Baka Gaijin

Hi Piers, I think our host is "sampling" from Tom Cruise..... (ref: Timothy Spall - Voice Over) Cheers Malcolm

Morning all Here's something serious from the Budokan Check out from 3.14, one of their old spears broke during the embu, though they do not show the moment, it clearly shows the position of breakage. And here's a bit of entertainment on a Sunday...... And,,,,,,, (The voices, they made me do it....... ) Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, Concerning Eric. K's observation re the relative size of mekugi in Yari v Katana. Here's another of my Screwball Theories..... I reckon it's all to do with dynamics of motion & Newtonian Physics. The Sword travels in mostly forward arcs which encourage the blade to exit the Tsuka, thus a large mekugi (or two) is necessary to hold the blade back. The Yari however involves itself mainly in thrusting movements which encourage the blade to move back into the shaft. QED Cheers Malcolm

Morning all Here's an interesting link: http://www.bowdoin.edu/mongol-scrolls/ Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, A word of caution regarding some items found in 19th Century sourced collections. Years ago in one of the major rooms in London, a screen came up for sale which was literally bristling with every sort of arcane Japanese polearm blade imaginable plus a few more; to top it it was flanked with a host of tsuba. Great find, greater estimate or its worth, even greater potential for the commission; until it was discovered that they were all half side castings. Can we ascribe some of the items we encounter outside of the repositories as artistic "caprices" being hastily constructed for western dealers hungry for the ever more exotic? Just a thought Cheers Malcolm

Good morning Eric, It's looks like a Kamon called Migi Futatsu Choji Tomoe http://www.tozandoshop.com/v/vspfiles/k ... ant11.html Cheers Malcolm

Morning all, Here's a link to the Nihonto making episode of the 1974 BBC TV series "Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2988346810 While we're on the subject of early BBC TV series showing Nihonto making "Way of the Warrior" with Yoshindo Yoshihara: Cheers Malcolm

Good morning Ian & Ford, This may be of interest as the source for Gekko & I believe Utagawa Kuniyoshi's earlier rendition of the scene: http://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_037.html If you scroll down you have the entire play in English and Japanese. Here's the Kuniyoshi version: http://www.vandaimages.com/results.asp? ... width=1280 Cheers Malcolm

You can be sure of that John. Cheers Malcolm

Thank you John. I am beginning to suspect that my source being second generation U.K. Citizen, may have used a colloquial term simply to mean original divination book. As you say: Cho - Book and Ji - Divination. I'll investigate more at my end. Once again NMB does what it says on the packet Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, We have similar events in the U.K., mostly in the urban areas of our larger cities, we call them Knife Amnesties.... :lol: Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, Thank you for your kind offer John, however the Ba Gua reference is not related to a martial art, the book in question apparently relates to many of the core concepts such as Li & Qi which were used by early 19th Century Swordsmiths such as Sushinshi Masahide and Yamaura Saneo. Over the last two years I been working on a palimpsest project for myself in which I have had Yamaura Saneo's "Oi no Nezame" (Wakeful Nights of the Aged) 山浦真雄　「老いの寝覚め」 translated from its Edo period Japanese into Meiji period Japanese then into modern Japanese and now into English. The terms Li & Qi are mentioned by Yamaura Saneo (then Masao), in a part of the narrative in relation to an occasion when he and Kiyomaro could not make metal melt and form correctly to "waku" or "tsumi-wakashi" as he writes. Back to the book I require information about, my reference is in a conversation with a second generation Hong Kong Chinese British citizen, who had heard that many of the core principles used by later Japanese writers were contained in this text "JO - II or CHO - YI, and variations"..apparently. Like Saikontan I guess. As I realise this is news to most people on the Forum, I will release the translation to NMB when I am satisfied with it. Cheers Malcolm

Good afternoon all, I'm trying to source a book on the origin of Chinese systems such as Ba Gua called JO - II OR CHO YI. Can anyone help? Cheers Malcolm

Morning all, Screwball theory time: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.." (To quote L.P. Hartley) Perhaps we should also analyse who said what to whom and why in the original Aikido Journal article. On my reading, it's not solely about tameshigiri and spirituality but more one man's attempt to bridge the Sensei / Montei gap in the passing on of an oral tradition from a member of one culture and generation to a member of another culture and generation. There's a dialogue between Robert Mitchum (Kilmer) & Herb Edelman (Wheat) from Sidney Pollack's 1974 movie "The Yakuza" which is pertinent: Kilmer: "Everywhere I look, I can't recognise a thing..." Wheat: "Farmers watch T.V. on their tatami mats and you can't see Fuji for the smog, but don't be fooled, this is Japan, and they're still Japanese." It's the nature of evolution that things get lost along the way, just in the same way as English language as a poetic form of narrative expression developed from say Chaucer to Kerouac (both wrote potential Road Movie scripts really); no different in the dissemination of a Ryuha I suggest. Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, Screwball theory part 2. Here's an ethnographic Sabot to throw into the gears.... As a human grouping evolves, does it evolve with a primal urge to thrust straight at a quarry as evidenced in the indigenous peoples of Australia and Southern Africa, where spear-like weapons occur in advance of slashing weapons. Thus, does it suggest that the evolution into slashing weapons relates to the rate which the technology evolves in tandem with the society? (Access to primitive metallurgy and blacksmithing techniques etc) Passing down the non metallurgical path, does this final evolution as shown in the indigenous peoples of the Pacific rim where conflict was largely ritualised and resolved by symbolic battles involving staffs of authority or one champion against another champion interaction and resolution in order to preclude a mass conflict. Back to Japan now and what is the evidence of thrusting weapons in the Haniwa figures of the Kofun era? Already the metallurgic die has been cast, so to speak. Did the realisation of the futility of continued conflict only manifest itself in the supremacy of the Tokugawa Bakufu? Cheers Malcolm

Good morning all, Ian wrote: "Yes I know about kikuchi yari but look at the paintings of battles and just about the only staff weapon you see is the naginata. " Here's a screwball theory:- In the Western tradition, all Art was religious prior to Dirk Bouts "Money Lenders" in the mid 1400's, the secular world existed, but convention was that it was not depicted. Further if we draw (no pun) our attention to the theories of perspective prior to the Renaissance, lesser characters in the narrative were drawn much smaller, even though they were on the same plane as the greater characters. In the Islamic tradition, certainly from the 7th Century, typically though not entirely, the depiction of the human figure was forbidden. Thus what we know of Islamic culture as evidenced in its Art and Artifacts is either geometric or calligraphic. Now if we turn our attention to Japan, the later Heian period (Fujiwara) and its Art, Kyoto nobility developed a society devoted to elegant aesthetic pursuits. So secure and beautiful was their world that they could not conceive of Paradise as being much different. Thus the Art depicted ideals which became conventions, the Naginata was an elite weapon, a spear was not. Heroes were the subject matter, the lower orders were irrelevant and thus not depicted in Art until much later. Cheers Malcolm

Morning all: Here's how most kitchen knives are made: Don't try this at home Cheers Malcolm

Evening all, I'm leaning towards something Toledo made. http://www.swordsfromspain.com/Tanto_s/73.htm Cheers Malcolm

Afternoon all, Eric, here's some more chained weaponry, this time from Araki Ryu, note the shorter chain in the Kusarigama sequence: Cheers Malcolm

Morning all, Eric, the chain in the second picture seems too short for practical use, see following examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm9FI5ppsyM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-PbiJu4 ... re=related Here's an example of Jutte/Jitte & Tessen in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu38CVCQoQg&NR=1 Cheers Malcolm

Hi Beakner, It's called Samegawa - nuri. Sometimes whole sheets of same, sometimes offcuts and single nodules are fixed to the Saya. Urushi laquer (in this case Black) is applied in several coats and then the whole is smoothed down to reveal the finish, a coating of clear urushi usually finishes the process. The skin is likely to be one of the Rhinobatos family: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinobatos This old catalogue may also help: http://www.archive.org/stream/catalogue ... 3/mode/2up Cheers Malcolm

Good morning all, To add to Moriyama san's observation. If we look at the lines that radiate from the centre to the edge, each one has a one sided bump. The slight curl reminded me of a proboscis. I'll take Moriyama san's observation a step further and suggest Macroglossum Stellatarum - The Japanese Hummingbird Hawkmoth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroglossum_stellatarum Cheers Malcolm

Morning all, The general term for these is Gogatsu Ningyo. http://www.kyoto-shimazu.com/en/History ... Dolls.html Cheers Malcolm

Hi Keith, Once again NMB broadens the knowledge base. Cheers Malcolm

Hi Keith, It seems Pre Edo was even more ill defined regarding who could wear a sword. Prior to the sword hunt called by Oda Nobunaga towards the end of the 16th century, civilians were free to carry swords for defense or simply for decoration. Nobunaga sought an end to this, and ordered the seizure of swords and a variety of other weapons from civilians, in particular the Ikkō-ikki peasant-monk leagues which sought to overthrow samurai rule. Cheers Malcolm