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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 systems developed because people who needed them either did not have ready access to weapons or because for social or religious reasons, did not want to use them. Combative exponents well armed did not deliberately go about compromising their effectiveness by not using the weapon in favor of a kick or punch. Despite romantic claims to the contrary, in a fight between trained and experienced exponents, a weapon is a tremendous advantage. Only under the most extraordinary or unusual circumstances could anyone get away with kicking at a swordsman and leave the encounter as a biped. And only under the most dire and desperate of situations would a swordsman ignore his weapon’s considerable value as a cutting or striking implement and resort to kicking or hitting an opponent with his arms and legs.

Related to this sort of dramatic fantasy is the literary and cinematic device of the martial arts hero tossing aside his weapon to confront his enemy empty-handed. Besides being a phenomenally stupid strategy, this is a classic example of cross-cultural confusion.

There are other inaccuracies in the paperback ryu’s view of martial arts in general and in their depictions of swordplay in particular. Katana frequently triumph over automatic firearms, for instance. I assume most of my readers know that wouldn’t happen too often in real life. Blades cleave bodies neatly at impossible trajectories. The reality is that, given the weight distribution and cross-section shape of a Japanese sword, clean cuts are very difficult; bloody, messy hacking is often the result. Swordsmen don’t have regular jobs but are instead living like warrior-monks in mist-shrouded dojo or plotting world domination according to the mystical precepts of bushido. Well, of course, this is absolutely correct.

Okay, so what’s my point? These are fiction, after all. If you want accurate information about Japanese swordsmanship, you can read scholarly texts on the subject, right? Well, there are two flaws in that argument. One, very, very few books are available in English that provide that accurate information. For every good one, there are at least a dozen that are more like fiction, full of errors, distortions, and pure fantasy. Two, the average reader of these novels rarely pursues a more scholarly look. For every reader who devours well-written factual accounts, how many more will there be who glean all their knowledge from Shogun?

Popular fiction plays a big part in shaping opinion and interest. Every kendoka can tell you about the guy who shows up because he’s read one of these novels and wants to learn techniques like “the interlacing cross” or “returning swallow stroke.” Budoka need to know that paperback novels to some degree have inspired many newcomers to the dojo. Public opinion in general about budo is influenced by these books. Less than reputable dojo have cashed in on this: look at the teachers who have hinted about their experiences battling elements of the Japanese underworld or of the murky connections they have with international law agencies. As usual, honest dojo will be explaining that the fictional martial artist and his real life counterpart are quite different. It isn’t easy, or always successful, and it’s too bad we’re forced to fight such battles to maintain the integrity of our arts. But what else can one do, other than assume that first attack position and carry on?