"All
of Them and None of Them"
The Recovery and Study of Extinct Martial Disciplines
By John Clements
ARMA Director
I
will often relate the anecdote of how, on an occasion traveling in Asia,
I had the enjoyable opportunity to take a meal with a noted elderly iaido
master and bujutsu practitioner where, through his interpreter, I put a
poignant question directly to him. I prefaced my question by stating how,
given that the samurai of 1250 were not the samurai of 1450, who were not
the samurai of 1650, who were certainly not the samurai of 1750 or even
1850, so then what exact version of Budo was it he was preserving and practicing?
To make a longer and more interesting story short and concise, I will simply
relate that after expressing how my question was a profound one that he
himself had often pondered, his answer was essentially: "All of them and
none of them." I found this a rather surprising answer and tremendously
satisfying, and I had to tell him I particularly appreciated it. Not only
did I not at all expect to hear such an answer, it was the only answer I
could really accept. I had long expressed the very same sentiment towards
study of my own martial discipline.
Someone might for example ask me, John, what authentic longsword fencing
is it that you and your association profess to having recovered or reconstituted?
Is it from the teachings of Liechtenauer of 1389 or of Master Fiore from
circa 1400, or is it from Talhoffer of the 1430s, or Ringeck from the 1440s,
or Von Danzig from the same period? Or perhaps it's those of Master Vadi
out of the 1470s? Is it that of some of the anonymous source works of the
late 15th century or those of the early 16th century? Is it the teachings
of the longsword of Marozzo from the 1520s or perhaps Di Grassi from the
1560s? Is it from Mair's enormous compendia of the 1550s or one of Meyer's
superb treatises? Or does it include later material such as Silver's from
the 1590s or even Alfieri in the early 1600s? (I should note that the decades
I cite for these works refer not to their actual publication dates, but
rather the prior years in which their authors mastered the methods that
they would later go on to write about.) My answer then to the question of
which "Art" I profess to have relearned and reconstituted is, in a manner
of speaking, all of them and yet none of them.
I
have for many years said that I study "all of them" because I rely on every
one of the original sources I can find, and I endeavor to understand as
much of them as possible regardless of the weapon or content they cover.
I don't limit my focus to a few works nor exclude any one source. I read
and re-read them and even cross-compare translations. I include as much
Medieval and Renaissance source material applicable to both my personal
training and any lessons or courses I may give as possible. (I even examine
18th and 19th century sources to see what changed and what was lost.) But,
I have also long admitted that, in a sense, I practice "none of them" --because
no one can never truly be 100% confident that in our interpretations of
the historical teachings we have correctly or fully understood their writings
and illustrations. The old Masters are not here for us to ask clarifying
questions, and their works unfortunately do not include the convenience
of video clips displaying their actions in motion. (This is why I have always
counseled every practitioner and enthusiast of this subject to keep their
hypotheses broad and not rigidly lock onto any one popular translation or
interpretation as some unchangeable gospel.) On top of this, we must freely
acknowledge that, unlike our forebears, our study today is not pursued out
of necessity for life and death survival on the battlefield or the earnest
single combat of a private duel, but only as a challenging physical and
mental discipline suited to our modern lifestyles.
Ironically,
the famed iconoclast samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, himself noticed and critiqued
this when, in his work on swordsmanship of 1645, he commented that the art
was in his opinion already becoming decadent and dying and how schools were
"concerned, only with sword fencing, and limit their training to flourishing
the long sword and carriage of the body" declaring that this was not the
essence of the way. (Harris, p.85) Similarly, the foreword of the respected
work on samurai swordsmanship by Chozan Shissai, written in 1728, states:
"many have strayed from the proper course, and there may be a few left,
indeed, who do not strive for mastery of technique, but practice the art
of educating the heart as well." It then declares that the samurai author
of the work, Chozan Shissai, "laments that those who study swordsmanship
as it is practiced throughout the world have lost sight of the essence of
the art, have become preoccupied with trivialities, misunderstood its principle,
rejected its technique, and have, without exception, strayed from the correct
principle of swordsmanship." (Kammer, p.41) Again, we have to wonder:
If this was yet another famed Japanese swordsman's view of the state of
things at that time (well before either modern variations or a sport form
developed), did it decline or improve in the next century? Or the one after
that? ...Or the one after that?
My
view has therefore long been that because much of this material overlaps,
and I argue none of it directly contradicts another, they are complementary
and build upon each other. There is continuity and a consistency in Western
European martial art teachings from the early 15th to mid-17th centuries
that are now available to us. This is hardly surprising given that, regardless
of the particular self-defense theories any one author espoused, the core
fundamental principles at work within their methods were readily recognized
among them. After all, for centuries fighting men wielded almost the very
same arms and armor across Christendom, traveled to each other's cities
and villages, fought in each other's armies, participated in each other's
tournaments, attended each other's universities, and encountered each other
in war, duel, and trial by combat.
This was the case even as over generations there was a cultural and social
shift from traditional knightly combat toward cavalier fighting; from a
military focus to a civilian dueling one. In swordsmanship alone there was
a change from longswords for facing plate armor to longswords more suited
to pike formations. There was a transition from arming swords suited for
use against heavier armor and shields to ones more adept for light cavalry
and unarmored urban street fight. And all this is only to touch upon the
diversity of swords and other specialized weapons which the source teachings
address in depth all the way to the eventual development (and eventual abandonment)
of the rapier.
So, in both celebrating this heritage and developing my own personal
prowess, I have always sought to take a broad view of the subject and
draw upon the largest possible pool of Renaissance martial literature
available. Just as my Japanese counterpart, when asked which Art I am
endeavoring to practice and promulgate, my answer is: all of them and none of them.
Harris, Victor. A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy.
Overlook press, NY, 1982.
Reinhard, Kammer. The Way of the Sword: The Tengu-geijutsu-ron of Chozan
Shissai. Arkana, 1986.
5-2024
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