Martial Arts Training in Japan. David Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ Fuke was uttering, Rinzai simply said, “He is truly an enlightened man.”

      Fuke’s behavior in the days leading up to his death was characteristic of the man. Hanada Shihan said that one day Fuke, dragging a coffin, announced to the people who had gathered to watch him ring his bell and preach his crazy sermon, “Tomorrow Fuke will cross over at the North Gate. Be there.” He was announcing the precise time of his passing, a behavior periodically recorded for spiritual leaders of the time.

      On the following day all gathered at the North Gate, but when Fuke arrived he looked about him and said, “No. Today is not good. Tomorrow, Fuke will cross over at the South Gate. Be there.”

      The next day, the crowd assembled at the South Gate, but when Fuke arrived he said, “No. Today is not the right day. Tomorrow, Fuke will cross over at the West Gate. Be there.”

      On the third day the crowd of onlookers was greatly reduced. When Fuke dragged his coffin up he looked at the people standing in the road, looked at the sky, and then said, “No. Today is not exactly right. Tomorrow, Fuke will cross over at the East Gate. Be there.”

      On the following day no one appeared to witness Fuke’s passing. He looked around him, stared at the sky, and said, “Today is the perfect day to cross over.” He placed his coffin outside the East Gate and sat on it. When a farmer passed on his way to market Fuke said, “Sir, would you please nail me into my coffin and then go tell Master Rinzai that Fuke has crossed over.”

      The farmer did as Fuke asked. Rinzai, on hearing the news, rushed with his retinue to the East Gate, but upon opening Fuke’s coffin they found it empty except for one sandal. As they stared into the open coffin the faint ringing of Fuke’s bell was heard in the sky. Today, one of the major pieces in the shakuhachi repertoire of the Komuso Zen sect is called “A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky.”

      As Hanada Shihan told the story I took notes as fast as I could. Finally, he paused and said, “Jones Sensei, as an educated man you should know that this is...,” he searched for an English word, “...wild history.” Using one of my most often-used Japanese expressions I said to him, “I don’t understand, Sensei.”

      Hanada Shihan explained that perhaps because temple records were so routinely lost to fire over the centuries and subsequently rewritten, their historical value, as Westerners understand history, is confused. The stories are not intended as literal history in the Western sense of scientific history, but as an emotional or spiritual context, a rich and satisfying explanation of serious and auspicious origins. Did Fuke say what Hanada Shihan suggested? Who knows? Hanada Shihan doesn’t. That is not the point anyway. It is the spirit of the story that is important. The story says that the Komuso sect was derived from a unique, fearless and humorous man whom the great Rinzai characterized as an enlightened being.

      Returning to the oral traditional of karatedo, we might ask if Bodhidharma was a real man. Did he actually initiate martial arts training at Shaolin temple? Was he instrumental in the founding of Zen Buddhism? Was he a major influence on Hui Neng, the sixth patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China? Who knows! Hui Neng’s name, by the way, does not even appear on lists of early Zen masters in China and no proof exists that someone named Bodhidharma arrived in central China at the time the legend states. (These observations are from a Chinese scholar from Columbia University who was in Japan translating antique Chinese Zen texts and comparing them to Japanese texts). But, as Hanada Shihan suggests, these are not the important points to stress when considering the origin of karatedo. Read the Bodhidharma tale this way: karatedo was created from an ancient system of mind/body/spirit coordination that has taken its specific form from the cultures in which it has traveled, being influenced along the way by Indian yoga, Chinese Taoism, Ch’an Buddhism, and kempo; and Okinawan and Japanese martial arts, philosophy, and culture. Linear history is an impossible ideal. Buddha suggested that to attempt to trace history was like following the tracks of a bird as it flew across the sky. Hanada Shihan noted that the value of an origin tale is found in how it affects the behavior of those who accept it, and not in scholarly questions as to its reality.

      It is important for Westerners to understand that human behavior is conditioned in an overwhelming fashion by culture. If we try to apply our culture’s notion of linear scientific history to the “histories” of the Japanese martial arts, we will be making an error. Western history objectively identifies sequences of events: “A” before “B,” “B” before “C,” etc. Japanese oral tradition on the other hand creates a temporal context, an atmosphere, a program of tales and heroes that coherently explains the “feeling” or “spirit” of the art as opposed to the Western desire to know that a particular art’s history is “right” from a Western perspective. “Right” is largely determined by cultural constraints.

      One late afternoon after I had been in Japan about a month, I was walking across the campus of Seinan Gakuin, one of the colleges at which I taught, when I heard a familiar sound coming from the rear of a classroom building. “Ichi! Ni! San!” (one, two, three) a man’s voice barked. On “San!” a great shout (kiai), arose from the hidden body of students. There were a number of possibilities, but I guessed that it was a karatedo group practicing a combination of blocks, punches, and kicks with a kiai marking the final technique in the series. I was right.

      I took a seat on a bench about fifty feet from the karatedoka, and as the shadows deepened around the ancient pine trees that dotted the campus, I watched the karatedoka drilling back and forth to the commands: Ichi! (front snap kick), Ni! (rising block), San! (reverse punch), the kiai sounding with the reverse punch. It was very familiar, and though I was on the other side of the world from the place of my birth, I felt at home as I watched the Japanese karatedoka in their drills. To the outsider, karatedo looks like a method of fighting, full of kicking, punching, and violent shouts, but in truth it is a physical embodiment of a message of peace and the heroic acceptance of our common destiny.

      The sound of strong, focused breathing. The snap of the dogi (practice uniform) sleeve when a student’s reverse punch worked well. The random music of the senior students as they sparred at the end of class, joking lightly with one another. I found myself watching a young Japanese white belt struggling with basic techniques and in my mind I coached him as I would a student of mine back in the States: “Relax your shoulders. Bend your knees. Don’t wobble.” Karatedo has a hard and noble beauty that will come to you after years of relaxing your shoulders, bending your knees, and steadying your posture. In my travels around Japan I saw many karatedo groups, each with its slightly differing ways of performing similar techniques but all giving me the feeling of deep familiarity. The strong common thread of karatedo is present no matter which of the many styles (public and “hidden”) is practiced, and there are hundreds of such styles.

      I remember a karatedo class practicing one evening on a beach at Satsuma. From my vantage point about fifty yards away in a formal garden on a hill overlooking the bay, the white dogi of the students glowed as they moved over the black volcanic sand beach. The class began a torturous exercise in which the students kicked as high as they could, as slowly as they could. The sensei spaced the students randomly on the beach with each apparently on his own. The sun began to disappear into the sea and the dogi of the karatedo students took on a misty gray hue as they balanced unmoving in a kicking posture. It looked like some giant had been practicing calligraphy using pearl ink on black paper.

      The basic plan of most karatedo classes might entail twenty to twenty-five minutes of warm-up exercises and maybe some strength drills. This will usually be followed by kihon waza, generally practiced as students move up and down the dojo floor, performing the required techniques to the guttural cadence of the sensei or a senior student. Kihon waza may be followed by one- or two-step sparring in which the basic techniques are taught in combinations and practiced with a partner, one acting the attacker for the other. Next may come work on kata, the choreographed series of techniques basic to the style being practiced. In an hour-and-a-half class all of the above may be encountered plus, on occasion, СКАЧАТЬ