An admirer sauntered up to lean against a street lamp. He mouthed remarks insulting to the man and insinuating to his wife, both of whom pretended not to understand. The wife moved so that her husband was between herself and the stranger. The situation grew more tense. The jerk stepped away from the light post. “Come on, pretty lady. I’ll show you a real good time.” He reached his arm out in front of the husband. “This Jap ain’t gonna be no fun,” he said.
The jerk didn’t know it, but the “Jap” in question had achieved something of a reputation back in Japan for snapping off the makiwara punching posts in his dojo when he struck them. If he’d hit the troublesome jerk, there was a real possibility he’d have inflicted terrible, perhaps fatal damage. Instead, he laughed. Uproariously. He gave the man a playful shove, the kind a friend might give another, rocking the jerk back on his heels.
“You wouldn’t want to spend any time with her,” he said, still laughing and, with his arm around his wife, turning to walk toward a taxi he saw down the block. “She’s a Jap, too!”
It is unlikely that Musashi or the karateka in Manhattan would have had much trouble if they’d chosen to reply to their aggravators in a physical way. Both were experts in lethal techniques of fighting. Yet both of them solved potentially explosive situations by resorting to stratagems that hurt no one. Many of us would have been driven to react to these kinds of threats. We would have been tempted to respond aggressively in either case, particularly if we were reasonably certain of winning. Why then, did those two not?
Musashi and the karateka both avoided a violent altercation because in both instances, each realized the attacks directed at them were attacks against their ego, their self-image, rather than against themselves or those around them. The mocking taunts of the ronin may have embarrassed Musashi (though he was ragged and dirty much of his life, his self-portrait is one of a man dressed in fine clothes, evidence of Musashi’s pride). They were far from being a threat to his safety. The karateka certainly could not have enjoyed the lewd remarks made to his wife. But by his response he not only showed the crude stranger how idiotic his advances were, he also demonstrated his mastery of the budo by settling a potential conflict without resorting to violence.
Had the two martial artists pursued the course many would have taken, consider the results. The three ronin—as well as the bystanders possibly—would have been killed or injured. In the karateka’s situation, he might have been able to control his blows. Still, suppose, as happened in an altercation in St. Louis recently, the offending man had fallen when the karateka hit him, had struck his head against the curb, and died as a result. Lives would have been taken or irretrievably lessened, and all because of some name-calling.
It would be a mistake to assume that Musashi and the karateka, because they avoided violence in these instances, would not ever have resorted to fighting. If the streetcorner punk had grabbed the karateka’s wife or physically assaulted him, the results would have been immediate and, for the assailant, unforgettable. Musashi killed dozens of opponents on the battlefield or in duels. Yet because of their training, both men responded in a way that left no one injured or killed since they saw that neither situation warranted it.
Distinguishing between an attack on our egos and an actual physical assault is easy to determine in retrospect. When confronted with the actual circumstances, the difference can be blurred by anger or fear. When my driving elicits an obscene gesture from someone in another car, my immediate impulse is to become equally angry and to return the gesture or shout. But if I think for only a moment, I realize my anger is probably due to the fact that I am a lousy driver (to which anyone who’s ever ridden with me will attest). The other motorist, by bringing it so rudely to my attention, is taking a poke at my ego that is difficult to ignore. While an average sized person standing in a line might think nothing of a jostle from behind, the skinny fellow beside him might well be quick to return the shove back out of the fear that, because of his diminutive size and equally frail ego, he is being threatened.
No one likes being teased or ridiculed. When we consider that the common response, to reply with equal or greater vigor, is what causes wars between nations, we realize that we need to consider other solutions. For the budoka, at least one of those solutions is found in the dojo. He finds one answer in the kind of constant, intensive training that allows him to defend himself physically should that be necessary. But he finds another solution, one which more practically strips away false pretensions and fears and fragile or bloated egos and instead leaves him with a feeling of quiet pride and self-worth that is invulnerable. The man or woman who has persevered daily, monthly, yearly through the demands placed upon them by budo training knows that they have endured unique experiences, passed tests of spirit and soul and body. With these experiences comes a knowledge that permits them to smile and to shrug off assaults on their ego as easily as Musashi killed the flies.
The ability to perceive the difference between a shot at our self-image and a dangerous attack on our self, our family, or our society and to respond accordngly is an unmistakable sign of budo mastery. As one of my sensei once so eloquently put it, “You cannot concern yourself about every little puppy dog that barks at you. Worry yourself only with those that mean to bite.”
The First Attack Position and Other Lessons from the Paperback Ryu
It is the novel’s climactic fight scene, finally. After more than 300 pages or so, filled with all kinds of intrigue in foreign and domestic places, well-placed descriptions of graphic and presumably exotic romantic encounters, and lots of clinically detailed violence, we have reached the moment where the good guy meets the bad. Larynxes have been lacerated; sternums shattered, and there is swordplay, with lots of katana that glitter and flicker and sparkle in the adjective-rich lexicon of the author. Page after page, bodies are dismembered, hacked, slashed, chopped, and diced. And now the big confrontation is at hand and we know it’s just going to be a doozy of a battle because the hero, katana clutched in his fists, has just taken the “first attack position.” Or something like that.
These novels—there is probably one in your library right now and if not, you know the kind, centered around Asia and with a one-word Japanese title— are usually exciting to read and entertaining. Occasionally too, they demonstrate some research on the part of the author. But when the plot calls for characters to take up their trusty katana, too often more imagination is employed than is a reliance on reliable background sources.
The “first attack position” is a good example. It seems like every other novel of this genre describes these sorts of positions and puts the hero in one in preparation for battle. Perhaps it is because Western fencing makes use of such nomenclature, numbering various attacks and defenses. There is, however, in Japanese methods of combat, no such thing. In fact, every kendoka or any other martial artist who practices a discipline based on the use of the sword has been taught that attack and defense must be as nearly simultaneous as possible. There are no “attack” or “defense” positions per se in the arts of Japanese swordsmanship. Such a one-dimensional approach is antithetical to a fundamental strategic concept of martial conflict, at least in the Japanese sense of combat. Kamae, which is what these authors might mean, I think, when they use the word “position,” refers to an attitude expressed through posture, not to some dramatic pose.
Fight scenes in these novels (and in movies and TV as well) frequently include another misconception, a bizarre one to anyone who’s seen the kata of classical schools of swordsmanship. Somehow, the writers or choreographers of these tales have decided karate-like kicks are necessary as a sort of supplementary martial technique to spice up a duel with swords. I saw such a fight recently on a police show, with a couple of yakuza gangsters waging a battle that included acrobatic leaping kicks interspersed with the clashing of their blades. (By the way, could someone tell the sound effects guys that Japanese swords, drawn from wooden scabbards, really don’t make those slithery metallic ziiinnngg! sounds?) These theatrics might be spectacular and keep you tuned in, but they are as phony to the knowledgeable reader as those teeth-clenching tsuba-zeriai where the combatants stand glare-to-glare, swords crossed and locked at the guards.
Most unarmed combative