Mekugi
8th May 2004, 07:31
This year I was in attendance at Nagoya castle for their yearly Golden Week Embukai. This is usually on "Kodomonohi" (Children's Day, may 5th) and the weather is always stellar. I had just finished playing catch with my son in the large field of Nagoya castle just in front of the performance area. I was walking back and getting ready for my groups Shinto Muso Ryu Jo embu when a strange little man in a black suit wearing a red band around his arm tapped me on the shoulder.
"Chunichi Shimbun, Interview please" he said.
Now, I felt kind of odd standing there wearing a hakama, sports jacket and a baseball glove, but why not. I gave it a go and greenlighted the thing.
The little newspaper man continued "Why you do Budo"?
Without any hesitation I said it was fun. Seemed simple enough. I mean too many details make for rhetoric, not a whimsical question/answer period.
"What make it fun?"
Ohh boy. OK so I told him that the reason it was fun to me was because it was a study of a combative culture, the people are always nice and it was a way to self improve. It was a source of interest I pursued.
"What makes combative culture interesting"?
For the love of Pete, this little dude was digging in. I told him that it was a personality type that enjoyed the study of this type of thing. First and foremost, you had to be interested in culture and it was a living tradition and a history in itself. To be involved in it in the classical sense and to be serious required a lot of effort and you needed to like it. The idea has been carried on for generations in a lot of cases, just look at the Owari Kan Ryu over there (I pointed at the guys holding spears). They have been around here for many, many years. This is 'specially true of the Koryu budo.He winced and scribbled down "small ryu" which I immediately corrected to "old ryu". That pushed him back a step as it surprised him that I knew the differences between third grade kanji.
"You say living history, you mean bushido is still alive in Japan"?
Ok how do you answer that in the shadow of "The Last Samurai"? A thousand things rushed into my mind, namely that bushido was a modern concept and 'philosophy' and indeed it was still alive however the bushi class itself was dead. I just ended up telling him the idea of Bushido was not active anymore.
"So you think Bushido spirit is no longer in Japan"?
The problem I had was how to present this to him, in a nice way, as to not sound like a jerk. So, after staring at the spears set up along a giant tree in the park, I gave him this: The samurai class is DEAD. Has been for a long time, since the Meiji jidai at least. There are no more samurai or bushi (this brought thoughts of the self defense force and recent attempts to make them active internationally, which I quickly ushered out). Modern budo and bushido are a bridge between the past and the present. Koryu, being a budo, is the same thing. IN that sense, the history that we have now is the history that we will have tomorrow, and the present is simply a link in that chain of history.
He took my name, address, dojo name and martial art down.
Yoroshiku! He walked off.
Whew.
Now sitting at my desk at my lunch break three days later I have about a thousand more things pop into my mind. Did I answer the questions right? Did I make myself clear? Will this guy make me look like a schmuck in the paper?
I had checked the local paper and no sign of the interview or even of the Nagoya embu. Perhaps a good thing and I am hoping they leave my interview out of it when and if they do decide to publish.
Now after milling this all out, I have my own personal question:
What is the logos, or true meaning behind my pursuit of koryu? What am I thinking to get out of it? Power?(Yeah right, not in my lifetime white boy), fame? (milk just shot out my nose on that one), fortune? (you couldn't make a cold cent at anything I do unless it went electric samurai and jump up and down tournament stuff).
So I am left here with my cup empty, thinking that the only way I will know what I want out of koryu is to see it through and train. It's not a question of what it has in store for me, it's a question of whether I can do it justice or not and make my own training meaningful. Just like the fears I had in the questions I was attempting to field, I need to find my own logos.
-Russ
"Chunichi Shimbun, Interview please" he said.
Now, I felt kind of odd standing there wearing a hakama, sports jacket and a baseball glove, but why not. I gave it a go and greenlighted the thing.
The little newspaper man continued "Why you do Budo"?
Without any hesitation I said it was fun. Seemed simple enough. I mean too many details make for rhetoric, not a whimsical question/answer period.
"What make it fun?"
Ohh boy. OK so I told him that the reason it was fun to me was because it was a study of a combative culture, the people are always nice and it was a way to self improve. It was a source of interest I pursued.
"What makes combative culture interesting"?
For the love of Pete, this little dude was digging in. I told him that it was a personality type that enjoyed the study of this type of thing. First and foremost, you had to be interested in culture and it was a living tradition and a history in itself. To be involved in it in the classical sense and to be serious required a lot of effort and you needed to like it. The idea has been carried on for generations in a lot of cases, just look at the Owari Kan Ryu over there (I pointed at the guys holding spears). They have been around here for many, many years. This is 'specially true of the Koryu budo.He winced and scribbled down "small ryu" which I immediately corrected to "old ryu". That pushed him back a step as it surprised him that I knew the differences between third grade kanji.
"You say living history, you mean bushido is still alive in Japan"?
Ok how do you answer that in the shadow of "The Last Samurai"? A thousand things rushed into my mind, namely that bushido was a modern concept and 'philosophy' and indeed it was still alive however the bushi class itself was dead. I just ended up telling him the idea of Bushido was not active anymore.
"So you think Bushido spirit is no longer in Japan"?
The problem I had was how to present this to him, in a nice way, as to not sound like a jerk. So, after staring at the spears set up along a giant tree in the park, I gave him this: The samurai class is DEAD. Has been for a long time, since the Meiji jidai at least. There are no more samurai or bushi (this brought thoughts of the self defense force and recent attempts to make them active internationally, which I quickly ushered out). Modern budo and bushido are a bridge between the past and the present. Koryu, being a budo, is the same thing. IN that sense, the history that we have now is the history that we will have tomorrow, and the present is simply a link in that chain of history.
He took my name, address, dojo name and martial art down.
Yoroshiku! He walked off.
Whew.
Now sitting at my desk at my lunch break three days later I have about a thousand more things pop into my mind. Did I answer the questions right? Did I make myself clear? Will this guy make me look like a schmuck in the paper?
I had checked the local paper and no sign of the interview or even of the Nagoya embu. Perhaps a good thing and I am hoping they leave my interview out of it when and if they do decide to publish.
Now after milling this all out, I have my own personal question:
What is the logos, or true meaning behind my pursuit of koryu? What am I thinking to get out of it? Power?(Yeah right, not in my lifetime white boy), fame? (milk just shot out my nose on that one), fortune? (you couldn't make a cold cent at anything I do unless it went electric samurai and jump up and down tournament stuff).
So I am left here with my cup empty, thinking that the only way I will know what I want out of koryu is to see it through and train. It's not a question of what it has in store for me, it's a question of whether I can do it justice or not and make my own training meaningful. Just like the fears I had in the questions I was attempting to field, I need to find my own logos.
-Russ