Jan 02 Dennis Jones – About Bushido

This interview was published in September 2007

DJ Last month I made a passing comment about General Ariki, the Education Minister who introduced Bushido back into pre-war Japanese culture.

SR That was more than a passing comment, he’s been mentioned more than Bob Sykes!

DJ (laughing) you’re right Steve, this conversation started three months ago and if I remember correctly it had something to do with ‘reality’.  I suppose reality is: ‘what you are doing in your life’ and the more important it is, the more ‘reality’ it occupies in your head.  So I reckon it has something to do with your state of mind!  And your mind is always concerned with yourself!

Anyway going back to what we were talking about, Bushido must be a state of mind, but can there be two types of Bushido?  I believe this question is important; well it’s important enough for the JKA (Japan Karate Association) on their site to publicly state:

‘…More importantly, the JKA is the preserver of the soul and spirit of the art of kokufu-bunka karate do-karate based on the ancient Japanese tradition of Bushido (The Way of the Samurai)’.

Their mission statement goes on to inform the reader that they (JKA) will promote this ‘way’ throughout the world.  They associate karate training with confidence, humility, openness and peace.  Then linking these virtues with Zen, they go on to say that Zen is the basis of Bushido.

I assume from their statement, because they mention ancient, that they have disassociated themselves from the Bushido of the 1920s, 30s and 40s as well as Emperor Worship.  I guess that Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s demystification of the Emperor immediately after the Second World War was highly successful.

SR It is true Dennis that like myself you have found aspects of Japanese literature very interesting.  Even allowing for the problems of translation, they are often thought provoking.

DJ Yes it is true some books like ‘Hagakure’ and ‘The Book of Five Rings’ are very interesting.  But my interest only lies in how the samurai conducted themselves before and during conflict.  My driving passion has always been to ‘understand and grasp’ that fleeting moment during a fight when you are at great risk of being seriously hurt or killed.  I have always been interested in the ‘emotions’ of survival or as the samurai might understand it as the ‘emotions’ of death.

It has been an underlying thread of my martial arts training.  A couple articles ago I wrote:

‘As a martial artist I am extremely interested in that killer/survival instinct that we all possess in varying degrees. The ‘instinct’ is a natural phenomenon, and having witnessed numerous examples over the last 26 years, my fascination with the subject continues to this day unabated. How can the killer instinct be harnessed, so that it can be switched on and off, it is the subject of much debate.’

Trying to move our conversation forward a bit Steve, I need, for those that are interested, to convey my line of thinking with regards to ‘Samurai type literature’.  I remember reading the following some 20 or so years ago:

‘…Medical researchers have established that nearly 20 per cent of the time, suspects who are shot will not be incapacitated by just one round, even though they are fatally wounded.  They’re dead…they just don’t know it!  Some 13 per cent will keep going up to five minutes; nearly 7 per cent, even longer….In Los Angles, another suspect kept firing through 20 hits, before the 21^st finally dropped him.  In another case, a suspect was shot 33 times with 9mm rounds before ceasing his threatening movements….The damage a suspect can inflict during this so-called “ambulation after death” is substantial.  In a tavern hold-up in California, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy who was a patron in the place shot a suspect in the chest, a wound that proved fatal eventually.  But in the meantime, the robber engaged the officer in a struggle and managed to beat him [the officer] to death with a sawn off rifle.’ 

This is important information…Page 93 of Tsunemoto’s Hagakure reads:

‘…Akifusa was a warrior of matchless valor and was an accomplished and agile swordsman.  His retainers were Ingazaemon and Fudozaemon, stalwarts in no way inferior, and they left Akifusa’s side neither day nor night.  Thus it happened that a request was sent from Lord Takanobu to Iesada [who was sheltering Akifusa] to kill Akifusa.  At one point, when Akifusa was seated on the veranda having Ingazaemon wash his feet, Iesada came running up behind him and struck off his head.  Before his head fell, Akifusa drew out his short sword and turned to strike, but cut off Ingazaemon’s head.  The two heads fell into the wash basin together…’

I could see similarities between them and yet one comes from the twentieth century, the other from 1716.  And yet beyond the obvious, the so-called ‘ambulation after death’ I noticed something else with regards to Akifusa and Ingazaemon.

I remember being head doorman at a particular nightclub in the early 90s.  I started running the door but I didn’t go into a big speech about how things should be done.  The bouncers had their own way and all I wanted to do was to get them working together as a team.  I didn’t want any drugs and I didn’t want them to be needlessly aggressive-we had to be both honest and fair. I’ve learned that you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but most times nobody takes a blind bit of notice and bouncers are no different to anybody else. 

One night after watching the doorman work, I noticed that when they had a conversation with one another they’d stand side by side and with both of them looking straight ahead. Leaning on the handrail, looking across the dance floor or along the bar with their backs facing the customers, they were vulnerable to being hit from behind.  As long as you had your back against a wall you were protected, but it wouldn’t be any good if there were no wall to lean on! 

The manager wanted them to work by themselves: ‘we can spread them around the club,’ he kept telling me but that was a euphemism for ‘we don’t need so many bouncers on tonight’.  I ignored him and his money saving scam and paired them up anyway.  Over the next few months I worked with each doorman in turn.  When I was working inside the club, and when the doorman I was paired up with looked one way, I would turn around and look the other way.  I made sure I faced the opposite way to him.  Standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ we could still talk but we were both watching each other’s back.  Going up to a doorman inside the club to ‘parley,’ I would hardly ever make eye contact.  I’d stand slightly to one side and looking over his shoulder, I’d watch his back as we talked.  Very quickly my colleagues started to do the same.  I never gave them instructions nor did I give them a reason for doing it, but intuitively they knew what it was all about. 

So when I read about Akifusa cutting Ingazaemon’s head off; I naturally assumed that Akifusa deliberately cut his retainer’s head off because he was facing the opposite way!  He was washing Akifusa’s feet and would have seen the assassin Iesada run up with his drawn sword.  Ingazaemon by not attempting to defend his master had obviously betrayed him! 

SR Hagakure-‘Hidden among the Leaves’ an apt title for a book!

DJ…I’ve always been intrigued how some people can maintain their inner strength; how their minds remain unruffled and their hearts stay strong as everything around them falls apart.  I have spent most of my life trying to get to the essence of the missing piece of the jigsaw, that we need to grab hold of but ‘it’ is the illusory aspect of training.’

The Code of Bushido is not how I want to live my life.  Quite simply Steve, the Japanese do not own the ‘martial spirit’ but then there is very, very much more to life than Bushido.

Yet it is strange that even at the beginning of the 21^st Century that the JKA appear to want to promote a way of life based on Bushido and promote it throughout the world.  In a way I can understand it; it’s their thing but it does remind me of the policy of hakko ichiu… What people believe in is their own business and I’m not going to say anything more about it except that faith should be based on free choice.  However, in my opinion, promoting Bushido through karate reminds me a bit of ‘religious indoctrination’.  For my part I have never been inclined nor should I say enamoured to look at high ranking Japanese karateka as my source of spiritual enlightenment.

The Japanese have, after 40 years or so, set the tone and obviously others follow.  So today we have the strange situation in this country where if you read the blurb of some martial arts organisations the English have replaced the Japanese as chief instructor and now appear to have themselves become the source of spiritual enlightenment!

SR An interesting point, we’ll carry that on next month…..

DJ Okay we’ll see where it takes us then…

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

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