Divergence and Unification in Martial Arts

 

The divergence and unification of martial arts is a topic that I find fascinating. Over at Ellis Amdur's excellent Kogen Budo blog, there was a guest post discussing this topic in the context of Shinkage-Ryu Kenjutsu.

Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here.

In an earlier guest essay on Kogen Budō, I wrote:

It is important to draw a distinction between “military inspired” arts, practiced by a military class focused on unarmored dueling, versus military arts practiced by a professional class that drilled and maneuvered in mass formation, on exercises or expeditions.

This is a distinction, ill-considered in a lot of commentary, even though it concerns changes most all kobudō underwent during the Edo period, much less where we find ourselves well into the 21st century. Considering this, I will examine several arts with which I have a passing familiarity, and hypothesize about how their current, very divergent, incarnations could have been more closely related much earlier in time. I then describe some of the psychological considerations arise when undertaking an ongoing practice and, in my case, how I hope to practice sword methods as a form of mindfulness and self-cultivation without losing sight of the origins of the arts flowing down to the current day.

Katchu Kenpō

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?”

— The Skeleton in Armor, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What we call koryū are practices surviving from combative training of several military castes (i.e., primarily bushi, but also gōshi and sometimes armed monastics) before 1868, when the Tokugawa Shogunate ended with the Meiji Restoration. Despite these antecedents, the majority you will find today are focused on unarmored single combat as opposed to armored combat in group formation.

Some groups still maintain skills at wearing armor to this day. When thinking of armored swordsmanship, Yagyu Shingan-ryū Heihōjutsu comes to mind, which regularly demonstrates wearing antique armor. Their movements, which can look a bit formalized when practiced in cloth uniforms, allow for the efficient use of the body while wearing armor. Another example is the Satsuma-han Heki-ryū koshiya kumiyumi, which practices in group formation in armor, with patterns of movement that allow for ranks of archers to cover each other as they draw and fire.

Most koryū, however, adapted during the Edo period to a focus on unarmored combat. Some schools may preserve older, armored, version of kata, but it is not clear to me they put the level of emphasis on armored combatives that Yagyu Shingan-ryū or Satsuma-han Heki-ryū do. Some branches of Owari Yagyu Shinkage-ryū and Hikita Kage-ryū maintain practices of field weapons such as odachi and have postures (kamae or kurai) that are based on how one might effectively move while armored. They also maintain older version of core kata that stress an armored style of movement. For example, a movement of cutting one-handed from long range while balancing on one leg in an advanced kata might be substituted for a closer range movement using two hands.

During certain festivals, members of Katori Shintō-ryū in Japan wear armor, but it is not clear to what extent wearing armor during practice is a regular occurrence. The first set of paired sword kata in Katori Shintō-ryū (Omote no Tachi) is meant to be katchu kenpō (armored sword methods) while the second (Gogyō no Tachi) is explicitly taught as suhada kenpō (unarmored sword methods), but many lines of the art practice the first set at such a rapid pace that the connection to armored combat is, at least to me, lost.[1]

This shift to primarily unarmored training is not surprising. The last large-scale battle before modern times was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1638. Aside from minor skirmishes in putting down peasant insurrections, the Edo period was peaceful, up until the Boshin War of 1868-69, which saw the end of the samurai. Most kenjutsu ryūha thus adapted to several hundred years of peace (Pax Tokugawa) and were not concerned with armored combat or combat en masse. Feudal domains often had official schools for bushi that taught several arts side-by-side. A bushi might then be licensed in those martial arts and this could include cognate instruction on group movement and military strategy, which would have been taught in an academic sense. Martial traditions that had no official domain imprimatur were less likely to preserve associated practices like how to wear and care for armor, how to maneuver while fighting along other bushi. Due to these shifts over time, even though koryū are associated to a military caste, I am not sure it is a good idea to call them “battlefield” arts, even when field weapons such as naginata or yari are employed.

The example of having different version of kata to explicitly work on armored patterns of movement seems logical, but the next step of taking the time to train in armor is rare. Were one to actually train to fight in armor:

• The easiest part of maintaining a connection to armored combat is understanding where to target on an opponent wearing armor. This kind of knowledge might survive quite well in a practice like Katori Shintō-ryū Omote no Tachi. However, as most people practice today, their pace of movement is too fast, their stances too upright, and their footwork and body maneuvers (tai-sabaki)are too large for use in armor.
• Understanding general patterns of movement that would not work well while wearing armor is absolutely requisite, but beyond that, there must be a focus on posture and moving in a way that would best keep the armor from incumbering one’s movement. Even unarmored, long field weapons such as the spear can become entangled in one’s clothing if used improperly.
• Martial skills such as how to don and remove armor properly, and how to care for it would also need to be cultivated. In previous era, the care and maintenance of armor would have been taught both in domain schools as well as within one’s family.