"...I have discerned the principals of living and dying through numerous duels in which I set my life on the line...comprehending the uses of the edge and spine of the sword, and practicing how to kill opponents. In the course of doing this little sissy things never occurred to me."

-Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Spheres, from The Fire Scroll adapted from the 1994 translation by Thomas Cleary*

During two car rides on 12/15/11 and 12/17/11 with longtime Baltimore-area karate instructors, men who took six to eight years to attain their first black belt rank, I read the old duelist's book for the eighth time in seventeen years. As I immersed myself in one of my favorite books I was also enjoying listening to these modern instructors unknowingly echo the opinions of the centuries-dead duelist, whose work they had not read.

The conversations centered on the watering down and debasement of martial arts for commercial purposes. For instance, a kenpo black belt that took eight years to earn in the 1970s now requires only two years of study. Also, such dance and sport oriented techniques as 'machinegun' kicks and leaping back-fists to the top of the head were decried as heralding the end of martial times. I did what I could to put these men's feelings of isolated indignation at the debasement of their arts in context by quoting the old duelist,

"Other schools become theatrical, dressing up and showing off to make a living, commercializing martial arts..."

- The Wind Scroll

Yeah, that's right 350 years ago someone was already saying it.

It seems that commercial and trivial concerns are not an exclusively modern problem in the combat arts. These conversations with Sensei Steve and Master Lee as they are known to their students sparked my desire to write on this subject. My purpose in writing this piece is to honor Musashi's memory [although I do not even pretend or attempt to practice his particular art], bring his priceless contribution to light for those fighters who have not read his work and at the same time use the fate of his legacy as a cautionary tale.

This subject deserves a great deal of attention, so I will come back to it in various sequels. For now, let us examine two specific case studies that relate exclusively to the debasement of Musashi and his legacy. Throughout Musashi's work he hints at the eventual impulse among the students he left among the living to debase his art. Likewise, Cleary points out that an immense body of legend grew up around Musashi, but that Musashi's own words are essentially all that remains for certain. It seems to me, after reading some modern kenjutsu material that many of the schools dedicated to the study of "little sissy things" have even co-opted legends of Musashi somehow failing to slay the founder of their particular school.

While reading Musashi I definitely get the sense that he knew in his bones that the followers of his rivals would cultivate his name to undermine his legacy even as his own followers debased it. The reader definitely gets the sense that Musashi was venturing into literature in order to set his legacy right in reaction to a lifetime of seeing the disingenuous nature of the martial artists of his nation. Below are my encounters with two of the long-dead duelist's self proclaimed disciples.

The Sword Guy

I met the Sword Guy through a classified ad in the City Paper. At the time Chuck and I were sparring with wax-wood wasters and oak bokens [katanas], venturing into long-sword territory, which can be a painful journey. Sword Guy was the kenjutsu instructor at a traditional Japanese martial arts school. He had also been a Medieval Times 'fighter' and had managed his own troupe of Renaissance swordsmen.

Although I wanted Sword Guy for studying the European blades he constantly pushed the Musashi angle, claiming to be a disciple of Musashi's school of Two Swords. Interestingly enough, I had read Musashi's book seven times by the time I met this disciple of his. [I read it the first time as a keyword search for punching references as part of my reading for the Broken Dance ancient boxing project. I read it the other six times because I liked it and it fit in my pocket.] Eventually Sword Guy agreed to come watch Chuck and I beat each other with our wax-wood wasters at Riverside Park.

Chuck could not stand Sword Guy from the start and confessed to an overwhelming urge to 'bum-rush him' and administer a schoolyard style beating. I however, wanted to learn from Sword Guy, who did seem knowledgeable, and immediately declared us to be "crude swordsmen". Although he singled me out as a "hopeful student". Chuck was just given the look that mail carriers give to ravenous pit-bulls attempting to leap a fence and get to their throats. For the duration of my relationship with Sword Guy Chuck just watched, waiting he claimed, for me to come around to his view of Sword Guy.

Sword Guy #1

I was given a boken lesson, and taught some very useful points about maintaining bokens and wasters and the different forensic properties of the actual steel weapons. This guy really did know his stuff and was fit and athletic. He began teaching me two-person sets. I thought Sword Guy was a wizard, particularly when he whipped both of those hickory katanas around. I had a hard time keeping up in the drills.

Chuck was not impressed, as he claimed Sword Guy always slid in an extra move that went beyond the declared count or to which he had not shown me a defense.

The most interesting thing about this meeting was Sword Guy's vehement contention that Musashi fought with two long-swords. I responded that the Martial Arts Encyclopedia postulated that Musashi used a long-sword and intermediate-long-sword [although Musashi wrote against the use of intermediate-long-swords or chisa-katanas], and that Musashi himself stated that his school of Two Swords was so named because the swordsman carried a long- sword and a short-sword [wakisashi or 'side-arm'], and might as well use them both. Sword Guy countered that I had misread the book. I countered that I was a published author and had read the book seven times. His response was, "It is well known that one can only truly understand Musashi after reading him nine times."

How can you argue with that kind of reasoning?

To ice the cake—having found out I was a registered boxing coach—Sword Guy claimed that boxers did not know how to punch properly and that any ninety-year-old karate instructor could easily KO the current heavyweight champion.

Again, how can one argue with such a statement?

Sword Guy #2

Chuck and I trained and I waited in the rain for Sword Guy. When he was 15 minutes late I left. Two hours later, when I got home on the bus, my wife informed me that Sword Guy had called and given her a hard time about me not being there for class. I called him and explained, and told him he was not to speak to my wife in a like manner again. He apologized, and we arranged another meeting with an agreed upon 20 minute margin of lateness.

Sword Guy #3

I spent two hours with Sword Guy under the pavilion, and he declared that I was a worthy student. We arranged for a six hour session the following Saturday.

Sword Guy #4

Sword guy drilled me, beat me, abused me, and worked me until my hands were bloody blisters. At the end of four hours of using my oak katana with one hand my forearm was shot. After one particularly brutal shot to my elbow, which rendered it useless, Sword Guy declared that I was beaten and made to leave. I offered to go left handed and we continued for another two hours. Sword Guy declared that we would spar on Monday, and would be bringing a helmet.

Sword Guy #5

My forearm could not tolerate techniques with the katana so I used an arnis stick and a small punching shield made of plastic plates, duct tape and bailing wire. Sword Guy used the two katanas. I thought I was going to be toast, and requested that we keep it light and controlled. He agreed, and demonstrated very good control. He had excellent control. That is how I knew he had smacked me in the head and elbow with that hickory katana on purpose back on Saturday.

Sword Guy never hit me! I was armed like a stone-age islander and he had two of the most perfectly designed wooden swords known to man, and he could not touch me. Not only was Sword Guy much better with a katana than I, he was much better with a katana than I was at anything. Hell, he was better with a katana than I was with a fork and knife at the dinner table. But he could not hit me. Also, he did not know where his feet were. I had to constantly remind him not to back into dangerous obstacles, and eased up once so he could get his ankle out from underneath the bottom of the curled fence he had stepped into.

The fact was, that Sword Guy, had not only ignored Musashi's opening statement that his students fought with a long-sword and short-sword. But he also ignored his dictum that the study of only the long-sword is not the True Way. I am absolutely certain that if I had a katana—or God help my clumsy butt—two katanas, that Sword Guy would have hospitalized me. However, even though my weapon set was inferior in every way to his, I at least had fought against and with katana length weapons. Sword Guy had never faced anything but a long-sword and had zero ability to judge our resulting and ever-changing range relationship.

We had an amicable parting and I attempted to set up another session. But Sword Guy declined. After Sword Guy left Chuck chided me for not taking Sword Guy's scalp and lacing it to my neck-guard. In my mind I had benefited greatly from my training with Sword Guy, with the only dark spots being that I would not be able to recruit him for experimental weapons evolutions, and would never be able to watch while Chuck tackled him on the pavement.

The Death Touch Dude

I was introduced to this elderly martial arts master by an instructor who wanted this man and myself to help form the coaching staff for an MMA club. I would be the hands guy. I don't know what this guy's contribution was supposed to be—levitation above the cage to spy on the judges' scorecards I think. He claimed to be a practitioner of the 'death touch', claimed he was too deadly to spar with, was ethically bound not to pass on any of his lethal knowledge to lowly MMA fighters, and, most interestingly, claimed that he was a practitioner of the school of Two Swords founded by Musashi.

As Death Touch Dude was shown around and introduced to the fighters I went through my agonistics evolutions with an arnis stick. I felt the eyes of the Death Dealer upon me and I quaked, but persevered in my training. Once I heard him tell our host that he could do everything that I did with an arnis stick with a katana, only better. I thought this was an interesting statement as Musashi had warned against using the techniques of a shorter weapon with a long-sword. In fact, he called this 'short sword mimicing' and railed against it. Death Touch Dude had obviously not read Musashi the requisite nine times.

Death Touch Dude then examined my many deep bruises from stick-fighting and declared me to be a worthy student for him. He also insulted our host and said that the fighters were not worthy of his instruction and that—I have heard this many times—that boxers did not understand punching.

I now knew that I was once again in the presence of a true master.

Death Touch Dude removed all doubt when he claimed to require an extra long katana to practice his art, and therefore could not give me a demonstration. Before I spend any more time convincing you that Death Touch Dude was a true martial arts master, I will instead refer to some long dead survivor of 60 duels who penned these words on a mountain top on the island of Kyushu in 1645,

"There are some schools that are fond of extra-long swords...I see them as weak schools...[this] is something that people do because of a weakness of heart."

- The Wind Scroll

Somehow Musashi knew that Death Touch Dude and Sword Guy would come along to misrepresent him for whatever reasons they might have. That, I believe, is why he wrote his five scrolls, and why he went to great lengths to enumerate the 14 'little sissy things' that other schools promoted in their attempt to commercialize and otherwise obscure his art, which he insisted time and again, was nothing more or less than the art of killing your opponent.

I doubt if the old duelist is rolling over in his grave over the myriad abuses of his legacy. Instead, I bet he is grinning, having breathed his last with full foreknowledge of the pretenders among us, of whom he encountered quite a few in the most intimate manner a warrior can.

James, Wednesday, December 21 2011

 
*Cleary indicates that 'Spheres' is a truer English language translation than 'Rings', both referring to Musashi's five scrolls authored between 1643 and 1645.