything I have not heard before in sword-related
literature other than the dubious, unclear distinction between the
“sword saint” and the “sword master”. It is laden with kata photographs
- they take up over 50% of the book- but it is not an
instructional manual by any stretch of the imagination and the
photographs do little to aid the textual contents of the book. In the
end, I cannot honestly recommend spending $35 (US) on this book. If one
is looking for the philosophy behind Japanese arts, there are better
books out there and, more importantly, I believe that one cannot buy
enlightenment for $35/pop. If someone wants to learn the Japanese sword
arts, he or she should show up for a class. I am left with the feeling
that Hatsumi’s text is little more than a “coffee table” book, the sort
of thing that non-practitioners would pick up in an earnest but
misguided effort to buy something that might interest their friends or
significant others who are involved in the Japanese sword arts.
