Читать книгу Martial Arts Training in Japan. A Guide for Westerners онлайн

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It is important for Westerners to understand that human behavior is conditioned in an overwhelming fashion by culture. If we try to apply our culture’s notion of linear scientific history to the “histories” of the Japanese martial arts, we will be making an error. Western history objectively identifies sequences of events: “A” before “B,” “B” before “C,” etc. Japanese oral tradition on the other hand creates a temporal context, an atmosphere, a program of tales and heroes that coherently explains the “feeling” or “spirit” of the art as opposed to the Western desire to know that a particular art’s history is “right” from a Western perspective. “Right” is largely determined by cultural constraints.

One late afternoon after I had been in Japan about a month, I was walking across the campus of Seinan Gakuin, one of the colleges at which I taught, when I heard a familiar sound coming from the rear of a classroom building. “Ichi! Ni! San!” (one, two, three) a man’s voice barked. On “San!” a great shout (kiai), arose from the hidden body of students. There were a number of possibilities, but I guessed that it was a karatedo group practicing a combination of blocks, punches, and kicks with a kiai marking the final technique in the series. I was right.