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

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The “first attack position” is a good example. It seems like every other novel of this genre describes these sorts of positions and puts the hero in one in preparation for battle. Perhaps it is because Western fencing makes use of such nomenclature, numbering various attacks and defenses. There is, however, in Japanese methods of combat, no such thing. In fact, every kendoka or any other martial artist who practices a discipline based on the use of the sword has been taught that attack and defense must be as nearly simultaneous as possible. There are no “attack” or “defense” positions per se in the arts of Japanese swordsmanship. Such a one-dimensional approach is antithetical to a fundamental strategic concept of martial conflict, at least in the Japanese sense of combat. Kamae, which is what these authors might mean, I think, when they use the word “position,” refers to an attitude expressed through posture, not to some dramatic pose.

Fight scenes in these novels (and in movies and TV as well) frequently include another misconception, a bizarre one to anyone who’s seen the kata of classical schools of swordsmanship. Somehow, the writers or choreographers of these tales have decided karate-like kicks are necessary as a sort of supplementary martial technique to spice up a duel with swords. I saw such a fight recently on a police show, with a couple of yakuza gangsters waging a battle that included acrobatic leaping kicks interspersed with the clashing of their blades. (By the way, could someone tell the sound effects guys that Japanese swords, drawn from wooden scabbards, really don’t make those slithery metallic ziiinnngg! sounds?) These theatrics might be spectacular and keep you tuned in, but they are as phony to the knowledgeable reader as those teeth-clenching tsuba-zeriai where the combatants stand glare-to-glare, swords crossed and locked at the guards.