SWORD, JEWEL, MIRROR: Different Aspects of the Japanese Martial Arts
A great deal of discussion regarding the purpose and nature of the martial arts is a regular activity any time practicing martial artists get together. With the explosion of interest in these activities by scholars and non-practitioners as well, we are sometimes presented with the spectacle of groups of people talking to (or at) each other from completely different perspectives and using very different vocabularies. This situation quickly heats up to the point where we generate a great deal of smoke but very little light.
This presentation will attempt to delineate a few different ways of thinking about martial arts practice and demonstrate how these arts, as complex cultural phenomena, are often multifaceted activities, the function of which sometimes varies with the perspective of the analyst.
In this presentation I will briefly summarize the broad concerns that led me to undertake a series of studies on the effects of traditional martial arts training ('traditional' from the perspective of a westerner--traditional training in the east is very different), especially with regard to reduction in aggressive behavior by martial arts students. The methods I have used are atypical of researchers studying aggression, as they include ethnographic (i.e. field studies of martial arts dojo) and projective techniques, so their choice calls for some commentary. One of the driving concerns, still unrealized, is identifying the reasons why martial arts study reduces aggressive behavior, which is surprising to social psychologists.
'FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS...' or REASONS FOR NOT STUDYING THE MARTIAL ARTS
Most people who approach the martial arts do so from a position of relative naivety. For me it was a simple TV program with a guest appearance by Bruce Lee that caught my attention and when British TV subsequently showed "Kung Fu" with David Carradine, I joined the local Wado Ryu club. Later, a friend lent me a copy of "the Ninja", and, fascinated by the descriptions of kenjutsu I sought out my first Iai sensei. I feel that it must be the same for other newcomers:- an interest created from some 'normal' everyday occurrence that turns into a lifetime of study- usually nothing like what was originally envisaged.
I will explain how I give a prospective student a view of the 'down-side' of Iai compared to what he may be expecting to avoid any disappointment once training has started, reasons that include: pain, boredom, one can't use it as a means of self-defense, expense and lack of interest from one's peers. I will explore how each example relates to martial arts and I will then show how there is also an 'up side'; a balance that exists within all martial arts and makes the negative reasons into positive ones. The subject will therefore come full circle- the negative and the positive balancing each other out. I will end by contending that no matter how enlightened students feel today, by tomorrow they will realize that they are still the humble beginners they started out as.
MARTIAL ARTS AS SELF EXPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE
I have currently in the works an article in which I cite performance theory and acting theory in describing martial arts as self-expressive performance, defining it as a form of performing art. This paper is the predecessor of that one, in the sense that I will discuss what led me to come up with the performing arts premise in the first place, and that martial arts, from "entertainment" (films, television) to more serious practice actually fits on a "performance continuum." I will also include an argument with regard to why this more aesthetic line of thought is important in discussing martial arts, and that "performance," as I define it, has a great deal more relevance to people's everyday lives than is ordinarily acknowledged.