Weapons training

                   Demonstrating an Aikiken kata with the Connecticut College martial arts club, 2009

Of all the training methods traditionally employed by martial artists, perhaps the most broadly misunderstood is the practice of weapons. Though for some fighters—particularly military and law enforcement officers—training with knives, batons,, etc. is a reasonable and necessary skillset, for those of us who do not expect to find ourselves armed with a melee weapon when the time comes to defend ourselves, skill in weaponry seems a bit more superfluous.

This becomes apparent  when one examines the weapons used in many traditional arts (e.g., Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Aikido, Kendo, Karate), all of which represent an eyebrow-raising combination of exoticism and anachronism. Students are drawn in droves to certain styles based on the flashy appeal of weapons forms and sparring, others by the weapons themselves, which they may associate with a certain culture or worldview (think of the pop-culture following of “samurai swords” and “ninja stars”, for instance). No matter how deeply devoted a fan of samurai flicks or anime one might be, a reasonable martial artist still won’t expect to have their prized katana or wakizashi handy when they’re waiting at the bus stop or walking out of 7/11 with a slushie in both hands. Likewise, one would have trouble getting on the subway with a guandao under their arm. Though a teacher of mine told me he kept a pair of nunchaku in his bookbag at all times, I believe he is an exception to the rule; training in traditional asian weapons is like training with a sword and buckler or musket and bayonet; it has no direct, practical applicability to self defense situations, if anything because no one expects to have such a weapon on their person outside the training hall.

This is not to say that traditional martial artists (including myself) are wasting their time learning forms and kata with antiquated weapons. I certainly place enough value on all types of weapons training, especially historical, as a way of connecting to the past and preserving old warrior traditions (whether these be Korean, Scottish, or Filipino), but I believe weapons training offers valuable indirect training for combative situations that one is still likely to encounter in the real world. Some of these lessons, I think, are unique and perhaps irreplaceable; martial artists who never receive any weapons training may be missing out on a core component of well-rounded fighting technique.

Above all, weapons training makes all aspects of a technique more obvious; this includes proper spacing, cadence, alignment, openings for attack and defense, and force vectors. At the basic level, it is not ambiguous what someone will be striking with, nor how far their range is with a given weapon. It is harder to make untrue or dishonest assumptions, and more apparent when one is open to being struck. Perhaps more importantly, one becomes immediately more aware if they HAVE been struck—even in the context of training weapons of a more forgiving material—and this sort of lesson is easily internalized and hard to forget. Before one has developed an intuitive grasp of the capabilities of empty hands, feet, knees, and elbows to inflict damage at a variety of ranges, the explicit, straight-forward power of a weapon like a sword, staff, or spear is a helpful and illustrative training aid. To make a crude analogy, weapons in martial arts training function like the lines in a coloring book; before a child can draw a lifelike picture of a dog, they need guidelines to make the form and overall scheme of their drawing more obvious; otherwise they will be overwhelmed by the task at hand and get lost in the minutia of say, the shape of its snout or the fur on its tail, eventually coming up with something that looks nothing like a dog. Likewise, a martial artist—especially early in their training—needs a more obvious representation of the imminent martial danger of a situation to understand the complete picture and take the appropriate attitude. Standing in front of an unarmed person, a fighter without this sensitive awareness will not recognize their vulnerabilities; standing in front of a man with a knife, one is immediately on edge and willing to respect the danger of their situation and move accordingly.

While preparing for my black belt test in Aikido, I encountered this principle first-hand. Knowing it was the biggest weak-point in my training, I spent months practicing tachi-tori (sword-attacker) techniques in preparation for the test. Tachi-tori techniques involve being attacked by an opponent wielding a sword (katana) and simultaneously evading their attack, taking them off balance, and disarming them. Proper spacing is perhaps the most important part of this training; if one is a hair too close to his opponent, a committed attacker will strike him before he can make a movement; if he is a millimeter too far, he risks having his movements read from afar and countered. Thus, there is a “sweet spot” of space (Ma-ai, or shared distance) between the partners which, though crucially important in all aspects of fighting, is conspicuously illustrated in sword work.

Week after week I found a partner to attack me with a sword while the mat was free after class. The two of us were always exhausted after a long class, and after a few minutes normally started to get lazy. My attention would grow more diffuse as the practice went on, my movements more minimal; my attacker would begin to retreat only a few steps before striking again, not returning to a safe distance. His or her attacks would become sluggish and unrealistic; either overextended or too restricted, and would lose their sincerity, while my evasions would become equally impractical.

A week before my test, I was practicing this way, exhausted from a long day at work and an evening of training, and my partner and I let our guard down while we were practicing. I evaded a sloppy sword strike, struggled for a moment with a wrist lock, and brought my partner to the ground. “Nah, nah… no way.” Came sensei’s authoritative growl from across the mat. I felt my heart leap. I was instantly embarrassed that my teacher had seen me training so irresponsibly and with such little commitment. I had been sure he had left at least 15 minutes ago, but there he stood in dress pants and shirtsleeves, blue eyes watching us with hawklike acuity. “You’re too close. He’d have nailed you.” He remarked gruffly, smacking the edge of one hand into his palm.

                “Hai, sensei!” my partner and I both yelped almost reflexively, and we tried again; my partner’s attack was more committed, and we kept a longer distance before the technique. Sensei nodded quietly and disappeared into his office. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked back to my partner with a nod of gratitude. As we repositioned ourselves to continue training, I spotted movement from sensei’s office, as he emerged with a sheathed katana. A real one. This wasn’t the wooden bokken or shinai we used for practice; walking towards us, he drew it and tossed the sheath aside, revealing a steel blade which glinted in the harsh lights of the dojo. Though I’m fairly certain the blade wasn’t fully sharpened, this made it no less daunting.

               I am certain I grew several shades paler. My partner, whose back faced sensei, looked concerned at my expression, hesitating, then turning around only to be pushed aside by my teacher, whose eyes never left me. My partner bowed and immediately retreated to the other side of the mat. I don’t remember whether the normally boisterous after-class chatter of the dojo died out immediately or in the ensuing moments, but I recall a deathly silence. Despite his wool socks and silk shirt, sensei had the same indomitable presence I had known him for since high school; he was a man of small stature about my height, yet something in his martial poise made him feel miles taller. He assumed seigan, an aggressive sword posture, and paused momentarily, his gaze unchanging. Heart pounding, I lowered myself in my stance and adjusted my position a few centimeters; the shining tip of that sword seemed uncomfortably close. Without a sound, sensei slipped toward me and the blade whistled audibly in the air, passing just by me as I evaded the cut and drew him within my own striking range. “Better.” He grunted, and shoved me back across the mat with a heavy swat of one hand, then took seigan again. Before I knew it, the blade was singing past my head again, first once, then twice, and soon in a continuous succession as we moved together across the mat, bound by an invisible line of distance; the safe space, ma-ai. Too close, and I’d have lost an ear; too far, and he’d see me coming and have all the time he needed to readjust and cut me down as I came toward him. Sensei’s attacks were real and sincere; I moved out of desperation and had not a moment to intellectualize about the situation; it was raw movement and raw learning, move or be struck.

                In a typically unceremonious fashion, sensei furrowed his brow and grunted with a bob of his head. He turned from me, retrieved the sword’s sheath and, sheathing the weapon, bowed off the mat and retreated into his office. Wide-eyed, I lay down on my back and took a few minutes to still my trembling hands while my friends began their assault of questions and friendly jokes.

                 Needless to say I have never forgotten this particular lesson. Perhaps more interesting is how I now find it applied in all aspects of my martial training; reading and exploiting my partner’s thip (front pushing kick) range in Muay Thai sparring, steering clear of an atemi (strike) in Aikido, or keeping a stranger at a safe and defensible distance walking home from the lab. Weapon’s training cuts the intellectual fuzz from the martial arts and adds a sense of urgent reality that might otherwise be missed. Even in competitive arts with ample opportunities for sparring, rules are set which can give fighters an unrealistic opportunity to be overly brazen; for example remaining within range of groin strikes, headbutts, eye gouges, foot stomps, or shin kicks. Thus, the way I see it, the practically-minded martial artist has no right to scoff at karateka toiling away with a pair of kama or a practitioner of Tai Chi learning forms with the jian, for these martial artists are learning something they may not find anywhere else.