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Today (Nov. 3) was Culture Day in Japan, as good enough an excuse for a national holiday as any. Because there is so much culture in Japan, I am annually the victim of double booking. You’ve got the all-Japan kendo tournament over here, and the Meiji Jingu Koryu whatever-kai over there. Know lots of people at both, need to go to both. And the winner is….

Meiji Jingu, a shrine in the heart of a mini-forest in the heart of Tokyo which hosts an annual demo of various koryu or traditional martial arts, some with histories/ lineages stretching back centuries, the oldest more than twice as old as the US.

I used to go and religiously videotape all the koryu for “preservation” purposes, certain that each performance I witnessed was a jewel to be treasured and, with the magic of video, saved for posterity. The number of videotapes piled up and the time to actually watch them shrank.

Today I spent more time playing with four kids than watching the demos, and didn’t do any taping, despite having taken my videocamera. It was good. An afternoon of wrestling and playing Frisbee and arbitrating disputes among four kids is also a treasure, one that cannot be captured on video.

Met friends and seniors from years back, regular acquaintances, and some surprise visitors. Even strangers have become familiar faces who demo year after year. There are enough groups involved to run two demos simultaneously, side by side. We are really spoiled, such a concentration of great martial arts action just a train ride away.

But some of the magic has worn off. Over the years I have become too aware of the political infighting and bullshit in and among many of the groups demonstrating. It has become harder to separate great technique from not-so-great personality. There is also a tendency toward insularity within some of the groups, one which prevents true appreciation of other groups.

Even so, it is still a great experience every year. And one thing never changes – they finish with a demo by one of the groups preserving the centuries-old style of firing guns. It is always a crowd favorite, with participants in age-old armor, the packing of powder, the roar of the guns – and the hundreds of giant blackbirds startled from their roosts who go circling over the park while cawing in dismay, disrupted once each year by the die-hards trying desperately to preserve a small piece of traditional Japanese culture.

(photos from yabusame exhibition, in which mounted riders fire arrows from galloping horses, also an annual crowd favorite)