Once more, I nudged that envelop—just a little further—another 15 minutes late. Although this time it is to my chagrin. As I entered the dojo, I noticed the students were sitting, lined up as though going through our beginning-of-training devotional ritual, except lounging—not kneeling with their back straight like a row of buddhist priests—shinai at their side, eyes intent on something unseen.
Before them are a pair of dancing duellists, wielding naginata halberds, these long wooden poles ending in short, curved blades. And as I discard my shoes, bow and enter the dojo, they finish and my captivated comrades thank the demonstrators with a short round of applause. Fuck! I missed it. I know nothing about it. I can't even describe it or explain it, other than it involves a pair of peeps who wave these awful long poles about. And that they are usually women who do it. And they were wearing white gi and hakama.
So I sidle up to the end of the row, plonk myself down, and give the bloke next to me that quizzical "WTF?" look coated in a fine veneer of "oops", only to get a reproachful glare and a nod of the head in the direction of the show. Endearing character, me.
So anyway, the two naginata ladies disappear off into the distance, as much as one can do that in a dojo mae from a converted-warehouse with a saw-tooth roof. Man, I dig saw-tooth roofs. And are replaced by a fellow in black gi and hakama. Looking all dark and sinister and, well, completely different from the white-clad naginata ladies or the blue kitted kendo-ists. Actually, it was more the look on his face which made him evil and sinister, because it did not move once throughout his show, he just kept that gallic upside-down smile which conveys a vague air of displeasure, kinda handsome in a sneering sort of way. I remember reading someone describing the raison behind that particularly French facial expression as running along the lines of "in this world, there are problems that are mine, and there are problems that are not mine, and this problem here is definitely not mine", accompanied, of course, by that little shrug of the shoulders.
Back on topic. This fellow's art was jodo, which is not disimilar to kendo, other than is does not involve swords or sword substitutes such as shinai. It's the art of the staff. And it is purely a defensive art, a bit like the way aikido is meant to be a non-aggressive, martial art aimed at pacifying one's opponent rather than injuring them. Although his one is aimed at pacifying one's opponent who is armed with a sword. By using only your staff, or jo.
This one was pretty interesting actually, as our instructor went through the motions of attacking stone-faced-man-in-black-kit. And stone man would just knock the shinai outta the way, and usually end up with the attacker on the ground with the jo to his throat. Nice and pacifying. Except that stone man has a very strange, high-pitched squeal of a kiai which is ridiculously funny and completely inappropriate. Think Forrest Law with his balls in a vice. It was the best I could do to restrain any audible sounds of amusement. After about half a dozen kata, which are set exercises, and the only thing one does in jodo, as far as I could tell, he replaced his jo, and wandered off to the far side of the dojo.
And returned with a fuck-off sexy, sharp and glinting Japanese sword. It was time to cop an eyeful of iaido. Now iaido is a strange and mystical art. Or at least it seems that way to the observer. It is a solitary art, and this is where ol' stoney must have been rehearsing the not moving a single facial muscle thing. Because throughout this demonstration, which went for a good 20 minutes, his expression did not change at all. And iaido is also a silent art, rehearsing and replaying the 4 types of cuts which one could make with a blade as sharp as a razor. After showing us the blade, stone man resheathed the sword and began his demonstration of iaido: beginning from a kneeling position, he would first equip himself with his sheathed sword to his belt on the left-hand side, in that slow, determined way that you see old chinese dudes slicing the air with their palms in the Exhibition Gardens on a summer morning. Moving the sword from one side, the "I'm not going to attack" friendly side, the right, to the "fuck you cunt, you're dead meat" side, tying the cords to the appropriate parts of his belt, then unsheathing the sword, and making a variety of cuts—4 in each series, each accompanied by a short, sharp, high-pitched, howling kiai—some from the kneeling position, some from the standing position, all the moves you really do see in awesome flicks like Throne of Blood, before returning to the kneeling, devotional position. And then commencing a different series of the same 4 cuts, and returning to kneeling, and then repeating the elaborate, though carefully controlled ritual of resheathing and disarming the sword from his waist. It was pretty amazing to watch, I have to admit, all these slow, controlled movements, interspersed with sudden, swift cuts and cries and that whooshing sound you get from waving a blade about.
Demonstration over, off he disappeared, like the naginata ladies did. Somehow. In a not physically possible kinda way. And even our instructor commented on the stony-faced nature of the stony-faced man.
So now we had seen the entirety of the arts offered a by our dojo: kendo, naginata, iaido and jodo. The four main Japanese fighting arts involving weapons. Something I dig about the Japanese I remember reading in Jarred Diamond's history of the world in 450 pages, Germs Guns and Steel: it was that they renounced the gun. The Portuguese had sold them into Japan through their toehold in Nagasaki, and the Japs had taken them up. But then decided they were a little crass and maybe too hard to keep up or something, so they reverted to the arrow and the sword, not to mention the naginata and the jo, and shunned guns. That's foresight for ya. Or not.
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