Samurai and fair fights

In a recent post, I responded to a a statement on the aikido forum, quoting a noted aikido instructor, Mr. Isoyama. I criticized his knowledge of at least one aspect of Japanese culture, based on his quoted statement about hakama length. I received a very decent email from one of his students who disagreed with my conclusions - and the upshot of it was we chose to continue to disagree.

It will thus perhaps appear that I bear Mr. Isoyama some animus (I do not!) in citing another statement Nathan Scott quotes him as saying that I must disagree with. “Isoyama Hiroshi Shihan … explained the frontal attack/ushirowaza setup found in Aikido as being something done for reasons of “samurai manner”. Basically, saying that it would have been un-samurai like to sneak up behind someone to attack them. So even in practice they would not train that way, lest others would think them low class.” Again, I can only state that this statement - very common among Japanese and Westerners who have an idealistic fantasy of the samurai, and evidently little actual knowledge of bushi history - is not borne out in fact. Most of the oldest jujutsu-ryu specifically have any number of surprise attacks, including attacks from the rear, WHERE THE ATTACKER WINS. No counters (they were developed later in Japanese history, in peacetime - the oldest ryu had killing methods at their core, and central were methods of quickly dispatching the vulnerable, not self-defense or counters!)

The two oldest extant grappling schools, Takenouchi-ryu and Araki-ryu both have assassination methods where one feigns welcome and stabs one’s opponent to death while serving them food or drink. In short, there is considerable existing evidence, within still-living training systems which belies the fantasy that samurai would avoid attacking from behind. As these techniques have been publicly demonstrated for decades, and are portrayed in almost all texts on classical martial arts, anyone ignorant of this shows themselves to have a rather limited understanding of Japanese martial arts as they were.

A sixteenth century Portuguese writer, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, described in his journals, the behavior of the bushi of the period. He described, rather than humble self-effacement, a hypertrophied, over-blown pride as nearly universal. He then stated that it was absolutely socially acceptable, in his observations, for one bushi to cut down another if he felt shamed, and that this could be done by surprise attack rather than challenge - because it was believed that if you were surprised, you had your guard down and that was something that should never happen. (This, by the way, is the thrust of Ueshiba’s statement, “Even though your enemy may be facing the other way, if his skill is greater than yours, his body will always be full of the spirit of Bujutsu, even to the rear, and it will be dangerous [for you to attack him].”)

Sigh - again - I am not questioning Mr. Isoyama’s considerable skill - I’ve seen him - but merely a conclusion he has drawn from what appears, from the evidence of his quoted statement, to be rather narrow knowledge base. Either he has been misquoted or not. As to any who take offense that I would dispute something an eminent shihan might say and then ask me, “who do you think you are? Aren’t you getting a little above yourself?” my reply will always be, along with Popeye shihan, “I yam what I yam.” I am responding to the statement of an older colleague with the same respectful disagreement that one professor in a discipline would to another.

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Ellis Amdur — March 14^th, 2004 (add comment)