What is missing from kobudo.

[HanshiClayton]

I attended a traditional kobudo seminar yesterday. Kobudo experts often show a depth of combat sophistication that traditional karate teachers usually lack. I find the mindset refreshing.

However, Japanese teachers of Okinawan kobudo have a gaping blind spot in their world view. In their lessons, they pretend that the Okinawan peasants were fighting one another. For instance, one learns kama techniques against a bo-wielding adversary. This situation was vanishingly uncommon in the historical period.

The Okinawans were enslaved by Satsuma samurai, who ran Okinawa as a huge sugarcane plantation for two and a half centuries. The slave vs. slave-owner image is a good fit here, especially the dominating prejudice that the slaves are contemptible livestock who can be slaughtered at will. The samurai in Okinawa were armed with swords, but history shows they were not particularly skilled with them. A couple of centuries of chopping defenseless peasants does not breed an elite cast of warriors. Quite the opposite. Slave-owners are not warriors.

So to present Okinawan kobudo in an accurate light, the lessons would show non-Japanese peasants defending themselves against wanton rape and murder by samurai. Worse, the lessons would portray the samurai being defeated and killed by their sub-human slaves. Japan has a long history of rewriting history to eliminate images like these.

There is no way that a traditional Japanese martial artist could present samurai to his students in this context. Japanese students think they are keeping the noble tradition of the samurai alive. For that reason, kobudo must be presented as two peasants using makeshift weapons against one another. It is a cultural imperative to do so.

But when you get back to your dojo, get out the bokken and see if you can slice your way into a better appreciation of history.