modern in its methods of experimentation and observation; at the same time, new specializations were devised and applied to help resolve the eternally precarious problems of combat. The era of comparative peace forcefully imposed by the Tokugawa, in fact, actually made it possible for many masters of the art of combat to delve quite deeply into the mysteries and techniques of violent confrontation and to test their findings within the repressed, hence extremely virulent and explosive, reality of individual combat (large-scale battles being few and far between).
In the doctrine of the Japanese martial arts we find long lists of combat specializations. They are usually divided systematically according to the particular views of the author discussing them. Certain authors, for example, make a clear distinction between those specializations formally practiced by the Japanese warrior (bushi) and those which he despised because they were practiced by the members of other, “inferior” classes within the rigidly stratified hierarchy of the Japanese nation. Other authors divide them into armed and unarmed categories according to the predominance of mechanical or anatomical weapons as the primary instruments of combat.
In order to give the reader a panoramic view of the warrior’s specializations in the art of individual combat, we have endeavored to list in chart 1 as many as possible of the various jutsu we have discovered in the doctrine. The only attempt we have made to classify them at this time is by dividing them into two major groups—armed and unarmed—subdividing the former into three categories according to the importance and prestige traditionally assigned them within the culture of feudal Japan. We have not attempted to provide a specific translation of each name used in the Japanese doctrine to identify a particular specialization of bujutsu or one of its possible subspecial izations, since many different names may be used to identify the same basic method of combat. We have therefore deemed it advisable to leave the task of proper identification to those sections in part 2 wherein they will be examined individually. It is obvious that the Japanese nomenclature presents an initial set of problems in identifying these jutsu, since so many of the names imply or refer to concepts and functions of a rather complex and esoteric nature—to the extent of defying attempts to establish a clear identification in English without preliminary examinations of these concepts and functions.
The entire body of these specializations, the generic art of combat, is most often termed bujutsu. This word is the phonetic rendering of two Chinese ideograms,
In contemporary parlance, the Tokugawa shogunate was a particular instance of buke seiji or bumon seiji, that is, “military government.” In general, that expression meant government by soldiers, or at least by officials whose titles implied military command. It suggested the philosophic sense of a government which relied for its control on force or the threat of force. (Webb, 5)
Combined with justu, which, as indicated above, may be literally translated as “technique,” “art,” or “method,” bu is used to represent the idea of military technique or techniques (the plural being implied by the context in which it is used), military arts, or military methods. Since the military aspect of Japanese culture was almost entirely dominated by the figure of the Japanese feudal warrior (the prototype of the fighting man, known as a bushi or samurai), the term bujutsu was, and to a great extent still is, employed to denote the techniques, arts, and methods of combat developed and practiced primarily (if not exclusively) by the members of the military class. By semantic implication, then, the term bujutsu identifies the martial arts of Japan.
There were, of course, other terms employed by the doctrine of these arts in an attempt to express as clearly and as specifically as possible their nature and purposes. The word bugei, for example, is one of these—formed by the combination of the ideogram
The word bujutsu, then, is used in the Japanese doctrine of the art of combat to represent all those specializations of the general art of combat practiced by the Japanese fighting man, or professional warrior of Japan, as well as by various members of other social classes who practiced any of the individual combat arts. Bujutsu, we wish to emphasize, is particularly related to the practical, technical, and strategic aspects of these arts, as indicated by the use of the ideogram for technique. When these specializations are intended as disciplines with an end or purpose of a more educational or ethical nature, “technique” becomes “way” (do), meaning the “path” toward a spiritual rather than purely practical achievement.
The criteria used by the authors in deciding whether a specialization should be included in this study were as follows: it must have occupied a position of traditional importance in Japanese feudal culture; it must have been strategically relevant in and to individual combat; and, finally, it must have been widely known and practiced. The specializations fulfilling all three of these requirements are examined in part 2 after a preliminary study of the armor which influenced so many of the weapons and techniques used in the various arts. The order followed in presenting the various martial arts assigns a position of priority to archery, spearmanship, swordsmanship, horsemanship, and swimming in armor, since the main protagonist of Japanese history, the warrior or bushi, practiced these arts on a professional basis. The discussion of these specializations, which are termed “major martial arts,” will then be followed by an examination of other arts, termed “minor martial arts,” such as the art of the war fan and that of the staff, which were also considered traditional as well as strategically important and were quite popular with the members of various other classes of Japanese society. Finally, we will examine several specializations of the art of combat which do not fulfill all three of the criteria listed above and, therefore, are termed “collateral arts of combat.” The science of firearms (hojutsu), that of fortification (chikujojutsu), and that of field deployment (senjojutsu) are excluded from this study because they are related more specifically to the art of war—to the art of collective rather than individual combat.
All these major, minor, and collateral specializations of bujutsu are classified as armed because they were based predominantly upon the use of mechanical weapons or assortments of weapons, which distinguished them from those specializations of the art of combat in which the primary weapon was a part or parts of the human body. The unarmed specializations will be examined in part 2.
In addition to an analysis of the historical background, the discussion of each art includes a study of its characteristic factors, such as the weapons employed, the particular techniques or ways of employing them, the mental attitude adopted in order to face combat with confidence, and the
