There is a conception that Classical Japanese Martial Arts only practiced kata. At Ellis Amdur's excellent Kogen Budo blog, there is a four part series examining free-style training and CJMA, specifically in Yagyu Shinkage Ryu kenjutsu. Part 1 may be read here. An excerpt is below.
Part 1 – Introduction
With this series of articles, I would like to address a certain
dissatisfaction with the common debates one sees online regarding koryū, kata
training and sparring or what is called “aliveness.” These are
typically framed in very binary ways, something I find incongruent with
both my own experience of practice, my understanding of the history of koryū in general, and Yagyū Shinkage Ryū Heihō (YSR) in specific.
- This part will be an introduction to the argument I am addressing,
the terms with which I will address it, a very general look at the
history of shiai in classical Japanese martial traditions, and some of my own conclusions and speculations.
- Part 2 will be an examination of the appearance of shiai in
the early historical record of YSR. Fortunately, the historical record
is relatively well-preserved, and has been printed in a number of
different modern sources.
- Part 3 will look at the modern (post-Meiji) history of shiai in YSR.
- Finally, in Part 4, I would like to present the YSR approach to kata and free training, specifically through the lens of what we call the “shiai-seihō,” or “shiai-gata.” I’ll note that this material is adapted from private presentations I’ve made elsewhere.
I suspect that on the whole much of what I am talking about is
present in other traditions, if not expressed or thought about in
exactly the same terms. So, I want to stress that the ultimate goal here
is not to boast about the specialness of YSR, but rather to hopefully
inspire further study of these ideas in other traditions, and encourage a
re-examination of commonly held assumptions.
Let’s begin by defining our terms. I’ll be using the term shiai throughout the series, mostly because that is the term used in the Japanese sources I have. What do I mean by “shiai?” Let’s first define its ostensible counterpart, kata-geiko
(form training), as two-person practice utilizing certain pre-set
parameters, the end result of which expresses one or a few predictable
shapes. This would include very simple drills such as pad work, uchikomi-geiko in jūdō and kendō, and of course the more sophisticated kata of koryū.
Shiai is an engagement between two people with non-lethal
intent, typically with semi-or full-contact, for the purpose of training
or testing of skill, utilizing spontaneous expression of technique
within set parameters partly or wholly outside the parameters of kata-geiko. This includes point-matches, non-point matches, jigeiko and kakarigeiko in kendō, randori in jūdō, “free practice,” and “sparring.”
I believe these can be seen as a spectrum rather than discrete items. Indeed, of the examples given above, kendō’s kakarigeiko in particular seems to straddle the line. I hope to provide another, more detailed example in Part 4.
Having defined our terms, let’s now look at the argument. The
following represent ideas that I have often run into in discussions
online, and even in printed material. The general argument can be summed
up as this:
“Koryū didn’t spar. The masters of the old days didn’t have friendly matches; they had duels. The primary training method of koryū was kata-geiko. Later, in the mid-19th century, matches with bōgu became popular, which lead to the development of modern kendō, and Kanō developed his randori and shiai-system for modern jūdō.”
I have no desire to to rehash the old “jutsu vs. dō” discussion, but I
think it is fair to say that, in general, classical schools are seen as
kata-centric, conservative, and focused on either battlefield combat or dueling. Modern budō, then, is seen as shiai-centric,
relatively innovative, and focused on physical and mental fitness. In
terms of history, kendō and jūdō are seen as new innovations of the
Meiji era, distinct from classical schools, many of which have died off.
It is also generally assumed that the classical schools that remain are
representative of their respective eras.
All of the above strikes me as perfectly reasonable given the
information that we have had available to us. The problem, however, lies
in that very last assumption, that extant classical schools are
representative of their eras. It underpins everything else. But I would
submit that we have a survivor bias issue. Extant classical schools, far
from exemplars of Edo period and earlier ryūha, almost assuredly represent only the most conservative traditions.
It’s believed that there were some one thousand four hundred martial arts ryūha
existing by the time of the Meiji Restoration. Together, the Nihon
Kobudō Kyōkai and Nihon Kobudō Shinkōkai account for less than eighty.
While not every extant ryūha belongs to those organizations,
it’s unlikely that there also exist sixty-some other traditions needed
to get us to even 10% of the number that once existed. I suspect that
many, probably even most pre-Meiji kenjutsu and jūjutsu schools had a
strong shiai tradition, perhaps even being shiai-centric, and that these schools eventually became subsumed into kendō and jūdō.
In my opinion, the real primary difference between classical and
modern budō is not necessarily based on its approach to real combat, but
rather that classical budō was proprietary, while modern budō is
largely open-source. And rather than a break at an inflection point in
Meiji, I think there was simply a gradual shift from the classical
paradigm into the modern one. Certainly, some events accelerated this
shift, particularly the modernization of Japan in the Meiji era.
