Author: Ellis Amdur

Preface

My original essay, which the reader will see below, was published about ten years ago. It was written subsequent to a visit I made to Akuzawa Minoru’s dojo. Rob John, one of Akuzawa’s senior students, sent me a commentary, where he pointed out several areas where I did not fully perceive or well describe what Akuzawa sensei was teaching. Rob gave a richer, more detailed description of things. Last year (2019), I visited with Akuzawa sensei and Rob again – we’d not spent any time in each other’s company for many years. We spent a wonderful afternoon comparing and contrasting our respective training regimens, and my appreciation for what the Aunkai (Akuzawa’s system) is doing is all the greater, particularly as it is different from my own. One of the most valuable training experiences is to find something different, and rather than trying to re-contextualize it based on one’s own knowledge, appreciate it on its own merits.

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At a young age, I began to study methods of combat, most proximately out of fear and shame, having lost a schoolyard fight that honor seemed to demand that I engage. More essential to me, however, was a desire to know my enemy, perhaps to usurp his power, even to make it mine. Entering into a quest for power, I soon had to ask what power was, particularly power expressed by a human being. At what point is that power demonic – cut apart from both divinity or humanity?

There are many definitions of the term, ‘warrior,’ but such a person is one who believes he has a reason to fight, who believes he is created to fight, who, though perhaps mortally afraid, is willing to enter onto the field of battle, willing to face, even embrace death. In certain societies, he is part of a discrete social class, and is regarded as a member of an elite.

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Up until modern times, embu (public presentations of a martial art) were either honno embu (offerings to the deities of a shrine) or presentations to a figure of authority. The techniques of a martial ryu (tradition) were considered so essential to survival that one avoided showing one’s techniques to outsiders much as one hides nuclear technology today. For this reason, in the Edo period, warriors would flock to any duel or street confrontation – not only for the entertainment value, but to pick up some of the essentials of combat possessed by the combatants, just in case one had to fight someone from that martial tradition at a later time.

Group demonstrations, including members of a variety of ryu, such as that at Meiji Shrine or the Nippon Budokan in Japan, or the Aiki Expo in America, are modern phenomena, denoting that martial arts are now, in a fundamental way, heirlooms, rather than agents of power. Although it rather tarnishes many fantasized images, practice of many, if not most traditional martial arts in modern times, if not specifically for the purpose of survival against enemies, should more accurately be considered a hobby.

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Natural Born Killers

There is an island where chimpanzees are resettled after a lab closes, or because of aggressiveness, or psychological and physical damage. The chimpanzees are no longer useful to humans, and so they are placed on this island to live out the rest of their lives. There is not enough forage, so estimable humans bring in food by boat. I saw a video some years back of a rather serious error of judgment by one of these well-meaning individuals.

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