Author: Ellis Amdur Page 6 of 11

Very early on, Donn Draeger told me that these old traditions were and are vibrant ‘living entities.’  Not only are they worth preserving, saving, but they have significant vital lessons applicable to the fighting man of today’s world.  – Hunter Armstrong  (1)

Koryu is not only the actual martial techniques, but also the principles that underpin them, and, surprisingly many of these principles are absolutely relevant to modern times. – Ellis Amdur (2)

Therefore, teaching bujutsu in police academy is very effective way to influence the society.  I would say, you know, police need to posses their weapons, also they need to possess bujutsu as well. – Kurota Ichitarō  (3)

Two decades ago, I read an article in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts entitled “Striving for Realism: Concerns Common to Martial Arts and Law Enforcement Training.” The article discussed problems common to martial arts training and police defensive tactics in terms of ‘realism.’ It offered perspectives on key concepts in the classical martial tradition that converged with the training needs of law enforcement, and made the observation that “Inadequate training, unmindful of zanshin, will result in the reactive under- or over-estimation of circumstances and/or the perpetrator. Poor decision making based on exaggerated skills or impairment of technique due to self doubt confronts both the martial arts student and the LEO.” (4)  Twenty years later, we are all aware that little has changed.

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When naginatajutsu was first taught as a specialty amongst Japanese weaponry is unknown. To start with, the claimed founding dates of almost all martial ryūha are dubious.  Many claim a founding date hundreds of years previous to their actual inception. This is not dishonesty; in earlier periods of Japanese history, lineage was as much a spiritual sense as it was historical data. Therefore, lineage records often mixed generations of non-practicing family members, teachers of other ryūha who influenced the development of one’s own, and famous warriors of the past whom the founder regarded as inspirations.

It is likely that the genuine founding dates of naginata-specialty ryūha was in the mid-Edo period. Yazawa Isaō, a 16th generation instructor of Toda-ha Bukō-ryū (now properly known as Tenshin Bukō-ryū) then at Nihon Joshi Daigaku, wrote in 1916 “It is not clear when naginatajutsu began to be taught as a single discipline. I have gone around to the few remaining martial arts instructors of the former domains of Japan, and examined the various military manuals they own. Upon reviewing these I discovered the oldest school of naginata is the Shizuka-ryū.” [1]

Most of the schools she enumerated in her article are long extinct, but even a superficial consideration of remaining naginatajutsu schools will show something curious—many of them include the kusarigama (‘weighted chain and sickle) within their curricula; for example, this is true for Shizuka-ryū, Bukō-ryū, Tendō–ryū, and Jikishinkage-ryū. [2] Given that the naginata-specialty schools became associated with women within a few generations of their creation (certainly by the late Edo-period), I have wondered at the association of these two weapons.

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This essay is a composite of a number of mini-essays that I uploaded to a Facebook discussion forum: “Aikido —The Martial Side.” It also includes some of my answers to questions raised by members of the group.

Because aikido is a principle-based martial art, systematized around certain philosophical ideals and very specific physical parameters, many critics over the years have questioned its effectiveness. Aikido is particularly vulnerable to criticism because, for the most part, its practitioners do not do ‘live training,’ (pressure testing against unpredictable attacks, or freestyle competitive training).  Such critics come both from inside the art and without. Even though I share the perspective of many of the critics, at least in regards to much of the aikido I have experienced or seen, something bothers me about such discussions—I wonder if the critics do justice to the art. It is similar to criticizing expressionist art, using a popularizer like Leroy Nieman as an example. Whether one likes expressionism or not, it should be evaluated by its greatest proponents, such as Franz Marc or Maqbool Fida Hussain. Expressionist art may not be a style you enjoy, but criticism should be based on exemplars of the art, not the common mean.

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It is conventional to think of Japanese martial traditions through the lens of the bugei, systems maintained by the warrior class. This is incorrect on a number of grounds. First of all, some venerable systems were founded and maintained by goshi (yeoman), a class of armed farmers who were (with few exceptions) at the very bottom of the warrior class. Rather than serve as retainers to a feudal lord, they were directly situated in the countryside, to some degree independent of domain politics, but more directly influencing (and influenced by) the lives of the peasants. Yes, they were nominally within the warrior class – but they were really apart from the mainstream of bushi culture. Beyond that, by the mid-Edo period, ever increasing numbers of non-bushi entered the majority of ryūha. In fact, in many ryūha, the majority of members were non-bushi, and others were led, even founded by those of the peasant or merchant class. (That they later might receive a bump up in rank by their feudal lord to become bushi does not change the fact that they were originally peasants or merchants).

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There is enormous hype in American media right now concerning vespa mandarina, known in Japan as susume-bachi, AKA ‘sparrow wasps.’ American media has made up a new name for them ‘Murder Hornets.’ I frequently saw them in parks and mountains in Japan–saw one once take down an enormous swallow-tail butterfly on the wing –  and I was one-degree of separation from a couple of marvelous events concerning them.

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Some time ago, I was sent the following question:

I have been researching the kuji/juji method, and one thing I could never understand is, how can koryu (classical Japanese martial training) training enable someone to switch to a state of muga almost instantly? With Shugendo, to which I already have been initiated, it’s more simple to understand, but not so with martial arts In the book The Deity and the Sword, Otake Risuke Sensei only mentions the difference between zen meditation and kuji very briefly, and doesn’t go into any real explanation how to achieve that, other than to mentioning the sanmitsu method itself. I have read anything I could on the subject, and even went to the Diet Library in Tokyo, but this question is difficult. Even though I have received transmission from another koryu, which includes such teaching, it’s still very hard to understand it could be done just by waking up every morning, and doing it towards the sun.

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Probably only a minority of readers here will even recognise an electric typewriter, let alone have used one. In my high school and college years, however, the devices were something, technologically speaking, right up there between soft contact lenses and artificial hearts and not that far, in our imagination, below airborne automobiles. I covered reams of paper with electrically powered ink on my Smith-Corona for my schoolwork; its humming and the authoritative celerity of its clicking keys made me feel as if I was living in the 21^st century.

My typewriter sat on a sewing table, one made in the early 19^th century, of maple, with the yardstick markings imprinted along one edge, a table having been used, no doubt by tailors in early America, to turn out shirts worn by men who’d fought in the American Revolution. That table was in my bedroom not because I come from a wealthy family who furnished our home with classical, expensive antiques. Rather, my parents were collectors and dealers in Colonial era American furniture and decorative arts. So while some of the  antiques in our home stayed for a very long time, others came and went. Most importantly, however, my point is that “antiques” in my parent’s house did not connote objects that rested behind glass or that were never touched, never used at all. The silverware we ate with, the rugs on the floor, the clock on the mantel; all were a part of daily life for me.

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Any modern sports science expert would cringe at the instructional methodology of classical traditions. The traditional method is often referred to as waza o nusumu (‘steal the technique’). It could also be termed, ‘learning by osmosis.’ An extreme example of this can be found in my recollection of account of a traditional Ainu midwife. She said that she attended births from the time she was a little girl. Her mother had her sit directly behind her throughout the entire birth. All she could see was her mother’s back. One day, when she was a teenager, without warning, her mother said, “You birth this one.” To repeat, she had never seen the birthing process itself, merely observed the movements of her mother’s back, shoulder and arms many hundreds of times. She stated that she simply reenacted those movements, which she had been doing in sympathy for most of her life as she observed her mother – the birth went smoothly and it was the beginning of the rest of her life.

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