Читать книгу The Fighting Spirit of Japan - E. J. Harrison - Страница 7

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Turning from hybrid and imported forms of exercise I shall now try to describe those which have a truer national flavour and which are therefore of superior interest. Many earlier fallacies concerning the Japanese are being gradually dispelled by the limelight of publicity, but even today there are some who doubtless associate the idea of Japanese wrestling almost exclusively with those mountains of fat and muscle who, under the style of sumotori, form a class apart and hold periodical contests in various parts of the Empire. But this brand of wrestling would not in itself entitle Japan to peculiar distinction. It possesses forty-eight different throws, many of which are the common property of wrestlers throughout the world but whose repertoire includes a proportion of methods designed not only to throw the opponent but also to push him outside the ring in which event the successful pusher is adjudged the victor. Without in any way posing as a competent sumo “fan” I am nevertheless inclined to think that some of these really drastic techniques would repay serious study by our Western mat-men. But in these pages it is to another and more elaborate form of the art of offence and self-defence that I now desire to draw the reader’s attention. I speak of judo, earlier confused with jujutsu, incorrectly jiujitsu, which may be said to have become naturalized in the West for many years. Perhaps a pioneer of the Japanese art or a sort of version of it in Europe was the late Barton Wright who studied for some time in Japan, afterwards proceeding to London where he opened an academy and taught what he knew under the name of Bartitsu. He claimed that he had grafted on to the parent stem various shoots of his own invention or culled from other schools in different parts of the world. Without doubt Mr. Barton Wright was a colourful personality in his day and generation and could give a very good and effective account of himself on the mat against all and sundry lacking knowledge of either jujutsu or judo. This splendid veteran passed away only a few years ago on the threshold of his tenth decade. Since those early days however the bibliography of both jujutsu and judo, keeping pace with their rapid world expansion, has grown by leaps and bounds. In the home country of judo, Japan, since the opening of the Kodokan more than seventy years ago at least seventy-six works have been published in Japanese. The founder, Dr. Jigoro Kano himself wrote only one propaganda brochure. Several of these works have been translated into English, notably a pioneer manual by the late Sakujiro Yokoyama and an excellent work by Professor Arima of the Kodokan. I myself have produced an “interpretation” of the Katamewaza section of a book by Tsunetani Oda 9th Dan, and a free translation of a more comprehensive volume by Hikoichi Aida 8th Dan. Of the older jujutsu not more than three books are on record because the then jujutsu masters were wont jealously to guard the secrets of their art. Nowadays the number of textbooks on judo outside Japan in many languages, but more especially in English and French, can be reckoned by the score, and at the present tempo of production we may soon be justified in saying of judo authorship, as the late Basil Hall Chamberlain once said of books about Japan generally, that it is a distinction not to have written a book about judo! Personally, while very far from claiming anything like an expert status in the art, I did during my heyday on the mat devote a good deal of time to the study of its history and rationale and thus deem myself to some extent qualified to express an opinion.

It must frequently have puzzled and bewildered a big and brawny bluejacket to find himself easily mastered by a little Japanese policeman half his size. Let me hasten to add that it is not every Japanese policeman who is skilled in judo, though at home the conviction has apparently gained a firm foothold that the most anaemic and attenuated native of Dai Nippon has but to touch the most herculean Westerner with his index finger in order to bring his victim to the ground a shuddering heap of helpless, shattered humanity. On the contrary, the average efficiency of the Japanese police in this regard is not very great, and as a general rule, man for man, the Japanese policeman had in my day fared but second best at the hands of American and British Jack Tars in those not infrequent “scraps” between the “liberty men” and the junsa (policeman) which in those days helped to create diversion in the unsavoury purlieus of the Yokohama “bloodtown” and the equally salubrious quarters of Nagasaki and Kobe. Elsewhere in these pages I shall have occasion to describe a class of Japanese judoka (exponent of judo) whose skill and strength combined, I make bold to say, could not be equalled, much less excelled, in any other part of the world.

The word jujutsu, to use the older nomenclature, is written with two ideographs, the first ju, meaning “to obey, submit to, weak, soft, pliable”; and the second jutsu, meaning “art” or “science”. The use of the first character is intended to imply that jujutsu relies for its triumphs not upon brute strength but upon skill and finesse, the ability to win by appearing to yield. Thus in jujutsu the opponent undermost may have the other at his mercy, though to the novice he may appear to be defeated. Jujutsu is the art which every samurai under the feudal regime was compelled to learn, and it was often a point of honour among the higher-minded ones, if attacked by a vulgar opponent, whether with or without a weapon, to try first to overcome him by means of jujutsu before drawing their own swords. Authentic stalwarts such as the redoubtable Chobei of Bandzuin, the Father of the Otokodate of Yedo, and the equally formidable Funakoshi Juyemon whose astounding exploits against tremendous odds are so dramatically described by Lord Redesdale in his Tales of Old Japan, were clearly adepts in jujutsu. The word otokodate means a man of chivalrous spirit or one who takes up the cause of the weak against the oppressor. A synonym is kyokaku.

Nowadays, however, jujutsu is no longer a monopoly of the military class, and the various dojo or schools in the larger cities render it possible for any respectable person to practise it. The fees charged in my day were astonishingly small, the principal school in Japan, then as now, the above-mentioned Kodokan founded by the late Dr. Jigoro Kano, collecting but fifty sen a month, or say a shilling at the then current rate of exchange, from every pupil, while those who held the grade of shodan or first grade and upwards paid nothing since they attended in the capacity of teachers, as they do today. It is another characteristic of this cult that its members may not make a public display of their art for money. Thus for the most part all competitions were in those days virtually private functions, admission being by invitation, and jujutsu gossip did not then figure in the sporting columns of the native press like boxing and wrestling in America and England, though ample space was allotted to reports of the sumo matches during the season. Similarly kenjutsu or kendo (fencing) is held in equally high esteem. However, the passage of time has brought about a good many changes in the domain of publicity, so that today the periodical judo championship tournaments are to all intents and purposes public displays and are widely reported in the native press. But in my day the etiquette observed in relation to both judo and kendo was appreciably stricter, and I remember how on the occasion of a smoking concert at the old Gaiety Theatre on the Yokohama Bluff, two Japanese fencing instructors of my acquaintance who had agreed to give a display refused to do so on ascertaining that money was being taken at the doors and that the concert was not being given for a charitable purpose.

The origin of jujutsu, like so many other things Japanese, is traced back to the mythological age, the gods Kajima and Kadori having, it is said, availed themselves of the art for the purpose of chastising the lawless inhabitants of the eastern provinces. But from then until the time of the Hojo regime (say from the twelfth to the fourteenth century) no special school (ryugi) had developed. Later, however, the various methods employed by physically inferior persons in defeating physically superior antagonists were carefully elaborated until eventually many distinct ryugi, sects or schools, came into existence. The suggestion that Chin Gen-pin or Chuen Yuan-pin of the Ming dynasty of China introduced the art into Japan is not generally credited, and in any event it seems certain that it owes its present perfection almost entirely to Japanese exertions. Jujutsu is but one of the names by which almost one and the same thing has been connoted: kempo, yawara, kugusuku, kumiuchi, and now judo are all slightly different applications of identical principles. Irrespective of the eclectic and predominant modern system of judo evolved by Dr. Jigoro Kano above referred to, the best known schools of my day not all of which exist today were the Kiraku-ryu, Takenouchi-ryu, Yoshin-ryu, Shinnoshindo-ryu, Tenjin Shinyo-ryu, Sekiguchio-ryu, Shibukawa-ryu, Asayama Ichiden-ryu, Kyushin-ryu, Kito-ryu, Ryoishinto-ryu, Arataryu, Shimmei Sakkatsu-ryu, etc. I was first introduced to the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu which is an amalgamation of the Yoshin-ryu and the Shinnoshindo-ryu. The founder of the Yoshin-ryu was one Akiyama Shirobei Yoshitoki, a physician of Nagasaki. He had been to China to study, and there learned under one Haku-tei or Pao-chuan three te or tricks of jujutsu. The principal features of the art as practised in China were kicking and thrusting. Yoshitoki fully mastered these three te, together with twenty-eight different kassei-ho or means of resuscitation. Returning to Japan he taught the art to his pupils, but discouraged by the paucity of tricks at their master’s disposal the majority abandoned their studies before they had acquired proficiency. Yoshitoki then sought to improve his art, and it is recorded that he retired to the Temmangu Temple at Tsukushi for a hundred days and there finally succeeded in increasing the number of his te to 103.

The title of his school arose in this way. He chanced one day in winter to notice that the branches of a willow-tree in front of the temple did not retain the snow even after a heavy fall and that, thanks to the suppleness of its branches, which gave way under the falling snow and thus threw it off as fast as it accumulated, the tree escaped the fate of seemingly sturdier growths whose branches were everywhere ruthlessly crushed and broken under the burden. This circumstance so impressed the onlooker that he gave to his sect the name Yoshin-ryu, i.e. “Willow-heart-school”.

The founder of the Shinnoshindo-ryu was Yamamoto Tamizayemon, his school being a modified form of the Yoshin-ryu, and the names of many of the tricks the same in both. They were classified into shodan (preliminary rank), chudan (middle rank) and jodan (upper rank). The founder of the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu was Yanagi Sekizai Minamoto-no-Masatari who was born at Matsuzaka in Seishin. He was attached to the feudal lord of Kishiu, his original name being Okayama Hochiroji. He acquired an early taste for warlike arts and on attaining his fifteenth year proceeded to Kyoto where he studied jujutsu for six or seven years under Hitotsuyanagi Oribe, who was a retainer of Lord Hitotsuyanagi and a well-known master of the art. After the death of his teacher he joined one Homma Joyemon, an exponent of the Shinnoshindo-ryu, whose teachings he thoroughly mastered in six years. This done he travelled through the country and tried conclusions with different champions and was successful in every encounter. He stayed two or three years at Kusatsu in Joshiu where he gained many “disciples” (montei). On one notable occasion, assisted by Nishimura, one of his pupils, he encountered more than a hundred lawless ruffians whom he put to flight after soundly drubbing them. The sceptical West may smile in a superior sort of way and dub this story apocryphal, but incidents scarcely less remarkable have come under my own personal observation during my residence in Japan, and I am therefore quite prepared to accept it as substantially correct. Yanagi elaborated atemi, or the art of inducing a state of apparent death by kicking and striking certain vital spots in the body, and kappo, or the art of resuscitation. In the long run he established his school of the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu and fixed the number of te or tricks at 124. He again toured the country improving his art and finally went to Yedo (Tokyo) where, after the characteristic and bewildering Japanese fashion, he changed his name to Kuriyama Matayemon and became a retainer of the Tokugawa Government. Later he again changed his name to Iso Matayemon Yanagi Sekizai Minamoto-no-Masatari. His fame continued to spread and the number of his pupils increased to 5,000.

“In order fully to master any martial art,” says a native writer on jujutsu, “it is essential to learn under a competent teacher. The pupil must not be proud or overbearing. He should constantly practise his art and scrupulously obey his teacher’s instructions. Three vices must be strictly guarded against, viz. the excessive love of wine, money and sexual immorality. If the pupil should become addicted to sexual immorality or unfaithful owing to his love of money, or if he should grow proud and arrogant owing to drink, he may ruin his life; or even if he should become experienced in his art he will not deserve any credit! These evils, therefore, should be studiously avoided.”

Our author continues:

“The jujutsu pupil learns his art without any weapon on his person. After gaining experience, when he then puts on arms his mind will be capable of controlling his body. On the other hand, should an inexperienced person put on armour, his bodily movements will be fettered. Thus the mind must be well trained to begin with. The pupil’s mind should be sovereign of the body, and his hands and feet his servants. Training his mind and limbs alike, he should then buckle on his arms. The art of jujutsu is an important ally on the field of battle.

“Even in practice one should try to imagine one’s opponent an actual enemy. A correct posture should be carefully maintained and the rules of genshin (the power to anticipate an attack) and of zanshin (how to act after throwing one’s opponent) must also be observed. A truculent attitude should not be assumed. When one is attacked with a wooden sword one’s fear or caution is not great; on the other hand, substitute a steel sword for the wooden one and caution will be exercised. Let the pupil then try to imagine that his opponent is armed with a real sword.

“The employment of violent physical strength in jujutsu is not desirable but is sometimes admissible. However, the pupil who has not completely mastered his art must avoid the reckless use of force which tends to hamper the free movements of the body and limbs and therefore to prevent him from learning the mystery of the art. He should endeavour to practise lightly and softly and should avoid stiff and heavy movements.

“In an encounter you should watch your opponent’s arms, the weapons he handles, and his eyes. At the same time, remembering that a clever adversary will frequently seek to deceive you, the eyes are not to be absolutely relied on. When the enemy remains motionless you may find it impossible to attack. In that case you must keep strictly on the defensive. Above all, avoid entertaining feelings of hatred towards your opponent. Do not keep your limbs at tension, but be cool and wary and prepared for any emergency. If you are over eager to defeat your opponent you may overlook an opportunity. To take advantage of a change in your antagonist’s position is called aiki-no-sen; the sudden resort to a trick is known as fui-no-sen. The act of throwing or otherwise disabling an opponent should be performed as if you were casting a stone to the ground. The body should not be made too hard nor should the shoulders be raised too high. If this advice be followed the lower part of the body will become firm. The kiai (literally ‘spirit-meeting’, i.e. a sort of shout^[2]) should emanate from the stomach by which means the lower part of the abdomen is strengthened. In seizing or throwing your adversary care should be taken to protect your own body. In seizing with the left hand do not lose sight of your right hand and leg, and in throwing with the right hand take care similarly of your left side. The human body being formed of angles, try to assault them. In resisting an attack yield, as it were, to the enemy’s will, but in the same manner as a gourd afloat on the water, even if pushed downwards, instantly rises again to the surface.

“When opposed to one physically stronger than yourself do not be afraid and, on the other hand, never despise one weaker than yourself. Do not recklessly resist your opponent’s physical strength; imitate the action of a boat adrift upon the surface of the ocean. If your strength is inferior to that of your adversary it is useless for you to oppose strength to strength. Try instead to avail yourself of your art and to attack him during an unwary moment in an unguarded spot, deceiving him with fictitious movements. By so doing the weaker but more skilled man will defeat a more powerful opponent.

“In the action of mind and body a negative (in) and a positive (yo) principle operate. The active state of the mind or body is termed yo and the passive is termed in. As the proper control of the mind has an important bearing upon the practice of jujutsu, considerable attention has been devoted to it. The mind should be kept energetic and the attention concentrated upon the fundamental principles of the art. The mind will keep watch and ward over every part of the body, whether stationary or in motion.

“The technical terms shi, ki and chikara may be broadly defined as idea, spirit and power. A man’s intention to pick up something is shi; his compliance with the prompting of shi is ki; and the actual handling of the object is due to chikara which obeys the impulse of ki. Where there is chikara there is also ki, and vice versa; one is really the complement of the other. But in practising jujutsu it should be remembered that if precedence be given to power (chikara) the result is bound to be highly disadvantageous. Power or physical strength should be relegated to a secondary position and efforts should be made to gain experience in the control and employment of spirit or mind, for when that is accomplished the right application of strength will become spontaneous.

“By the term ki wo mitsuru is meant the assumption of a correct position, with the mind on the alert. The god Senju-Kannon has a thousand arms and only one head, but still he is accredited with the ability to use all his hands simultaneously. To obviate the danger of an uneven distribution of strength the mind must permeate the entire body from the head to the extremities.

“The word kurai means a quiescent state of mind, as if one were afloat in a small boat on the ocean. A boat obeys the impulses of the waves and currents and will not attempt to resist them. Similarly in jujutsu, when powerful pressure is brought to bear do not resist it, but appear to conform to the will of your adversary. Nevertheless, at the moment when he relaxes his efforts promptly avail yourself of a favourable chance.

“Imperturbability of mind in an emergency is called fudoshin. An unmoved demeanour on seeing sharp drawn swords or at any other unexpected happening is highly valued, and this attitude of mind should be sedulously cultivated. In an encounter with a powerful opponent the mind should be kept placid and all the tricks of the art should be tried. In ancient times the student had more frequent opportunities than today of witnessing and taking part in warlike actions in order to acquire this mental imperturbability. Some enthusiasts would even go so far as to retreat to mountainous regions or other desolate places in search of mental concentration. Nowadays too many jujutsu pupils merely train their bodies and pay but slight attention to the cultivation of their minds, but this is a mistake; the importance of mental training should never be lost sight of.

“Sometimes when one prepares to attack, the opposite party will not move but will maintain a composed posture as if he had fallen asleep. This conduct is called muga-mushin; it is highly valued and ought to be carefully studied, though the learner should never scruple to take advantage of a chance favourable to himself and detrimental to his opponent.”

Thus far my Japanese author whose remarks will have been sufficient to give the foreign reader a fair idea of the theory and application of jujutsu. Not all that is here written should be accepted in a painfully literal manner; some allowance must be made for Oriental hyperbole, and it is not every theory that is capable of flawless fulfilment in practice. No modern teacher of judo despises strength. Other things equal it is almost certain to turn the scale in favour of its possessor. The vital consideration is that a knowledge of judo enables the student to distinguish between the right and wrong use of strength. I began to realize the philosophy of the distinction early in my novitiate when a Japanese considerably smaller and lighter than myself threw me over his head with what is known as the seoinage or shoulder throw and splintered my collar-bone. It is nevertheless a difficult lesson to learn, especially for a muscular pupil who is constantly tempted to try to bear down his opponent by sheer “beef”. It is because the adult Sandow type of pupil can rarely avoid instinctive recourse to mere physical strength that the most satisfactory results in judo are usually achieved in the case of the “disciple” who is caught young, say at the age of eleven or twelve, and who is thus enabled to develop skill and strength simultaneously. Such a subject, if to begin with he possesses some natural aptitude, is rarely guilty of the offence of “unreasonably” (muri-ni, as the Japanese say) applying his strength. It is not that the powerful adult may not become a very formidable exponent of judo in a practical sense, but simply that his victories in the matted arena are likely to be due less to what the Japanese call waza (the neat and finished performance of a trick, technique) than to wanryoku or brute strength, albeit the effectiveness of the latter will unquestionably be intensified by knowledge of the principles and practice of the art. But for a true and convincing demonstration of the essential properties and virtue of judo one should not look to such a demonstrator but rather to a comparatively small and by no means heavy expert who, when the accomplishes a given throw, will seem to do so without serious effort.

[2]	A separate chapter on Kiai will be found elsewhere.