Exchange between east and west?

[Douglas S]

Obviously, fighting styles existed before manual were written.

A question we might ask instead would be "did Marco Polo study any sword techniques when he was in the east, and was he in a position to teach them when he returned, and did they prove to be better than what was there already?"

There's a quote from Bruce Lee, which says that as long as we have two arms and two legs, we'll naturally have a lot of similarities between fighting styles.

[John_Clements]

There are some Chinese exercise manuals that show unarmed techniques that are about 1000 years old. But it's not relevant to our craft any more than the fact that the ancient Sumerians built pyramids means that 15th century cathedrals or modern skyscrapers are related to them. Europeans did not "bring back" martial arts from Asia or vice versa (nor did Marco Polo introduce any Eastern military concepts). Martial arts developed around the globe by necessity in many cultures and societies. We are all human and all have the same anatomy and physiology. So similarities and commonalities are to be expected among systematic combatives. Whenever human beings fight one another armed or unarmed, armored or unarmored, mounted or on foot there will be things that are universal (and other things that are particular). It's only nationalistic pride, cultural conceit, and popular media hype that makes us forget this. Make sense?

JC

[Mike Chidester]

Thanks for all your input. The Alexander-India-Siddartha-Buddhism-Kung Fu connection had already occured to me, and my friend didn't like the idea at all. <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" /> The other material was new to me, but provides a lot of interesting food for thought (and research). I'm decent with most romance languages, too, so maybe I'll look into the Portugese records mentioned, too.

Looking forward to your book, John.

[GeorgeHill]

Hey John, as long as you are working on a book about european/japanese fighting, why not throw in some things about the best ways to beat-up the japanese styles with our equipment?

[GeorgeHill]

Hey Jeanry, where can I find more information on those duels?

[J.Amiel_Angeles]

Well, I don't like this whole obsession with "who came first" any more than the people in this forum (what does it matter who came first if the use of it was ineffective?) but I was educated in post-colonial history and sometimes this assertion of martial art superiority (or non-material cultural superiority in general) was not always 'cultural conceit' from the side of the 'East' but a defensive reaction to years of 'cultural conceit' claims from the West that everything about the Philippines, Japan, China, Indonesia, etc... was necessarily primitve and inferior. I'm not saying it was right and I will be the last person to say that EMA really are superior to WMA, but this should be borne in mind.

Incidentally, I don't see how adding a section in Mr. Clements new book on how to 'defeat' Japanese arts could help the study of WMA any.

[GeorgeHill]

Simple, it would help our individuals show the katana-philes the benefits of the western styles.

[J.Amiel_Angeles]

I can only assume that the many benefits of WMA can best be shown on their own terms and not from a supposed need to 'beat up' Japanese styles. This does not particularly show the 'superiority' of WMA over EMA and neither does it seem like a particularly historical approach. *shrugs*

[Jay Vail]

does anybody have the date of the earliest known Asian fight manual?? Wouldn't it be ironic if it dates later then I.33?

Can't say about that but Serge Moll reports that the oldest jujutsu ryu, Takenouchi ryu, was founded in 1532, more than a century after Fiore wrote in 1409. Takenouchi, like many Japanese ryu, documents its techniques on scrolls that normally are only accessible to the headmaster or very senior students. It is reasonable to suppose that some of these scrolls were written first about the time of the founding.

[Jay Vail]

Despite the volumes and volumes of detailed writings by Europeans visiting Japan in the 16th century (the very golden age of martial arts over there) covering every aspect of their society and culture they never bothered to mention in it anything significant about Japanese martial skills or arms. This is because they saw nothing they didn’t already have back home in some form and generally considered the military technology they encountered to be inferior.

Given what we know now about the sophistication of Euro MA during that time period, this is a convincing argument. Europeans have always been quick to adopt ideas from other cultures when they have value. That's why AMA have been so popular -- Euorpeans (and by extension Americans) had allowed their martial arts to disappear by 1900. This made AMA seem spectacular and worth copying, and led to the rise of judo, karate, and kungfu in the West.

However, in the 1600s, Europeans had their own independent close combat tradition. They had no need to copy the East then.

[J.Amiel_Angeles]

I'm writing my masteral thesis on the Spanish conquest of the Philippines, so I've read up on of East vs West martial encounters-- although very, very few of them specifically deal with swords. Unfortunately, they were all from Spanish language sources and not very detailed. One reason why I'm so interested in WMA is because it can shed so much light on this branch of history.

There is an account of the conquistador Juan de Salcedo fighting a one-on-one sword duel with a Filipino chieftain. Both apparently used shields, but I've not yet found the primary documents on this. Salcedo won and, given the peculiarities of mandala/Southeast Asian warfare this was sufficient to break the spirit of that chieftain's army. There aren't that many detailed accounts of Spanish fighting the Filipinos hand-to-hand using their swords, though. I shall look into this some more.

Interestingly, I have not run into accounts of the Japanese in Manila (and there was a sizeable community there of Japanese expatriates, many of whom were Christians-- nobody's done a study of this but a friend found a tsuba unearthed here that had Christian crosses on it-- a Christian samurai?) fighting the Spanish. That is with the exception of the Limahong invasion and most of the people that the Spanish fought were Chinese pirates who, apparently, used mostly long spears.

What may be of some interest to this community though is that while I've not yet seen Spanish vs Japanese encounters, I have seen a lot of incidences of the Spanish USING the Japanese fighters a lot, but this was because they needed to bolster their scant manpower when fighting hordes of Filipinos. I read of one account where the Japanese were used to skirmish with rebellious Filipino pikemen and then lure them into the range of Spanish firearms. Or of another account from the 18th century, IIRC, when the Spanish were fighting Moros in the South and needed Japanese swordsmen. But this was because most Spanish soldiers were apparently conscripts with low melee fighting abilities and that the Moros learnt to attack these firearm-wielding Spaniards in the rain. The Spanish commander requested Japanese swordsmen to fight the Moros, but the plan never pushed through.

I must point out, though, that I am not inclined to believe the claims of modern Filipino Martial Arts enthusiasts with regards to the historicity of arnis and other similar arts, so the martial arts these 16th century Filipinos used could substantially be different from what we Filipinos have today, or at least the way it's currently practiced.

[Jay Vail]

Martial arts developed around the globe by necessity in many cultures and societies. We are all human and all have the same anatomy and physiology. So similarities and commonalities are to be expected among systematic combatives. Whenever human beings fight one another armed or unarmed, armored or unarmored, mounted or on foot there will be things that are universal (and other things that are particular). It's only nationalistic pride, cultural conceit, and popular media hype that makes us forget this. Make sense?

Quite true. By way of example, last week I attended a seminar put on by an Okinawan karate master. He had a background in northern Chinese weapons and was tutoring one student in the Chinese broadsword (which to us looks like a cross between a saber and falchion). Most of the form looked pretty strange and unmartial, as least as compared to our practice -- the usual flowery stuff. But at one point the teach showed the student an application to a move, and it was the "turned around hand" from Talhoffer to deflect a blow from above, followed by a cut to the leg, also shown by Talhoffer as the follow up the the deflection.

[M Wallgren]

I could second that. Prior to my introduction to the ARMA I trained Muso shinden Ryo Iaido. And lots of the guards in the Lichtenauer tradition is almost the same in MsR. My conclusion is that if you hold a sword with two hands there is only so many ways to handle yourself. It does not mean tha there must have been some direct encounters between estern and western fighters. But as JC stated in another reply, the influence could have traveled the other way. The founder of Muso Shinden Ryo, Hiyashinsake Inzuke Miamoto no Shigenobu, was active during the first part of the seventeenth century and could have been influenced by the swordsmanship of europeans several centuries earier.

Thanks for reading my two cents.

MW

[M Wallgren]

According to my breef knowlage on the subject, four years of Iaido training, I can say that the swordschools in Japan developed after the year 1600 AD. This as a result of the Shogunate with a great number of warriors "unemployed" after the civil war. Most of this "Ronin" became highwaymen and bandits but a few started schools, "Ryo", and some of these beacame quite influensial and attracted many fighters.

Yes I know, of the Forum topics but I thoght it could be of interesst in this tread.

MW

[James Hudec]

Is there anywhere I can find these documents Jeanry Chandler mentioned regarding the Portugese and Japanese?