Читать книгу Traditions. Essays on the Japanese Martial Arts and Ways онлайн

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The jerk didn’t know it, but the “Jap” in question had achieved something of a reputation back in Japan for snapping off the makiwara punching posts in his dojo when he struck them. If he’d hit the troublesome jerk, there was a real possibility he’d have inflicted terrible, perhaps fatal damage. Instead, he laughed. Uproariously. He gave the man a playful shove, the kind a friend might give another, rocking the jerk back on his heels.

“You wouldn’t want to spend any time with her,” he said, still laughing and, with his arm around his wife, turning to walk toward a taxi he saw down the block. “She’s a Jap, too!”

It is unlikely that Musashi or the karateka in Manhattan would have had much trouble if they’d chosen to reply to their aggravators in a physical way. Both were experts in lethal techniques of fighting. Yet both of them solved potentially explosive situations by resorting to stratagems that hurt no one. Many of us would have been driven to react to these kinds of threats. We would have been tempted to respond aggressively in either case, particularly if we were reasonably certain of winning. Why then, did those two not?