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.
