weapons

How do you treat your weapons?

Had a long and wonderful talk the other day, rambling all over the place, hitting old themes and exploring new ground. I need more talks like that.

One of the many topics was the treatment of weapons. We can see a very clear difference between Japanese and Chinese thoughts on this matter. In a Chinese training hall, it is common to see someone using their foot to roll and scoop a staff or spear from the ground up into their hand.

Handling a weapon like that could well get you thrown out of the typical Japanese martial arts training hall or dojo. I come from a pretty strict background, where you drop to one knee before putting down / picking up a weapon, where people kneel in the not entirely comfortable seiza position even while folding their uniform or putting away protective equipment / armor.

So it often shocks me to see weapons lying all over the floor of a training space, sometimes getting stepped over (oh shudder in horror – such an offense would bring Great Unpleasantness in most Japanese dojo), and so on.

I tend to be in the middle somewhere. I think some Japanese training halls place a bit too much emphasis on formality, outward form, and the like. And I also think some Chinese training halls would benefit greatly from more respect toward weapons and a bit more formality in general.

Well, I’m a kind of formal guy to start with, and my formative years were spent in Japanese training halls, so that’s my bias. And in this country, swords were forged with the guidance and blessing of the deities, so it is natural for the depth of that tradition to be carried on into the modern day.

These days, I do it the Japanese way when in a Japanese dojo, and I do it… not the Chinese way, but less formally… when in a Chinese training hall.

But wherever I am, I try to be very aware of my weapons, where they are, and how they are handled. One thing that drives me crazy is seeing Japanese martial artists – after the full range of bows and talk about etiquette and all that – walk through train stations and get on trains with no apparent awareness of people around them, bumping into people with their bags of armor, turning suddenly while holding long weapons at an angle, and so on.