MA Thesis Swords across borders Attitudes of international traditional Japanese swordsmanship practitioners towards their training swords
Leiden University MA Asian Studies: History, Arts and Culture of Asia Supervisor: Dr. M. Winkel July 2021
Lluís Diago Camps
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...... 2 Introduction ...... 3 Structure and Methodology ...... 4 About terminology used ...... 5
Chapter 1: The habitus in traditional Japanese swordsmanship ...... 7 Habitus in martial arts and combat sports ...... 7 Material agents in the development of the habitus ...... 8 Habitus changing across borders ...... 10 Objects changing across borders ...... 13 Conclusion ...... 15
Chapter 2: Training swords across borders ...... 16 Other material elements across borders ...... 16 Materiality of training swords ...... 18 Training swords as a gateway to Japanese traditional culture ...... 20 More than tools, more than objects ...... 21 Training swords as objects for mental conditioning ...... 23 Training swords as deservers of respect ...... 23 Is it all the same? Training swords as the Other or the Us ...... 26 Conclusion ...... 27
Chapter 3: Training swords: consistent agency ...... 28 The social representation of the Japanese swords: widespread narrative ...... 28 Traditional Japanese martial arts discourse ...... 29 Material immobility, material exclusivity ...... 30 Conclusion ...... 31
Conclusion ...... 33 Bibliography ...... 35
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Acknowledgements
During the writing of this thesis, I received great assistance and support from several people. First, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Margarita Winkel, whose guidance and expertise were extremely helpful for me in finding a meaningful research question and methodology to explore it. Despite there was a lot to work on, your patience and feedback were of incalculable value for me. I would like to also thank the interviewees, who answered my questions and offered me their unconditional help during the whole process of data compilation and writing. Their collaboration was crucial to develop the arguments presented and helped me to expand my insight on the topic with different approaches besides my personal experiences. I would like to thank my mother, who have checked the final version for grammar and spelling mistakes to give the thesis a cleaner English. Lastly, I want to thank Wa Rei Ryū – Omoi Rei Kai (Barcelona) and Yū Shin Ryū (Kyoto), the two traditional Japanese swordsmanship schools in which I had the pleasure to practice, and all my colleagues, masters, and other people I have met along my years involved in traditional Japanese martial arts.
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Introduction
People around the world practice traditional Japanese swordsmanship as part of their life. As a traditional form of martial arts, it explores not only physical aspects of the practice but also the mental and spiritual, encoded in Japanese tradition and philosophy. Most of its teachings revolve around training swords: along with the practitioner, they are an ever-present element in traditional Japanese swordsmanship. The practitioners learn how to move, hold, and use the swords with their body. Also, they learn how to appreciate and deal with them mentally and affectively as integral part of the practice. Through active participation, they develop a habitus1 that directs how they perceive and respond to the social world of the martial arts and to the objects involved in it. I had the privilege to practice traditional Japanese swordsmanship for more than 8 years. Most of my training time was in Barcelona (Spain), my home city where I conducted most of my years of practice. There I have met and practiced with other practitioners from other schools in Spain and other countries in Europe. In 2020, during my stay in Kyoto for 6 months, I joined another school of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. After some time there, I could feel differences in the practice compared to my experience in Barcelona. Although the general elements of were similar, I could not help myself to notice several deviations grounded in the socio-cultural and material context of each place. I had to adapt my habitus to the new circumstances to fully engage with traditional Japanese swordsmanship in Japan. Surprisingly, my relationship and attitude (both physical and mental) towards the training swords could remain unaltered. I could see also the same attitudes of my practitioner peers in Barcelona and Kyoto, and all the other people I came across. The social practice was different, but not the attitude towards the training swords. This aspect seems a constant everywhere, and it made me wonder what makes it so “sturdy” and static and if it really is unchanged.
The main research question of this thesis is: how do the attitudes of the practitioners towards the training swords differ depending on the context in which traditional Japanese swordsmanship is experienced? Followed by the sub-questions: are there significant differences between various elements involved in the training practice? What factors may produce those differences – or similarities in their absence – between the elements involved in the training practice?
The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the discussion about the role of material elements in the construction of social practices in different socio-cultural contexts. It has
1 A structure of physical and mental attitudes that shapes and is shaped by general human behavior when encountering similar practices or structures 3 been demonstrated that material elements are key in the development of the practitioner’s habitus in martial arts, but there is not a comprehensive study about how objects might be altered or not when crossing from their original socio-cultural context to another. Likewise, this paper will provide a general overview of the construction of the habitus in martial arts, what elements contribute to its creation and how the socio- cultural context affects those elements and the habitus formation.
Structure and Methodology
This paper will focus primarily on the training swords that participate in the construction of the social practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Chapter 1 will provide a theoretical frame in which I base my research. Social practices are social environments that affect the way humans perceive and act towards their elements when they are socialized in them, producing a habitus. The application of the habitus in martial arts and combat sports is a topic studied by several scholars and pioneered by Loïc Wacquant in his deployment of carnal sociology2. Habitus theories put the focus of attention on the human agent, a scope that it is not completely useful for this paper, with training swords (objects) in the center of the question. Domaneschi’s approach to the material world of martial arts and its contribution to the development of the habitus is going to be crucial to understand the social weight of training swords and other material elements and how they affect the practice. He argues that training tools and other material elements are an indispensable active element in the formation of the habitus in traditional Chinese martial art wushu kung fu. I am going to apply the same theory to the training weapons in traditional Japanese swordsmanship as subjects in the creation of its habitus. On cultural translation when diverse elements move across socio- cultural areas, I will then use Cynarski and Farrer & Whalen-Bridge to see how the conceptualization of martial arts changes across borders, especially when those practices are moved from the East to the West. To see how objects are also re-signified when they travel, I will use the work of Roth and Kopytoff. This will allow to see that social elements in martial arts and the objects that participate in it change from a context to another, and how training swords stand in this frame. Chapter 2 will be a description of the observable attitudes of the practitioners towards the swords and other material elements of traditional Japanese swordsmanship in Japan and Europe, as examples to see how they are dealt with in different contexts. Once seen how the
2 Carnal sociology is a sociological study methodology in which the investigator is participating actively in the physical activity that is the subject of the study. 4 training swords are treated arguably equally in Japan and Europe, I will provide some of the reasons that I believe that contribute to this phenomenon in Chapter 3. Those are the global representation of Japanese swords, the traditional Japanese martial arts narratives, and the materiality of the training swords.
Because I aim to examine the attitudes of traditional Japanese swordsmanship practitioners towards the training swords in different socio-cultural contexts, I will conduct the research based on my own experience and the observations I made of other participants both in Spain and Japan. To support my arguments and personal experience, I conducted interviews with other four practitioners in Japan and Europe. They are Jesús (Spain), Roberto-sensei (Switzerland), Shogo (Japan) and Kawata-sensei (Japan)3. The questionnaires were conducted following a semi-structured interview in which they were asked to share their thoughts about traditional Japanese swordsmanship, Japanese swords, and the training swords they use in the practice. Also, their relationship and attitudes towards the training swords and the martial arts. I am conscious that the reach of this sample has some limitations: first, the people included represent a total of 4 different schools, in which I participated in the practice of 2. All of them also engaged with traditional Japanese swordsmanship freely and motivated by a previous personal interest with one or several aspects of the martial arts4.
About terminology used
I will use “traditional Japanese swordsmanship” as an umbrella term that includes several martial arts in the Japanese tradition. They come in different names and practices such as kenjutsu, iaidō, iaijutsu or battōjutsu. All of them have in common that they are devoted to teaching the use of Japanese swords and lack any form of fighting competitive scheme. Non-competitiveness plays a big role in the definition and separates them from other Japanese sword martial arts like kendō, which includes a sportified system in which the goal of the practitioner is to win the match against an opponent through a regulated scoring and point system.
3 Interviewees agreed to go without a pseudonym, using their first name. I will be using the suffix sensei for those who hold the rank of master in their school as a sign of recognition to their position following the Japanese martial arts etiquette. 4 The research does not include people not interested in the practice who are obliged to engage in traditional Japanese swordsmanship as a mandatory activity, for example, as part of a mandatory course. 5
The same reason stands for “training swords”, or sometimes “training weapons” or simply “swords”. Traditional Japanese swordsmanship uses a huge variety of training implements that are highly nuanced according to their material, size, and function. If not specified, any of those words will refer to the general set of objects that are used in traditional Japanese swordsmanship as weapons for the practice.
Some words are going to be used Romanized in their original Japanese (such as kenjutsu, senpai or dōjō). To respect the terminology in their original language they will remain always the same either in singular or plural form.
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Chapter 1: The habitus in traditional Japanese swordsmanship
Introduction
This chapter will provide the theoretical frame of the formation of the habitus in traditional Japanese swordsmanship. The habitus is a sociological concept developed by several authors like Mauss, Bourdieu, and Wacquant, being the last one very influential in the deployment of the concept in martial arts and combat sports. Although the habitus focuses on the person as a social agent, the material elements play an essential part (Domaneschi, 2018) in its formation. Although, the same social practice and the habitus formed in it can be different according to the material and socio-cultural context in which the practitioners are socialized.
Habitus in martial arts and combat sports
Habitus is a sociological concept rooted in the Aristotelian concept of hexis, “entrenched state of moral character that orients our feelings and desires, and thence our conduct” (Wacquant, 2016: 65). Then, it was used as topic of discussion by other scholars along history. It is described by Mauss as the practices that are mediated by the body and transmitted culturally in a determinate social context (Mauss, 1973: 73). The concept was later developed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who described and revisited the habitus several times and produced one of the most influential scholarships of the concept. Bourdieu’s habitus is a bodily and social response to stimuli, emerging from personal experiences, habits and skills that reproduce the social structure ingrained in persons by their own socialization processes (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu, 1990; Bourdieu, 2000). Sánchez García draws the concept both from Bourdieu and Elias civilizing process to summarize the habitus as a social enabler and constrictor that is supported in both the practical sense and the affective economy (Sánchez García, 2008: 211). In its application to martial arts and combat sports, it is significant the work of Loïc Wacquant. Drawing from Bourdieu’s practice theories, he develops the concept of the “pugilistic habitus” in his book Body and Soul (Wacquant, 2004) as the set of bodily and mental skills and knowledge acquired within the social fabric and physical space the training of the boxer takes place. Wacquant describes the habitus as having three components: the cognitive (intellectual knowledge), conative (kinesthetic knowledge) and affective (personal involvement) (Wacquant, 2013: 196). The components participate in the formation and deployment of the habitus and are open to empirical study through what he described as carnal sociology, the physical and intellectual
7 engagement of the investigator in the studied social practice (Wacquant, 2013: 197; Wacquant, 2015: 5).
Critiques to Bourdieu’s habitus stay that it is determinist because it states that an individual absorbs certain social structures and then reproduces them when encountering a similar context (Jenkins, 1982: 272). However, later scholarship the habitus itself is flexible and adaptable (Williams, 2020: 7), tied to voluntary or involuntary individual experiences (Hilgers, 2009: 737) and being a “generative dynamic structure that adapts and accommodates itself to another dynamic mesolevel structure” (Lizardo, 2004: 376). Although the habitus conditions certain practices and attitudes, it is not static and can be influenced and changed by several factors from cultural to socio- economic and even personal. Its malleability is the result to its permanent revision in practice between the primary habitus, acquired during the early socialization in childhood mainly through one’s own familial social microcosmos and the secondary habitus, acquired much later in institutions of specialized pedagogical labor such as schools, social clubs, gyms, or any other social space (Wacquant, 2016: 68). The primary habitus develops mainly through archetypical and binary opposing concepts (gender, race, time, space) that are very resilient and deeply ingrained by generations of socialization while the secondary habitus develops later when the person has reached a higher level of autonomy and therefore is motivated by individual views and perspectives (Hilgers, 2009: 735-736). Primary and secondary layers of the habitus coexist and reshape each other constantly during any process of socialization experienced by a person.
The habitus in traditional Japanese swordsmanship is developed by the practitioners’ active participation in its social world, acquiring mental and physical structures of knowledge that will be repeated when encountering the social practice that will structure the social practice itself. Although the practitioner’s habitus is created and deployed by a person, this human agent does it in constant contact with different material elements that shape the experience of the martial arts.
Material agents in the development of the habitus
The already mentioned theories of habitus focus on the person’s body and socialization as the main agent to the formation and deployment of the habitus, overlooking other elements that might influence the experience of social practice. Domaneschi’s (2018) approach from Wacquant’s carnal sociology and Bourdieu’s practice theories is very significant to surpass this problem. In his study of Chinese wushu
8 kung fu in Italy through enactive ethnography, he demonstrates that the material elements of a social practice affect the formation of the habitus (Domaneschi, 2018: 10). This aligns with other practice theories that sustain that objects influence social practices when they are put in use in a determinate context, stablishing organic relationships with the users that creates distinct forms of material understanding (Heidegger, 1950; Reckwitz, 2002a; Reckwitz, 2002b). Domaneschi’s research decentralizes the question of agency in the habitus from the human agents and attributes objects and the surroundings also an active role in its formation. The participation of objects into the social and cultural world is a topic widely discussed in theories like object agency (Gell, 1998), the Actor Network Theory (Latour, 1996; Latour, 2005; Mol, 2010) or practice theories already mentioned. Domaneschi follows a similar path, introducing successfully objects into the creation of the habitus as agents capable of influencing social practice. However, he does not engage with the weight of objects in the formation of the social practice. In this sense, he adopts a similar posture to the Actor Network Theory (Latour: 2005), focusing on the relationship between the contributors that form the social practice of wushu kung fu instead on the individual elements. Once demonstrated the role of material elements in the formation of the habitus, he does not engage in how important or influential it is in comparison with the other elements. Although the similarities in their approach, he himself discards the ANT to approach the material dimension of wushu kung fu because it does not address the questions of symbolic power and subordination (Domaneschi, 2018: 4).
Traditional Japanese swordsmanship, like wushu kung fu described by Domaneschi, is a social practice in which the material elements are very present. Not only the practitioner is irremediable forced to interact with a material surroundings (space or place of practice) to conduct the training, but also with several objects that are included as an essential part of the performance. The most relevant of them are the training swords, indispensable element for traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Objects have the ability to enable or limit the human activities because it has to be deployed materially through a material world. When humans and objects cannot manage a social practice without each other, there is a codependency between both agents that produces a situation of entanglement (Hodder, 2014: 20). Beyond the material world, objects can also affect social, political, and cultural representations, acting as symbols of political power and vehicles of community as an integral part of the relationship rather than simple instruments of meaning appropriated by humans (Treantmann, 2009: 306). Traditional Japanese swordsmanship’s habitus will be defined by the interaction of the humans and the training swords, along with other non-material and material elements.
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Another issue that is not addressed by Domaneschi is the translatability of the material elements of the social practice when they cross cultural and social contexts. Because his study is conducted in a wushu kung fu gym in Genoa (Italy), he observed and experienced only the training objects and material space in a single socio-cultural context. He proves the material elements influence in the formation of the practitioner’s habitus, but is this influence the same across different contexts? Wushu kung fu is a traditional martial art that originated in China and now is practiced in many other countries, including Italy where it was brought somehow. Does the contribution of the material elements of wushu kung fu vary from place to place, producing different habitus in the practitioners depending on where they conduct the practice?
My approach to the topic is through traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Although it is a practice that originated in Japan, nowadays it has practitioners all over the world who engage with the martial arts and training swords in a regular basis. In what ways do the social elements of the practitioner’s habitus change from Japan to any other places? Do the physical agents that influence the habitus change in the same way when moved from their original context to another?
Habitus changing across borders
The habitus is developed through the exposure and assimilation of social structures and individual experiences. Because it takes into account the social, political, cultural, and environmental circumstances of each person, it is obvious that it varies from person to person. Without getting lost in extremely specific individual circumstances, groups of people with similar contexts reproduce the same social structures when exposed to similar but unforeseen situations. People from different contexts will react (deploy their own habitus) differently to the same situation because they reproduce the different social structures they experienced in their environment. Asian martial arts, in which traditional Japanese swordsmanship is included, are no exception. It is important also to be conscious of the own evolutive process of the martials arts within the original cultural boundaries. Apart from the evolution when it travels from a context to the other, traditional Japanese swordsmanship has evolved through time adopting different perspectives and forms according to the socio-cultural needs of each period. From its early stages as forms of pure combat created for war (Friday & Seki: 1997: 7), traditional Japanese swordsmanship undertook a civilization
10 process5 until the form of martial arts that one can experience nowadays (Bennet: 2012; Bennet, 2015), with its own cultural translations and readaptations from its previous forms.
The expansion of Japanese martial arts through the world was motivated by a combination of “pushing forces” (the desire and mechanisms to internationalize Japanese martial arts in their place of origin) and “pulling forces” (the desire and mechanism of receiving countries to welcome new practices), boosted mainly by the desire of reproduction of Otherness and the cultural demands of the importing countries (Lachina, 2018: 1524). Despite being possible to agglutinate all the current traditional Japanese swordsmanship practitioners in the world under the same practice, they are not immune to their own socio-cultural context, being the primary layer of socialization, the deepest and most influential one acquired during childhood (Hilgers, 2009: 735). When people are taught and experience Japanese martial arts in university courses, students from Western or Eastern countries show to have slightly different needs in understanding and assimilating some of the concepts presented to them (Nagy, 2015: 100). A significant amount of scholarship has been produced treating topics of cultural translation and adaptability of Asian martial arts, especially when they cross from their original contexts in the East to the West (Farrer & Whalen-Bridge, 2011). Recurrent topics in discussing the cultural translation of social practices from the East to the West are Orientalism, exotification, mystification, contact with the Other and commercialization. Early scholars like Eugen Herrigel, Inazo Nitobe and later Donn Draeger emphasized the importance of Zen, bushido and other philosophical aspect of the martial arts during the 19th century and beyond, aligning their discourse into Orientalist narratives that stressed the cultural particularities with exotic and spiritual tints (Benesch, 2016; Grivas, 2016). The cultural adaptation of Eastern martial arts in the West responds to the needs of the sport culture in each territory, and it is encompassed also through the social representations existing previously (Cynarski & Sieber & Litwinuk, 2005: 17). Eastern martial arts in the West also entail discussions around cultural exchange, translation, and appropriation along the ones of globalization and commercialization (Kong, 2016: 180).
To determine in which degree practitioners of traditional Japanese swordsmanship experience the practice through the lenses of Orientalism, or if they participate in cultural appropriation or exchange is far from the scope of this paper. What it is interesting is that different conceptualizations and attitudes towards a social
5 As described by the German sociologist Norbert Elias in: Elias, Norbert. (1982). The civilizing process. New York: Pantheon Books.
11 practice conditioned by where it is performed will generate differences in both places, therefore the social practice will be inherently different as so the habitus developed by the practitioners that are socialized in it. The context in which the martial arts are experienced influences the development of the practitioners’ habitus because they will be exposed to different social structures than they will assimilate and repeat elsewhere when encountering similar situations. To illustrate this, I will provide here the example of the social structure in the dōjō (space of practice) and how I experienced it both in Japan and Spain. The physical space of practice influences in the civilizing process of martial arts and its negotiation of violence between the practitioners and the practice (Sánchez García, 2013: 161), being also a place of encounter between the specific set of material objects and spaces and the set of habitus that can be imbued to them (Domaneschi, 2010: 5). Besides its material delimitation of the practice, a dōjō is also a symbolic space with specific codified social and cultural structures that makes it different from a boxing gym, a yoga class or wushu kung fu’s kwoon described by Domaneschi.
In both dōjō I regularly practiced, the social structure sensei (master) > senpai (experienced practitioner) > kōhai (novice practitioner) was an important part of the habitus and the practice. Although the senpai and kōhai are technically in the same rank (pupils), there is a clear social dynamic that situates the senpai above in the social hierarchy. The senpai assist the sensei in the task of teaching all the elements of the social practice to the kōhai, who is more unexperienced and does not formed the habitus completely. In return, the kōhai must follow diligently the guidance of the senpai and obey the directions. The kōhai also is in charge to minor tasks such as cleaning or arranging and disposing diverse elements in the dōjō, such as the cutting stands, cutting mats or weapon racks if needed. Above all there is the sensei, the maximum figure of authority who holds a special rank and must direct the training for everybody else, ensuring the that the practice is conducted correctly.
In Japan, this social scheme was followed rigidly and the personal relationships between the several members were much more cordial and adjusted to the expectations of obedience. Conversations with the sensei were always using formal language, also to senpai, especially the that were significantly older. The kōhai rushed to perform any of the given preparatory tasks even there was not explicit orders for them to do them. This social structure is repeated across almost every other social context in Japan apart from martial arts (school clubs, workplace, sports teams…).
In Spain, on the other side, I could experience the same system but in a more relaxed fashion. Even the ground principles of teaching and following guidance were kept, the personal relationship among the members was more friendly and less strict,
12 with room for playfulness and informal joking. The arranging and clean-up tasks were distributed more equally among the members also, especially when there were not new kōhai for long time. Interestingly, the same principles I described before were taught to me when I started practicing there in the same way that they would be taught in Japan, but everybody had a much harder time to follow them. Sporadically, when the weapon racks had to be transported and arranged from the storage to the place of practice, somebody said “the kōhai have to do this!” after weeks of shared responsibility, so the kōhai took again the chore. After this eventual correction of the dōjō social structure, at some point the chore starts to be shared again until the next callout. In comparison to Japan, in Spain this social structure is exclusive to Japanese martial arts (or maybe another Japanese cultural activity). They are less attentive to it because it is not an integral part of their process of socialization, and this produces a different habitus than the Japanese practitioners. Even the cognitive component (the knowledge of the existence of the social structure and your obligation to follow it) exists like in Japan, the conative and affective elements are not shared with the Japanese practitioners, resulting in a deviation of the practitioner’s habitus towards the same stimulus caused by socio-cultural differences of each countries.
Not only I could observe the differences in both contexts in Japan and Spain. As an active participant of traditional Japanese swordsmanship in Spain and then in Japan, I had to be careful with my attitude in the new context. Besides I joined the dōjō in Japan with several years of experience and exceeding by far grand part of the practitioners there, I adopted the attitude of a newcomer unexperienced kōhai to signal my humility and will to be integrated as a full member of the dōjō. Because I was used to speak Japanese to my friends in an informal way, I had to make extra efforts to sound cordial and use formal language. Also, imitating my kōhai peers, I showed myself always available and disposed to do minor tasks when necessary. I had to consciously restrain the habitus I developed in Spain to not be rude and break the social norms of my new place of practice until I readapted it to the current conditions of the social practice.
Objects changing across borders
Previous research on objects across borders and cultures show that regardless their material characteristics can remain unchanged its symbolic meaning, value and use can differ greatly when they are moved from Asia to other contexts. Japanese kimono reached the Netherlands in the 17th century, imported by the VOC as a luxury item for upper classes and powerful personalities with contacts in the mercantile company.
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While in Japan they were dresses as a full-piece, in the Netherlands they were mainly used as a robe to wear on top of the regular clothing; furthermore, it became soon a symbol for academics and scholars, who substituted their tabbaards (large robe) for japon (Japanese clothing) and other Asian-style robes (Hollander, 2011: 189-190). Porcelain is another good example as a commodity that circulated during centuries from Asia to the world. Chinese porcelain, despite it kept its material characteristics almost unchanged along history and when traveling, lost all its functional aspect as tableware to be re-signified completely as a piece of art in Europe (Finlay, 2010: 7), while in the Swahili Coast become an item deeply associated with Islamic cosmopolitanism and mercantile mobility since the first contact, they had with Asian porcelain was through the Islamic kingdoms and Muslim merchants (Meier, 2015: 704). Even in the contemporary global capitalist society, the adoption of culturally alien objects – and alien ideas – are commonly culturally redefined when put in use (Kopytoff, 1986: 67), producing significant differences in the cognitive and performative approach to the same object depending on the place.
The resignification of objects is done when they cross cultural boundaries happens because objects are perceived, treated, and used culturally. Along with the practical skills and techniques to use the objects correctly, individuals acquire social knowledge about their meanings, value, attributes and the social behavior and attitude they have to profess towards them: “The knowledge about things, about their “proper” use and the “proper” attitude towards them is culturally transmitted” (Roth, 2001: 567). In traditional Japanese swordsmanship, several objects that are part of the social practice are perceived as culturally Japanese, such as clothing and apparel and the training swords. As it could be seen with the dōjō social structure, those culturally codified objects might be experienced and treated different when they are move from their original context. The result will the creation a difference in the social practice and therefore a different practitioner’s habitus. Despite there are significant evidences that prove cultural resignification of objects when they are displaced from their original context to a different one, I could not find any significant difference in the way practitioners deal with the training sword between Japan and Spain. My personal experience in both contexts plus my observation of other practitioners there made me notice differences in several elements of the social practice and their habitus, but the training swords appear to be a constant that travelled unaltered from a place to another. In the next chapter, I will be exposing the similarities I observed and experienced in this regard.
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Conclusion
The practitioner’s habitus in traditional Japanese swordsmanship is created by the conjunction of personal, social, and material elements. Those elements change when they are moved across socio-cultural contexts: from their original place to a new social environment, they are re-signified and acquire new meanings and are experienced differently.
Training swords as an integral part of traditional Japanese swordsmanship might also suffer the effects of socio-cultural translation when they cross borders, but I would argue from my experience and research that they are quite resistant to it.
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Chapter 2: Training swords across borders
Introduction
Practitioners interact physically, cognitively, and affectively with training swords as an integral part of the traditional Japanese swordsmanship social practice. This happens regardless the socio-cultural context in which the social practice is performed. This chapter will describe significant characteristics of the swords and attitudes of the practitioners that I could observe in Japan and Spain after examining briefly other material elements for comparison. My personal observations will be supported also by the interviews conducted to other practitioners from Japan and Europe. This will allow to determine what similarities and differences has the practitioner’s habitus in its dealing with the training swords in two different contexts.
Other material elements across borders
Obviously training swords are not the only material components that define the social practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Those other elements influence also in the development of the practitioner’s habitus, that varies according to the characteristics.
One of those elements is the space of practice. In traditional Japanese swordsmanship – as in other Japanese martial arts – it is called dōjō. Both in Japan and Spain, we trained in a room that was not exclusive for the practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship but used during the day for different activities. During our time of practice, the room “becomes” a dōjō for the practitioners, a symbolical space mediated by a physical one. Both in Spain and Japan there were some rules that must be attended: one has to remove the shoes to step on the practice ground, and when leaving and entering, it is necessary also to bow to the inside of the space as sign of respect. When arriving late for some reason, one cannot just come in disturbing the regular flow of the class, but the person must wait for the permission from the sensei to enter the space and start practicing. Besides the attitudes in the dōjō were similar in my time of practice, one significant difference was the physical space of practice. In Spain, we have wooden floor that allow the feet to slide gently (specially wearing socks) and enables moving without stepping; in Japan it was nearly impossible to move that way because the floor were big stone tiles. In Japan, the ceiling was lower, thing that had a great effect in my practice. Because I am quite tall, any high stance and frontal swing
16 made with the sword in a “normal” position will result in crashing my sword to the ceiling, damaging or even breaking it along with some fluorescent lamps that lighted the room. I had to adapt all my performance to those conditions, lowering my center of gravity by a fair amount and learning how long I could stretch my arms up and how circular my frontal swings had to be to not cause disaster. It took me several training sessions to get a bit used to the situation, but in the end, I could not train long enough there to acquire full space awareness and integrate it to my habitus so I could stop actively thinking about it all the time.
My habitus acquired in Spain had to be modified when encountering the social practice in the Japanese context. Although the cognitive and affective elements of the habitus towards the dōjō remained unaltered, the material element totally messed it up, forcing me to change my practice consciously to accommodate it to the new conditions. Although there is a change in the habitus, it cannot be attributed to the different socio- cultural context: different rooms within Spain or Japan would affect the practice in similar ways, or it would not be affected if the dōjō are exactly equal. I will introduce another material example that besides it keeps its materiality intact it produced a different kind of habitus: the hakama.
Hakama is part of the traditional training clothes set (keikogi 6 ). Wearing traditional clothing is technically not required to train from a material point of view. On some occasions, when there was a person who wanted to try a class, they could train with regular clothes or sport clothes. For regular members of the dōjō both in Spain and Japan, it was required for the practice. Practitioners have to wear it correctly and be careful to not have stains or a lot and very noticeable creases, to keep a good image and do not show sloppiness. There are general guidelines like those ones to treat and deal with the objects, but unlike the training swords, there is no special or codified attention professed to the hakama or other clothing. People change their clothes before the training, practice, and change back to their regular clothes before leaving.
In Japan, the new practitioners buy the set and wear the hakama from the first day, being just part of the indumenta required to practice the martial arts. In Spain, the system to acquire a hakama and its meaning are different. Newcomers do not start to train with hakama, but with zubon (pants). After some time has passed and they have acquired the basics of practice, a special training session is held. In this session, the newcomer must prove the basic skills and knowledge acquired in front of the others. Even there is a component of skill check, it is not an exam at all: you cannot fail it, there
6 Composed normally by a uwagi (jacket), obi (sash) and hakama (skirt-alike pants) in traditional Japanese swordsmanship. 17 is no standardized periodization (it depends on every person and it is decided by the sensei and the rest of the senpai) and all the group participates in the training. At the end, the group holds a small ceremony and the kōhai receives a diploma and the right to wear a hakama. If it was purchased in advance, the kōhai tries to wear it with the assistance of any of the senpai, who teaches the way of wearing it. In this case the hakama is a material component of a rite of passage, that reinforces the inclusion the pertinence of the new member in the group and validates the knowledge and skills acquired in the discipline. Despite the materiality of the hakama is the same in Japan than in Spain (ignoring differences in size or color) and it is worn the same way, the Spanish practitioner experiences the object differently at a cognitive and affective level, which makes a different habitus.
Other material conditioners of the traditional Japanese swordsmanship change from context to context. This can be grounded on the physical entanglement of the practitioners with the material elements around them of because their attitude and perception of them is different, regardless they are the same object. Regardless of the reason, the habitus developed in a context or another is different, and practitioners will have to change and adapt it when they move from a practice context to another.
Materiality of training swords
Multiple training swords are used in traditional Japanese swordsmanship, including differences of sizes, weights, materials, and forms of production and construction. The material variety in the training swords enable and restrain certain practices (Hodder, 2014). Each type of training sword is used for its most idoneal performance, and the performance takes form fitting the material characteristics of the sword. It is demonstrated that the physical characteristics of the objects used in training have an indispensable effect on the development of the habitus in martial arts (Domaneschi, 2018). Even small variations in the material characteristics of a training sword can have an impact in the performance of martial arts. Shogo comments how his second sword, that is about 10cm longer than the previous one, helped him to improve his overall performance because a longer blade was more balanced with his long arms. As result, his techniques done with the longer blade were more visually pleasant and more balanced with his body size. Although specific cases affect the individual practice, practitioners agglutinate the training swords in broader groups according to more general material characteristics that go from material to size and way of use. Learning the different typologies, their name and what they are used for is included in the
18 teaching of traditional Japanese swordsmanship and an experienced practitioner is expected to manage this knowledge both mentally and physically. It is not rare that practitioners interact with several of the types of swords in their practice, as I could confirm by my own experience in different dōjō and with the interviewed practitioners. Talking simply about “sword” can lead to confusion if there is no context to determine which training sword it is being referred to. I will comment here two of the most common used training swords to illustrate how different types of training swords condition certain practices: the bokken and iaitō.
Bokken is a wooden sword used commonly in kenjutsu. While keeping the overall length of a real Japanese sword, it is thicker and generally lighter than a metal sword. It is used for paired drills (kumitachi), a system of guided sparring with hard blade on blade contact and blows directed to the body without any protections. Even you are supposed to control the blow before impacting your partner, in case of mistake it does not inflict that much damage compared to a metal blade. It functions as a safer, cheaper replacement for techniques that involve swinging the blade towards and opponent or sword clashing (parry, block…). This last one is possible to do with great speed and strength because the thick bokken can stand a lot of impact and stress before breaking – for instance, I have been using one for more than 7 years in a regular 3 hours a week training). In case of break, it is cheap to be replaced by a new one.
Iaitō is a metal sword used for iaidō. It looks exactly like a real Japanese sword, but the blade, unsharpened, is made with a metal alloy instead of high-carbon steel. Iaitō is used for solo drills (kata) that are practiced through constant repetition without any partner. Blade to blade or blade to body contact is not present in this form of traditional Japanese swordsmanship: even if you want you use it to practice sparring with protections ensuring safety for the practitioners, the blade is not resistant enough to stand constant clashing with hard objects. Because the martial art using it includes the constant unsheathing and sheathing during the practice, the dull edge adds security for the users who can cut themselves easily, especially if they are not experienced.
The type of sword affects the habitus of the practitioner deeply, who has to learn how to adapt the body (conative), mind (cognitive) and spirit (affective) to performing techniques that are impossible to do within the body boundaries of the practitioner and need the assistance of a material object (Domaneschi, 2018: 9). This is referred as channeling practice, where the practitioner’s habitus is formed within the material limits of the objects of practice to give out the most of their potential. Each type of training sword requires the practitioners to adapt their performances to its material characteristics of the object, producing then different habitus than other martial arts and combat sports, armed or unarmed.
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In the traditional Japanese swordsmanship, the same kind of training swords are used everywhere regardless of the cultural or social context. This is of course operating in general terms and without getting in too much detail about particular specificities of each training sword. Ignoring variations on length, weight or type of wood used in a bokken, practitioners can identify it as such and adapt their practice to the requirements of the object. The same happens with iaitō, or any other type of training sword. In the same manner, when the practitioner is requested to do a certain activity within the traditional Japanese swordsmanship context, the optimal object will be selected to do so. The materiality of the training swords travels across contexts unaltered because the same type of objects is used both in Japan and Europe, and probably elsewhere. Because both use the same material objects, the practitioners can move from a context to the other without having to change their habitus in their interaction with the training swords beyond the singular specifications of each sword. When I started training in Japan after training for years in Spain, I had to adapt my habitus to the new environment (see examples in the former chapter), but I did not have to do any change in how I dealt or used the different type of training swords.
Material consistency across borders might help to keep the attitudes of the practitioners towards the training swords unchanged, but it is not the only reason. It could be seen before when discussing the porcelain (Finlay, 2010; Meier, 2015) or the Japanese clothing used in traditional Japanese swordsmanship that although the materiality of the objects does not vary, its use, signification and symbolic value can be completely different. Cognitive and affective elements contribute also to the resilience of the attitude of the practitioners towards the training swords.
Training swords as a gateway to Japanese traditional culture
Training swords are viewed as objects that represent Japanese culture, more precisely, traditional culture. Therefore, it can be used as a point of contact to experience, learn and teach about it. Besides Kawata-sensei, whose family background made him to be immersed in traditional Japanese culture and swords in his primary socialization, all the practitioners including myself started practicing with the training weapons to get in contact with different aspects of Japanese traditional culture. Each of us made the conscious decision to choose traditional Japanese swordsmanship, discarding other Japanese forms of martial arts, also the ones from European or other traditions. In the case of Jesús, he precisely chose traditional Japanese swordsmanship rejecting other Japanese martial arts he did in Spain. He had bad experiences there
20 because he felt they were quite disconnected from their original Japanese perspective and approach. Shogo chose training with swords to get in contact with knowledge about samurai and their history since he was working in the Samurai Restaurant in Kyoto and often was inquired about katana and other topics from foreign tourist that he welcomed there.
Everybody mentions that their knowledge about Japanese cultural and historical topics increased the longer they were involved in traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Information about the training weapons such as their history, evolution, nomenclature of their different parts and different weapons are taught along the techniques to use them. Along with that, they learned other aspects of Japanese history and traditional culture such as Japanese martial arts history and evolution, philosophy, ancient warfare, and Japanese folklore. Most forms of the knowledge described can be acquired independently, but in the social practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship the added material element of the training swords mediates between them and the practitioners. Practitioners gain this knowledge along the practice because they use training swords.
All practitioners interviewed had a previous interest in learning about all those topics, but they chose training swords as a point of contact with them instead of other cultural or physical activities. Even if there is no previous intention to learn about those topics, it is impossible to avoid it because it is an integral part of the traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Both practicing in Japan and Spain, teachings about Japanese history and culture beyond the training swords were incorporated regularly in the classes as context or valuable information. I could experience this both in Spain and Japan indeed. Training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship are objects that represent Japanese tradition and act as nexus between it and the practitioners.
More than tools, more than objects
In traditional Japanese swordsmanship, the practitioners generally provide their own weapons of training. Practitioners acquire swords based on personal economic, aesthetical, and functional preferences. The practitioners create affective bonds with their personal training swords. Training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship are seen by the practitioners as more than mere utilitarian tools to perform a physical activity and there is a significant appreciation and personification of the objects.
Kawata-sensei comments that “swords are not simple objects […] They are your most important partner and a part of oneself”. Jesús treats his training sword as a
21 sentient being, capable of feel and be affected by emotions. When he is nervous or angry, he refuses to practice in this state because he is afraid to transmit those feelings to the sword. He says that this will negatively affect his training and relationship with the training weapon. Shogo describes his swords as “buddies”, also as “your soulmate or partner”, someone you end up getting used to each other because you spend a lot of time with. Roberto-sensei mentions the importance of the training swords to be “personal”. He comments this about the time his sensei officiated a sword bonding ceremony involving him and his iaitō:
“it was symbolic but is the bonding of the sword to its owner, and again, something might say that it means nothing, but for me at least it means something. So, I’m way more reluctant to after that to let other people touch my sword. There is this idea of personal bond with the sword”.
The practitioners form an affective bond with the training swords that affects how they are perceived and handled, forming the three elements in the habitus. Practice context takes a big role: the constant and repeated use of the object helps to form the bond, and it is different from your own swords to the ones that belong to other people. When I started practicing in Japan, I did not have a sword of my own because I left mine in Barcelona, so for some time I borrowed one from my sensei. Even I am always careful when using training swords, in this case I had to increase my precautions and space awareness to not inflict any damage to the given swords that are not mine. Because my habitus was treating my swords as an extension of myself, having in hands something that was not only from another person but from my maximum superior in that social context made me take a very safeguarding position. Any damage I made to the sword will be an affront to my sensei and the trust he placed on me. This extra fear disappeared when I got my own sword later and I could resume the practice with my own sword again.
The same attitude could be observed both in Japan and Spain and was also confirmed by the interviewed practitioners. The affective qualities of the bond of the practitioners with their swords (or the swords of others) is manifested also cognitively and physically. As described before, one tends to be more careful when handling and using training swords, especially when are belonging to another person; you might even refuse for other people to use your own swords. Moreover, perceiving the swords as body or soul parts of one’s own, or as partners or buddies, re-signifies them completely and move them from the realm of “thingness” to the realm of “human-ness”.
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Training swords as objects for mental conditioning
The repeated use of training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship leads to an improvement of the physical and kinesthetic aptitudes of the body. This is no different than any other physical activity or sport. Training traditional Japanese swordsmanship increases coordination, strength, reflexes, balance and body and respiration control among other benefits, making it a quite complete physical conditioning activity. Although those benefits are unquestionable, practitioners tend to highlight not the physical but the mental conditioning they experience when they deal with the swords.
Jesús talks about “emotional health” given by the practice. When he holds his bokken, all the emotions and thoughts – the negative and the positive – disappear and he stands (mentally) alone with his sword. The state of mind he describes resembles the concept mu or mushin (nothingness) of the Zen Buddhism (Kasulis, 1981), adapted from Chinese Taoism and used also in other traditional Japanese martial arts such as kyūdō as a philosophical and kinesthetic principle that urges the practitioner to stop thinking about the course of action and simply act (Bar-On Cohen, 2013: 146). Through the sword, Jesús reaches a state of absolute freedom during the practice. Shogo talks about the practice as a form of meditation. When he is practicing with his sword, he takes the opportunity to reflect on his goals and aspirations, his attitudes towards life and the challenges he must face. He mentions that before starting training, he did not have a way to calm down and reflect on himself, so it affected very positively in his life and the more he trained the more important the practice and swords became to him. Kawata- sensei mentions that through the practice with the sword one elevates the own consciousness and self-awareness. Roberto-sensei talks about that apart from the physical benefits of traditional Japanese swordsmanship, it is the pursue of self- improvement and unreachable self-perfection what motivates him to keep practicing and what helped him to develop as a person.
Training swords as deservers of respect
Respect towards the training swords is something mentioned by every practitioner interviewed as something that is very important and must be present always, even outside the practice context. Because training swords are objects representative of Japanese tradition and displaced from “things” to “humans” cognitively and affectively, they must receive a special treatment. The habitus of the
23 practitioners in dealing with the sword is deeply influenced by this conceptualization and makes them adopt also physical practices beyond the cognitive and affective. Training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship are handled in a scheme of encoded ritual practices that have partly esoteric and partly practical reasons (Lowry, 2006: 33).
There are several rules that I either could observe in both contexts or were mentioned by the interviewed practitioners themselves when they were asked what attitude they profess towards their swords and how do they treat them. Both Roberto- sensei and Shogo mentioned that one should never walk over a sword that is laying on the ground, because it is considered disrespectful towards the object. Before and after every training session, a small ceremony is conducted to pay respects to the grandmasters, the participants in the training session, the kami and the training swords. In those ceremonies, you bow several times as a sign of gratitude, including a bow to the sword you are about to use or have been used already. While giving or receiving a sword, one must also bow to the weapon and the other practitioner, especially when receiving it from a practitioner that holds a higher rank. One bows also when taking or leaving the sword in a weapon rack. Another custom is that when wearing a sword tied to the obi on your left side, you must be careful to not clash it with another practitioner because it is considered very disrespectful, as if you bump your shoulder when crossing paths with a stranger in the street. My sensei in Japan told me that in ancient times this would result into a duel to death and that is the reason why in Japan the circulation direction is on the left instead of on the right like in the USA.
Shogo notices that the big difference between iaidō (the form of traditional Japanese swordsmanship he practices) and other types of martial arts is their attitudes to the weapons of training. He mentions that the respect and attitude you profess to the training swords in iaidō is a distinctive characteristic of the martial art. He has practiced kyūdō (traditional Japanese archery) before traditional Japanese swordsmanship, and he mentions that despite the bow is considered a sacred item in this martial art, you do not bow to it all the time as you do with swords. He mentions also that other martial arts using training swords, like aikidō (uses bokken) do not bow to the sword all the time also: it is more a mere “tool of training” there. Interestingly, Shogo, who does not use bokken in his practice, does not consider the latter worthy of the respect he has for iaitō. On the other side, Jesús, Roberto-sensei, Kawata-sensei, and myself, who use bokken in our practice, perform the actions of respect towards the bokken as the same to any other training sword. Active practice with a training sword is what generates the cognitive and affective response towards the object, bonding the respect to the material interaction with the sword instead of just being a theoretical
24 approach. This habitus is deployed also materially and not only cognitively and affectively towards the training swords. Respect is highly involved in the traditional Japanese swordsmanship social practice: you must respect your partners, your masters, and Japanese traditions, and equally or even more important, you have also to respect the training swords.
Apart from all the attentions and bowings you must perform to the training swords, those are handles more carefully and consciously than a mundane tool or any other object in traditional Japanese swordsmanship. The immediate benefit of the respect towards the training swords is object preservation: handling the training swords with extra care means that you must be especially sensitive to your environment and then accidents or unintended actions that could damage or break the sword are less common. This also makes the practitioners to pay special attention to the care and maintenance of their own swords, to try to preserve them as good as possible. Care and maintenance, as well as discard and substitution practices, are also important elements in how humans interact with objects. Those practices are constraint to cultural and social values and other criteria like economic value, accessibility, available resources, and human expertise (Gregson, Metcalfe, Crewe: 2009). In traditional Japanese swordsmanship, learning how to take care an maintain the training swords is part of the teaching of the martial arts and it is integrated in the practitioners’ habitus. Each training swords is taken care differently according to its material characteristics. For wooden swords, nothing is done at all besides smoothing the surface with sandpaper when there are splinters protruding to ensure that you or your partner do not get stung. Metal blades must be oiled regularly to avoid rusty metal and to make them slide smoothly in and out the scabbard. Time after time, the sword has to be unmounted and readjusted if the construction is loosened. The training swords must be in the material conditions that ensure a safety practice for the owner and the other practitioners, and at the same time, be in a state that does not show sloppiness or uncaring attitude of the practitioner towards the sword. Beyond practical issues, the habitus of care and maintenance reflects also affective qualities encompassed in the personal bond and respect towards the training swords: other objects like the clothing were not receiving the same degree of consciousness and attentions by all the practitioners. Using again the hakama as an example, there is a folding pattern that are supposed to be done by the practitioners to keep the pleats in the pattern unaltered after taking off and store it. I was instructed by my sensei in Barcelona that the pleats represent concepts related to samurai and Japanese philosophy and therefore practitioners must keep them in good shape 7 .
7 On the meanings of the hakama pleats in Japanese martial arts, see: http://www.pinner- aikido.com/en/aikido/articles/hakama-pleats-meaning-1726 25
Although there are cultural considerations also in the maintenance of the hakama, this was followed both in Japan and Spain by some practitioners but not by others. On the other side, care and maintenance practices for the swords were conducted religiously by all the practitioners observed.
I could observe the same attitudes and material interactions with the training swords both in Japan and Europe. Practitioners in both contexts form their habitus towards the training swords following those principles that are repeated in their social performance in the cognitive, conative, and affective levels. Breaking any of the rules mentioned before is considered faulty because it entails some kind of disrespect towards the swords and the social practice itself, including the rest of practitioners and to Japanese tradition. The principle of keeping respect as something quasi-sacred is not exclusive of the training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship but a general rule that applies to every aspect of any Japanese martial art. This is something taught regardless of the place you train, but its deployment is not always the same. To keep with the previously mentioned examples, it is taught also to the practitioners that they must treat also with respect their training clothes and apparel, but as I could observe, what it is considered an acceptable level of respect is very loose and in the end this rule is not checked with much care. Practitioners are taught also to respect their peers, superiors and master following the scheme sensei - senpai - kōhai, but I could experience that the concept of what is considered respectful or disrespectful varies between Japan and Spain. In contrast, the training swords are taught to be respected, and the respect professed towards them is meticulously observed and performed equally regardless of the place of practice.
Is it all the same? Training swords as the Other or the Us
Largely speaking, the observable habitus contribution of the training swords is the same in both Europe and Japan. Although, there is an aspect of the habitus that it is not perceivable by just looking at the performative practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship’s practitioners: the cognitive approach to the swords as part of your own culture or as part of a foreign culture.
It was mentioned before that training swords can be used as gateways to get in contact with the Japanese traditional culture, history, and other related topics. All the practitioners interviewed had and have interest in approaching Japanese culture, but Europeans do it so as approaching to a foreign culture whereas Japanese are experiencing their own one. Dōjō in the West are socio-cultural spaces for the contact
26 with the Other, including the material elements of the practice (Kong, 2016: 179). Western practitioners deal with the sword cognitively as a culturally-foreign object because they recognize it as a Japanese cultural item. Japanese practitioners would never hold this position: as Shogo comments, for him traditional Japanese swordsmanship and swords are a way to learn about his own culture.
This situation clearly exemplifies the distinction of the primary and secondary layers of the habitus (Hilgers, 2009; Wacquant, 2016). While the secondary habitus regarding the training swords can be developed and deployed participating in the social practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship equally in Japan or Europe, it cannot surpass the primary habitus binary construction of race or national identity, leading the ones socialized as a European or Western person experience the swords as a foreign item (Other) but the ones socialized as Japanese to experience the swords as their own (Us). At the same time, the secondary habitus allows the practitioners perform the same ritualized handling and care of the objects based on the same principles (respect, body- soul part) and experience the object in the same way (physical and mental conditioning) regardless of their primary habitus. Regardless the cognitive dissonance in perceiving the training swords as an Us-object or Other-object motivated by the earliest socialization, the observable attitude towards the swords is the same and indistinguishable at plain sight.
Conclusion
Training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship are experienced, perceived and handled almost in the same way by practitioners both in Europe and Japan. The cognitive and affective elements reinforce the position of the sword as more than a mere object-tool: as a personified entity bonded with the practitioner, deserver of respect and representative element of Japanese traditional culture and. This is combined with the conative, the physical manifestation of this perception and attitude towards the training swords through a series of encoded rules and performances destined to perpetuate this social conduct. Although there is a cognitive difference in the way swords are perceived, from a performative and most of the intellectual point of view practitioners deal with the swords in the same fashion.
As it could be seen in the last chapter with other elements of the social practice, there are material elements that also change across contexts and construct a different habitus.
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Chapter 3: Training swords: consistent agency
Introduction
After exposing the attitudes that the practitioners of traditional Japanese swordsmanship from two different contexts have towards the training swords, it could be observed that the practitioner’s habitus in dealing with the objects is very similar. The same does not happen with other material or non-material elements exposed.
In this chapter, I am going to propose some reasons that help the training swords to move from contexts without having their agency altered, participating equally in the creation of the practitioner’s habitus regardless of the socio-cultural context in which the practice takes place.
The social representation of the Japanese swords: widespread narrative
Training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship are designed to imitate and act as substitutes of the Japanese sword (commonly known as katana). The Japanese sword is a material object that has a big social representation and cultural signification in its country of origin but also internationally. Images of the Japanese sword populate cinema, television, videogames, novels, comic books, and other massively consumed cultural goods and popular media all over the world.
Films include Japanese swords as an important narrative element along with other topics of samurai culture and history8. Also, there are documentaries that talk about Japanese swords, from its traditional techniques of production to the characteristics, use and history9. On printed media, many different books are devoted to several topics about the Japanese sword (Yumoto, 1958; Kapp & Kapp & Yoshino, 1987; Turnbull, 2010). The list of pieces of popular culture or literature that include the Japanese sword as a relevant item while presenting topics about Japanese traditional culture, history or samurai is significantly larger, both in Japan and overseas. Regardless of the media, historical information about the Japanese sword is mixed with folklore and myth in most productions, and then it is received by people around the world with no previous contact (both physical and intellectual) with the Japanese swords or the
8 For example: Kobayashi, Harakiri (1962); Zwick, The Last Samurai (2003); Tarantino, Kill Bill: Vol 1 (2003); Kitano, Zatoichi (2013). 9 Takeda, The secret world of the Japanese Swordsmith (1997); Wate, Secrets of the Samurai Sword (2007). 28 training swords of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Especially in the contemporary globalized society, popular culture reaches and shapes perceptions of people around the world, being Japanese topics and culture not an exception (Allen & Sakamoto, 2006; McKevitt, 2017). The popular culture elaborates a certain type of discourse that stresses the mystique and the myth (the symbolical) aspect of the objects, that is later reinforced by more exclusive narratives related to the training swords like Japanese traditional martial arts and traditional Japanese swordsmanship.
Various of the cognitive and affective perception discussed in the previous chapter, like the sword as part of one’s body or soul or the respectful reverence towards the object, are not only present in the development practitioners’ habitus but also in the global imaginary, acquired through popular culture consumed across the globe and affecting our perception of the swords even before getting in direct contact with them.
Traditional Japanese martial arts discourse
The current Japanese martial arts discourse influences also the way the training swords are perceived in the context of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. It was mentioned in the first section the civilization process to adapt the practice to the socio- cultural requirements of the moment (Bennet, 2012; Bennet, 2015). Contemporary traditional martial arts10 are conceptualized in self-cultivation, self-perfectioning and introspective practices mixing ability and spirituality (Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2014: 464), stressing connection with religion and incorporating elements from several Asian schools of thought (Brown & Jennings & Molle, 2009; Cysnarski, 2018: 193-196). Traditional Japanese swordsmanship manuals tend to include different aspects apart from techniques and sequences of movements and actions, contributing again to form and habitus that includes knowledge from topics that are not directly intertwined with the physical and mechanical performance of the martial arts and the use of Japanese swords. This goes from the history of the weapons or the martial arts, samurai culture, Japanese traditional etiquette and costumes and spiritual concerns. A list of topics that can be found in most of the manuals or books about traditional Japanese swordsmanship (Evans, 2010; Hatsumi, 2005; Nemeroff, 2008; Obata, 1986; Tanaka, 2003). Being an integral part of traditional Japanese swordsmanship, there is the general conception that martial arts teachers must balance the instruction of both technical and spiritual aspects of their system (Roach, 2010: 164).
10 Martial arts that claim to come from ancient times and lack a sportified competition system. 29
There are strong pulses that promote immobility and continuity of the rules in the social practice across time and space. Traditional forms of martial arts adopt a more conservative position and stress ancient cultural values to distinguish themselves to other forms of martial arts that have been sportified and more reduced to the physical practice in a competitive scene (Cynarski & Sieber & Litwinuk, 2005: 17; Moening & Kim, 2018: 1532). Compared to other martial arts with standardized competition systems that might seek and focus on effectiveness to achieve success and rank position, traditional martials arts try to preserve existing physical, mental, and spiritual approaches to the martial arts and their involved elements.
Important concerns about the deviation from the original forms and a strong cultural and spiritual discourse promote a standardized attitude towards the training swords everywhere, as well as the rigid rules to deal with the objects physically. How to perceive and deal with the training swords is one of the most important elements in the practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship and it is taught by sensei and senpai to the kōhai with great stress on its inviolability. All of this is imported from Japan to other territories as Europe and discarding them might put in question the authenticity of the practice.
Material immobility, material exclusivity
It was mentioned in the last chapter how the material characteristics of the training swords are equal across context in a general way. Here is important to state that I am talking about significant aesthetic, material, and functional changes, not variations between pieces that would distinguish an object of a group from another object of the same group. All the training swords I had in Spain are made in Spain. When I moved from Spain to Japan, I did not bring any of my training swords with me, so I had to first borrow somebody else’s and then get my own ones. Those swords were made in Japan. Although they were from entirely different places in the world, they are undistinguishable of each other. My physical performance with the new sword – in words of Domaneschi, my ability to be a channeling vessel for the sword – was not altered when meeting a “new” object in the different context. On the contrary, it was a very familiar element for me in this new social sphere training new people in a language that is not my native tongue and a different country. The unchanging materiality of the training swords helped me to adapt to the new social context faster and easier, because my the three cognitive, conative, and affective elements of my habitus acquired in Spain towards the training swords could be deployed without any change in Japan. When a
30 practitioner encounters any training sword used in traditional Japanese swordsmanship elsewhere, the training sword will be identified as such because its material characteristics, and the practitioner can act towards it accordingly. The attitudes and ways of handling the training swords will not vary from context to context and therefore there is no need to readjust the habitus in this sense.
The attitude of the practitioners towards the swords, although conceived theoretically taking the cognitive and affective elements, is experienced and ultimately materially deployed. It is not only that the practitioners feel the sword as their companion; they treat it as such and with much more care than other material elements that are present in the practice. It is not only that the believe that the swords deserve respect; they bow to them, engage with them within ritualized practices and do not perform actions that are considered taboo. Those practices can be experienced sensorially and imitated later, adding a material dimension to the learning and communication process.
Furthermore, training swords (and swords in general) are not occupying a place in the public sphere anymore. People do not carry swords around and they are not items used in a daily context. Although they can be purchased by anybody, their lack of functionality makes it an object that is rare to have in possession, even rarer to put in active use somehow. The only social context where a person can engage actively with training swords through consistent methods of practice – be socialized with training swords – is traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Although it is not necessary to have an active engagement with the training swords to have some knowledge about them, traditional Japanese swordsmanship is one of the only social contexts in which a person can develop a relationship of use and practice in a controlled and socially accepted environment. It can be said that everybody who has had training swords as part of the socialization process has acquired it through traditional Japanese swordsmanship.
Conclusion
Training swords hold a different position compared to other social elements (material or non-material) in traditional Japanese swordsmanship because they travel across socio-cultural borders mostly unaltered. They can do that because of a combination of characteristics that are exclusive to the swords: the enormous social representation spread around the world through popular culture, the narratives of traditional Japanese martial arts, their unchanging material characteristics and their exclusive practice use in traditional Japanese swordsmanship.
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This implies that despite the social practice of traditional Japanese swordsmanship and the habitus developed by their participants is different depending on the socio-cultural context, the training swords are a constant in both Japan and Europe.
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Conclusion
The development of the habitus in martial arts and combat sports has been a topic of discussion that had increased popularity in the past years among scholars from different disciplines and perspectives. First, the focus was exclusively on the human agent (Wacquant, 2004; Farrer & Whalen-Bridge, 2011; Sánchez García & Spencer, 2013) until the more recent inclusion of the material world as an integral part of its formation (Domaneschi, 2018). Practitioners of traditional Japanese swordsmanship develop their habitus through their interaction with the physical space of practice and objects such as clothing, apparel, and the training swords, being the latter one in a preeminent position compared to the others. Training swords are handled and taken care with much more considerations than other material elements. Also, the observable attitude of the practitioners towards the swords is the same regardless of the socio-cultural context in which the practice is experienced. The unchanging attitude towards the swords contradicts previous scholarship that states that material objects change when they cross socio-cultural borders (Kopytoff, 1986; Roth, 2001), being re-signified in the receiving culture and acquiring new forms of use and symbology. Other material elements of traditional Japanese swordsmanship examined such as the hakama change significantly comparing the practice in Japan and Spain, being also treated different than swords overall in both places. In the same fashion, the experience of other non-material elements that contribute to the formation of the habitus differs noticeably from their place of origin to another socio-cultural context, as in the case of the dōjō’s social structure.
My own experience, plus the interviews conducted to the participants in which they shared their views and perspectives about the martial arts and their weapons, confirmed that training swords stand in a peculiar position in the formation of the practitioner’s habitus of traditional Japanese swordsmanship. Except for a single cognitive dissonance that makes practitioners perceive the training swords as an Us- object or Other-object, the cognitive, conative, and affective approach and attitude towards the swords remains largely unaltered from a place to another. The forementioned difference seems unsolvable because it is deeply rooted in the binary social concept of ethnic/cultural self-identity – part of the primary habitus – (Hilgers, 2009; Wacquant, 2016.
Overall, this difference does not transcend to the observable attitudes towards the training swords acquired in their socialization within traditional Japanese swordsmanship anywhere (secondary habitus). They deal with the swords materially through the same ritualized ways of handling and caring and mentally as personified
33 objects that deserve respect and are gateways to traditional Japanese culture. This is motivated by the conjunction of the unchanging material characteristics of the training swords, the strong and internationally widespread narrative around Japanese swords and the traditional Japanese martial arts narratives, that focus more on the mental and spiritual part of the practice than the physical performance. Other material and non- material elements of traditional Japanese swordsmanship examined fail to meet one or several of those characteristics, therefore they follow the normal tendency and are easily changed and adapted to the socio-cultural milieu in which the martial arts are performed.
Ultimately, training swords are only a single of several agents that participate in the formation of the habitus of traditional Japanese swordsmanship so the social practice itself is overall different in Japan and Europe regardless of the swords’ unchanging material conditions and attitudes of the practitioners. This confirms that Asian martial arts are culturally adapted when moved to the West or other territories (Cynarski & Sieber & Litwinuk, 2005). After Domaneschi successfully included the material elements in the formation of the habitus in martial arts, it could be seen here that those elements can be also included as objects of study in discussions about socio- cultural re-signification across borders. This fact recognizes them again as active and dynamic subjects-agents in the formation of the habitus. In the case of training swords in traditional Japanese swordsmanship, it could be seen that despite the general trend of objects and the attitudes of their users towards them to be modified and re-signified according to the given cultural background, there are some material agents that are more resistant to changes than others if certain circumstances are met.
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