Kentaro Tai
Nagasaki International University , Japan
Abstract
Background and Study Aim: Against the backdrop of the increasing expectations placed on budo instruction, many of the basic concepts behind the traditional Japanese martial arts are unclear. Therefore, by focusing on the early modern period, which was a time of reform in the Japanese martial arts? culture, this paper aims to clarify the process through which bugei, from the early modern period, became enmeshed in the educational qualities that are fundamentally connected to budo in the present day.
Material and Methods: In concrete terms, I use Heihosho ? a book about military tactics that can be called a text on thought, the art of war, and politics ? to consider the process through which the Bushi formed a sense of self in early modern times.
Results: The process of forming the warrior?s status through physical techniques in the early modern period, to consider the process through which the Bushi formed by: 1) The Yamaga-Ryu Heiho thought as the ideal bushi, 2) The kind of physical training in the Heiho practice, 3) The process of forming the warrior?s status through Physical Techniques.
Conclusions: In Heihosho, the Bushi?s ideal daily actions include both etiquette, derived from classic Confucian writings, and manners, derived from fighting techniques in the civil war period. Thus, the idealized images of the fighting warrior and the statesman coexisted in the early modern period. With regard to the characteristics of the fighter and the statesman, their theoretical compatibility was also required in the Bushi class. In this context, warrior training involved teaching these characteristics as the process of making (or remaking) warriors who possessed both sets of qualities. This duality was likely embodied in actual lessons focusing on bugei, or fighting techniques. The early modern bugei features seen here were the prototypes for the methods of teaching values through the martial arts, which can be found in present-day budo.
Keywords: bugei ? Yamaga-Ryu Heiho ? the warrior?s status ? Japanese martial arts
Published online: 17 September 2015
Copyright: ? 2015 the Author. Published by Archives of Budo
Author. Published by Archives of Budo
Contributor: Kantaro Tai conceived the study design, collected and analysed the data, prepared the manuscript and secured the funding
Funding: None
Conflict of interest: Author has declared that no competing interest exists
Ethical approval: Not required
Provenance and peer review: Under responsibility of HMA Congress
Corresponding author: Kantaro Tai, Faculty of Human Sociology, Nagasaki International University, 2825-7 Huis Ten Bosch-cho, Sasebo, Nagasaki 859-3298, Japan; e-mail: tai[at]niu.ac.jp
Open Access License: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license