The Samurai Mind: Lessons from Japan's Master Warriors

102 Pages·2011·1.32 MB·English

THE
SAMURAI
MIND

Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
www.tuttlepublishing.com
Copyright © 2010 Christopher Hellman All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from
the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hellman, Christopher.
The samurai mind : lessons from Japan's master warriors / Christopher
Hellman.
p. cm.

1. Swordplay--Japan. 2. Samurai. 3. Martial arts--Japan. I. Title.
GV1150.H45 2010
796.860952--dc22
2010023987
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0072-5 (ebook) Distributed by

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Contents
Introduction 7
The Mysterious Skills of the Old Cat 17
Sword Theory 25
A Treatise on the Sword 31
Joseishi’s Discussions on the Sword 46
Ignorance in Swordsmanship 100
Acknowledgments 127
Introduction
The sword occupies a central position in the martial culture and history of Japan.
It is surrounded by layers of mystique, extending from its forging through to
almost every aspect of its care and use. Above all it is associated with the
samurai, the hereditary military class that rose to ascendance towards the end of
the 12th century, and continued to hold power until the social upheavals that
resulted in the birth of “modern” Japan in the 1860s.
It holds this position despite the fact that in more than three centuries of warfare,
until Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory at the Battle of Sekigahara (1603), which
ushered in a period of over two hundred and fifty years of relative peace, the
principal weapon of the samurai on the battlefield had never been the sword.
Originally evolving as mounted archers, their primary weapon, the bow, was
superseded by the spear as the weapon of choice during the aptly named
Sengoku period— The Age of The Country at War. But the sword had always
been with the samurai; from the time of their emergence as a distinct class they
had carried swords, and the importance which was attached to them can be
gauged by the fact that as early as the 10th century ce important blades were
known by name. Throughout this period of warfare, great care and attention was
put into the making of swords—Masamune, regarded as perhaps the greatest
swordsmith in Japanese history, was working in the late 13th and early 14th
centuries, and even during the bloody years of the Sengoku period important
blades were highly valued, being passed down as heirlooms or presented as
marks of great distinction. It is clear that swords were regarded as something
more than simply tools of warfare.
The year 1603 saw the beginning of a new era in Japanese history: the
unification of the country under the military government of the Tokugawa
family, a time of peace. After some hundred and fifty years of continuous
warfare, the warrior class found the skills it had specialized in on the verge of
redundancy. At first the samurai maintained their primarily military role, but by
the late 17th century it was clear that many other areas of duty, chiefly in the
bureaucratic field, superseded the need for skill at arms. Despite the changes
they experienced, the samurai retained their position as a warrior class, an
identity that had been reinforced by the tightening of strictures on class and
social mobility. While many samurai were fully absorbed in their non-military
roles, significant numbers continued to preserve and develop the skills they had
inherited from previous generations. For most, this meant the art of
swordsmanship.
Without the threat of imminent warfare, the style of weapon use taught by the
various schools of martial arts evolved with the changing lifestyle of the
samurai. Weapons such as the spear were sidelined and techniques developed for
use in armor were replaced by those capitalizing on the increased mobility
afforded by everyday wear. Indeed, since the sword itself was worn on a daily
basis by the samurai, it was during this time that it assumed an unchallenged
position as foremost amongst the weapons of the samurai, and swordsmanship
became their principal martial art. The sword also became the focus of the
samurai’s martial identity and much energy was put into the search for
perfection in swordsmanship, with a proliferation of styles and approaches. In
this period of peace, the considerations that went into training were
understandably different from those of the pre-Tokugawa period; although the
newer styles had become increasingly refined and subtle and it was not long
before questions arose as to their effectiveness, and without the opportunity to
test them in battle, the value of the older training methods was also called into
question. In a move to reinstate combative efficiency, the use of flexible bamboo
swords and protective training equipment was introduced in some schools,
allowing a form of sparring. These innovations were instrumental in the eventual
development of what is now known as kendo, a discipline in which the aim is
not to develop skills with the sword as a means of combat, but as a vehicle for
personal growth.
In truth, however, even before the Tokugawa Period, the study of
swordsmanship held an important, even primary place, in the teaching of many
of the schools of martial arts. These schools or styles, the martial ryu, were the
means of preserving and transmitting the martial arts. They were mainly
embodied in lineages of teachers who passed down the arts from generation to
generation. The number of schools ran into the hundreds, some of which are still
practiced in some form to this day. Some of them specialized in a single weapon,
while others included a range of weaponry in their curriculum. Other military
schools were not concerned directly with the use of weapons at all, but taught
skills such as horsemanship, strategy, or swimming while encumbered with
armor. Those schools that did include swordsmanship in their teachings seem to
have accorded it a very important place in their styles. Though many of these