Читать книгу Japanese Throwing Weapons. Mastering Shuriken Throwing Techniques (Downloadable Media Included) онлайн

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There are many pole arms that provide some distance, but in facing a line of thousands of long spears, only another long spear will be of use. There is a point, however, where an enemy gets too close for even a spear to be useful. There are a number of situations where an enemy can reach you before you can reload your musket or nock another arrow. This distance is the traditional domain of the sword, but it is also the domain of the shuriken.

One could say the shuriken was of great importance to an individual soldier on the battlefield, especially if he were to find himself on the losing side. Once the battle was clearly decided, the losers had three choices: be killed, be captured or escape. At this point, the possibility for close-quarters single combat was a distinct possibility. As the distance between combatants closed and their options ran out, the losing side had no choice but to resort to individual, last-ditch techniques. Such circumstances give rise to an artistic level of survival-inspired creativity. A soldier could find many possible weapons in the litter of a fresh battlefield—weapons lying on the ground or protruding from bodies like broken spears, broken swords, discarded knives, thousands of broken arrows, and pieces of broken armor plate. This may be why Tatsumi Ryu shuriken bear a very strong resemblance to a traditional Japanese yari (spear head).