Sound principles - sound and awareness in swordsmanship

Ichikawa Raizo playing the blind swordsman in the film
Daibosatsu Toge: Ryu no Maki. His character (who was
blinded at the end of the first film in the series) was famous
for his otonashi no kamae (lit. noiseless kamae)

The days shorten, the leaves turn red, the scent of kinmokusei fills the air and in the evening the crickets chirp mournfully. As the autumn kicks in, it is not only the sights, but the scents and sounds that make up our experience of the season. The same is true of my training in traditional martial arts.

Anyone who has spent time training in a traditional dojo, especially in Japan, will have been struck by the sound of bare feet on wooden boards, the resounding thud as a body hits the mats, or the clash of wooden weapons, part and parcel of the environment in which the training takes place and the equipment used. There are other sounds that have more specific and deeper resonances and uses, in training.

Unsurprisingly, much of the training in traditional martial arts involves training the body – not just making it stronger or more flexible, but learning to use it differently. Indeed, training is largely a process of embodying skills to the extent that the body takes on a new identity as it moves. To do this needs powers of observation and sensitivity to a whole variety of physical and mental processes, some of which may not have been noticed previously or were not thought to be important. Becoming aware of and then using these is not an easy task - they are open to misinterpretation and difficult to nail down. Developing them so that they may support functional skills requires sensory input on multiple levels.

Katsu Shintaro as Zatoichi, the most famous blind swordsman

The role of sight and touch goes without saying, but sensitivity to the quality of certain sounds can also play a role. Below are just two examples from my experience of learning to use a sword.

The sword puts particular demands on the trainee – you cannot always look to see where your sword is, and even when it is within your field of vision, it may be moving too fast to be able to adjust its movement based on visual feedback. This is especially true of a live blade, when mistakes can have immediate and dramatic consequences. Dave Lowry makes a comment in his book Autumn Lightning about his worried demeanor as a teenager – it wasn’t girlfriend troubles but worrying about how many stitches it might take to sew him up if he made a mistake sheathing his sword that occupied his mind.

An awareness of your blade is vital when wielding a sword. This includes not only the path it takes, but the angle of the blade, too. This may be obvious, but it is sometimes more easily said than done. You can’t look to see where it is or gauge its angle, and so you become more alert to other clues. Sound is part of this.

 

A bamboo thicket - a familiar location for those tasked 
with keeping a dojo in bamboo for cutting practice

One of the acid tests of sword use, for those schools that practise it, is cutting. It is not the kind of practice which you can perform slowly to make sure you get it right. The pull of the left hand must be fast, the cut must be fast, too. It is not something you can do repeatedly, either – at least not if there are a number of other people hoping to cut and the supply of cutting material – always green bamboo in my own experience –  is limited. The cut is a confirmation of your practice, or a chance to correct your technique more-or-less on the fly. Either watching others cut, or cutting yourself, the blade can move too quickly to allow accurate visual judgement. You cannot watch yourself, or even check the position of the sword for much of the technique.

The sound of the cut, of the sword going through the green bamboo (or the horrible crash of the uncut piece of bamboo hitting the floor) can give important feedback on the quality of the cut. As a rule of thumb, the quieter the cut, the better it is. A wetter sound often indicates a better cut than a dry ‘crack’. The type and quality of a sword blade can affect the sound, too – a thicker blade will sound different from a thinner blade. And some swords are just exceptionally good at cutting – they are exceptionally sharp, well-balanced and responsive to good technique. Sufficient experience, especially in a dojo with a strong cutting practice, allows students to develop a fine appreciation of the sound as they develop and refine cutting technique.

Nakadai Tatsuya (r.) playing the same character as Raizo 
in another version of Daibosatsu Toge (The Sword
of Doom). Here we see him practicing his otonashi no kamae.

Leaving cutting aside, many other aspects of sword use can be difficult enough. In drawing the sword, for example, the line the sword takes as it leaves the saya, or sheath, is vitally important. This is not something the trainee can check visually – much of the movement is taking place outside their field of vision, so it is important to develop this through ‘feel’. The sound made by the sword through this part of the movement becomes part of the experience of the movement, and is also a useful means of gauging if this aspect of the draw is correct.

A common mistake in what is one of the most fundamental draw and cut movements, yoko ichimonji, (which involves drawing the sword, then cutting horizontally from left to right), is to begin moving the sword to the right before it has fully cleared the saya. Even if this movement is slight, it will cause the sword to scrape along the inside of the saya. Concentrating on completing the draw as correctly as possible, the trainee may not feel this contact – it may also be all but impossible to see by those watching –but the sound it makes is a giveaway. In fact, the sword should leave the saya with just a whisper – the mune or ridge of the sword runs along the corresponding surface of the saya, almost soundlessly. If the sword does not run straight, that characteristic sound will not be heard.

Raizo again, this time from one of the Nemuri Kyoshiro series. This series
also highlighted the swordsman's unusual (but plausible) technique.

Watching other students, one by one, drawing their swords, what might escape the eye will not escape the ear. When it is your turn, you are well aware that the eyes and ears of the dojo are upon you – mistakes will not go unnoticed. As a student, your ear becomes attuned to the quality of sound of the draw, and this becomes a useful yardstick for judging your own technique.

The descriptions above may sound a bit mechanical, but the experience is far from that. Sound is just one of the sensations that form the technique. There is so much going on, even in simple movements, that the conscious mind is frequently overloaded. Indeed, you cannot think your way through the movements. Much of the awareness and control occurs behind the scenes. As training continues, the student becomes more familiar with the mental and physical processes the techniques depend on, as well as enlarging the range of sensory perception and increasing sensitivity to a range of stimuli as a step on the road to control and mastery of him/herself, the art and the enemy.

As alluded to at the beginning of this post, the everyday sounds of a traditional dojo also make up a part of the experience of training, and can remain deep in the memory long after they are no longer a part of everyday life. I have only to think of the Kyoto Butokuden to hear the sound of the taiko drum in my mind, even though it is more than a decade since I was last there. 

The drum at the Kyoto Butokuden (now Budo Centre).

On a similar note, but a rather more grisly one, I remember, but one of the senior members of the dojo was talking about how his grandmother used to tell him off, as a boy, for dropping his wet washcloth on the bathroom floor. She told him the sound was just like that of the heads she had heard fall under the executioner’s sword when she was a girl! When all’s said and done, it is sometimes good to remember what swords were all about. 

Sound was just one part of the highly developed awareness
of a master swordsman - here we have Raizo again.