Meditation

Photo by Kukhahn Yoga

I occasionally get asked how one goes about meditating, so I thought I’d write it down in case it’s useful for someone. First, understand that there’s no “correct” way to meditate. There are lots of approaches, and more than one possible goal that you might be trying to achieve. The style of meditation that I was taught is oriented towards mokuso, or clearing one’s mind before practice, but it works equally well when used as zazen, seated meditation for the purpose of calming, centering, and expanding the mind.

Before I get into details, I have to make a disclaimer. They say “the zen that can be spoken is not zen”, and it’s true. What that means is that a lot of this stuff is not amenable to verbal description – it’s hard to put a state of mind into words. I’ll do my best, but if it occasionally sounds like gibberish, I apologize.

The technique, as I was taught, is to sit in a centered position (more on that in a bit). Just that, and nothing more. That’s a whole hell of a lot harder than it sounds, however. You’re not sitting and thinking, not sitting and breathing (consciously), not trying to adjust your position so your back doesn’t hurt, and most specifically not worrying about whether you’re doing it correctly.

If you just try this, you won’t get very far. So, instead, there’s a series of steps you can go through in order to work up to “just sitting”. The idea is to give your mind something to focus on so that you don’t have to try to quiet it entirely. You can really use anything, but the classic technique is to concentrate on your breathing. The easy way to focus your mind on your breathing is to count breaths. Since you don’t want to “go anywhere” with this, you’re going to count one to ten and then start over. At first, you count both inhales and exhales, so (in) 1, (out) 2, (in) 3…

Eventually, as your mind quiets, you can try counting just the exhales. This is harder, because the numbers are farther apart, so there’s more time for your mind to wander off and do something else. Note that “eventually” here might mean months – this stuff takes time, and there’s no way to rush it. When the counting starts feeling like a distraction, stop, and just let your mind “hover”. Done correctly, it feels like you’re the still point in the middle of everything.

Inevitably, thoughts will arise in your mind. Don’t fight them, because this just makes you cling all the harder. You can get rid of the thoughts this way, but you can’t get rid of the thought “I shouldn’t be thinking”. Just let the thoughts drift away on their own. Pay attention to where they’re coming from, and where they’re going, but don’t try to hold on to them. See what I meant earlier about gibberish? It will make sense when it makes sense, and until then it won’t. Don’t worry about it.

Some technical details: first, the sitting position. The important thing is that your breathing is unimpeded. The classical position is the lotus, but most people (most definitely including me) aren’t flexible enough to reach that position. I personally sit in seiza to do my meditation, but since I find that I get distracted when my feet fall asleep, I put a buckwheat cushion under my butt to keep my weight off my ankles. They still fall asleep, but it takes longer. The “tailor-style” cross-legged position can work if you’re flexible enough that you don’t have to work to keep your back straight. Another option is the Burmese position – see http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php for nice images (and also another set of instructions that might complement these). Finally, it’s possible to meditate in a chair, but it’s difficult to find a chair that won’t compress your diaphragm and hinder your breathing.

Most people will tell you to close your eyes while meditating. I was taught to meditate with my eyes open, and I find that it helps a great deal, especially for martial artists. The idea is that if you close your eyes, you tend to focus inward, and that’s not what we’re trying to achieve. As a martial artist, my goal is to be able to get to a state where I’m effortlessly aware of everything around me, and can spontaneously react (from my training) appropriately. That requires that I focus outwards, which in turn means my eyes must be open. Also, and more practically, there’s much less chance of falling asleep if you keep your eyes open.

Hopefully this will be of use to someone. If you want to practice meditation seriously, I strongly recommend that you find a teacher. There are many “false paths” that one can follow, and it’s possible to waste a lot of time working on something that won’t actually get you any farther down the Way. Good luck!

Coming soon…why to meditate.

The Elements

Photo by Dskley

Musashi names the sections of his book after the Greek elements of earth, air, fire, and water, plus a fifth which he names “void”. He clearly has meanings in mind based on the techniques he describes in each section, but he never directly explains what he means by these elements. I’ve given this some thought, and I find that it’s a useful framework for describing combat strategies, so I thought I’d lay out my understanding of the elements here.

First, “earth”. Earth is solid, stable, unchanging. An “earth” strategy establishes a position and holds it. It advances slowly but steadily, and does not allow itself to be diverted or balked. In terms of combat, an “earth” fighter relies on powerful structure, good root, and linear attacks. He uses interception and deflection to defend himself, but does not allow his movement to be dictated by events – instead, from his strong center, he forces his opponent to adapt to his own motion. An “earth” fighter will tend to counter-striking, strong blocks, and powerful body strikes. This style is normally taught first, because it is conceptually simple and requires the least subtlety of the elements, though there is certainly plenty of room for subtlety in its execution.

Second is “water”. Water flows, adapts, is never still. It resists, but yields. A “water” fighter moves a great deal, usually off-line, but always with forward intent. He rarely uses blocks – instead, he will redirect the opponent’s power and move into the space. Any suki (gaps) are immediately occupied, and the opponent finds himself unable to relieve the pressure being applied. “Water” fighters tend towards deflections, infighting, and grappling. This style, done properly, is one of the most difficult for an opponent to deal with, since it prevents the opponent from exerting his own power while still applying continuous offensive pressure.

The third element is “fire”. Fire burns – it cannot be touched without harm. It grows and spreads, and is difficult to contain or control. A “fire” fighter focuses on offense, and forms his defense from it. He will use stop-hits and interruptions in timing, and will frequently move off-line, but always attacks. The opponent finds that any movement is instantly countered with an attack, and escape is impossible.

The last of the Greek elements is “air”. Air is ethereal, intangible, invisible. An “air” fighter evades, retreats, and circles. Footwork is central – the primary goal is to establish a position from which he can strike safely and surely. Infighting is very rare; most combat is done at extreme range, and most strikes are aimed at the hands or even the weapon. Only when the opponent is helpless, out of position, off-balance, does the “air” fighter move in for the kill. Perception and control of the opponent’s intent and attention is key.

To the standard four elements, Musashi adds a fifth, “void”. His description of “void” is opaque, even for him (from the Victor Harris translation):

What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in man’s knowledge. Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void.

My understanding of this is that “void” is the absence of attachment, in the Zen sense. By releasing attachment to any of the four elements, one can flow from one to another freely, as conditions demand. Starting with “earth”, one might become “air” momentarily to evade an attack and establish a superior position, move to “water” to counter the opponent’s reaction, then attack with “fire”. The elements become aspects of a larger strategy, rather than strategies in and of themselves.

In this way, the fighter can be unpredictable and adaptive, instantly adopting the ideal solution for any situation. This is obviously an unattainable ideal, but it serves as a polestar to guide us along the Way. Using the elements as milestones, one can gauge one’s progress towards the void.

One cut

by .Mitch

There’s a famous quote from Musashi Miyamoto’s Book of Five Rings:

You can win with certainity with the spirit of “one cut”. It is difficult to attain this if you do not learn strategy well. If you train well in this Way, strategy will come from your heart and you will be able to win at will. You must train diligently.

So, the question is, what does that mean? What is “one cut”? I asked my Sensei, and he gave me his interpretation, which I now give to you, filtered through my understanding (which is to say, any errors are mine and not his!)

“One cut” means continuity of intent, continuity of action. You don’t stop your intent in the middle of a cut. You don’t change your mind, decide to do something else. You cut; if the circumstances change, you do something else, but the cut occurred. The spirit of “one cut” means treating all your actions as if they were a single cut, with no breaks in intent. Your intent flows smoothly from one action into the next, with no suki (gaps or disconnections). There’s never a point where you can be interrupted, rerouted, distracted.

According to Sensei, “one cut” doesn’t refer to a particular sequence of motions. It doesn’t refer to a single opponent, or a single fight. Your “one cut” starts when you wake up in the morning, and doesn’t end until you go to sleep. In this way, your entire life flows smoothly; if a fight should occur, it’s just part of the flow, to be dealt with in the same intent as any other obstacle.

I’m not accomplished enough to say that I truly understand this. However, it seems to be related to the Zen concept of spontaneity; if you can truly avoid attachment, then all your actions will flow directly from your immediate context, and therefore will always be correct for their circumstances. Errors arise from incorrect perceptions, “illusions” – if you always see what you’re looking at, you’ll never delude yourself into seeing something else, so your actions will always suit the situation. This is what Musashi refers to when he says “strategy will come from your heart.” (Disclaimer: my grasp of Zen is rudimentary – if that sounds like gibberish, more so than Zen normally does, it probably is.)

“One cut” is, indeed, a formidable strategy, and one that is “difficult to attain”. The only mechanism I know of to achieve it is consistent training with focus, and meditation. Proper focus is almost impossible to maintain in a class setting, since you’re always having to stop what you’re doing to follow the sensei’s instructions, which makes solitary practice even more necessary. One more New Year’s resolution for you…and for me.

The “Oh God, I suck” moment

by .Mitch

Everybody’s experienced this. The moment where you say, “oh God, I really suck at this”. Maybe you’ve just screwed up some technique that you’ve done perfectly a thousand times, or some newbie has just kicked your ass in a “light spar”. Maybe you’re working on something new, and you just can’t get your head around it. The thing you have to realize, though, is that more often than not, this moment is a good thing!

OK, yes, sometimes maybe you really do suck at whatever it is. But even assuming that’s true, do you think that you didn’t suck at it yesterday, or last week? Have your skills suddenly  taken a severe decline? Probably not. What’s happened is that your standards have gone up. Yesterday, you were just as lousy, but you didn’t know it. You felt good about yourself. Today, you don’t, and that’s what’s going to help you improve. You can’t get better if you can’t tell what you’re doing wrong, and if you think you’re doing well, obviously you can’t see what you’re doing wrong (and trust me, you’re definitely doing something wrong!) As soon as you realize just how bad you truly are, suddenly you have the opportunity to get better.

If you just get discouraged and go work on something else, you’ve thrown away a golden chance. By doing that, you’ve just moved from the thing that you can improve in, to something where you still can’t see where the problems are, which is to say something that isn’t going to get better with work. Seek out those “I suck” moments, and treasure them! They’re the best thing that can happen to you.

Breaking flow, and how to avoid it

I’ve recently gone back to something that I used to do quite a bit: fencing. I stopped fencing when I started to get serious about practicing kenjutsu, around 2001, because it felt “fake” to me. Of course, from a combat perspective, it is fake, as is every other competitive form where you’re not trying to really injure your opponent. That said, like other forms of sparring, there’s plenty to be learned from fencing, so I’ve gone back to it to see what I can glean that will improve my skills.

The first thing that I learned is that in a “combat” situation, even a fake one where there’s no real chance of harm or even significant pain, I still tense up far too much. Not nearly as much as I used to, but still too much, and it slows my responses. OK, time for more training…what else is new?

More significantly, though, I found a “break” in my flow. In a combat situation, flow is the ability to move from one technique to the next with no gaps, what the Japanese would call suki. A suki might be an actual hesitation, or, more subtly, it might be a break in intent, where for an instant your mind is no longer focused on the situation and your responses to it. In that moment, your opponent can do something unexpected (such as attack), and you will be unable to respond.

The suki that I found in my technique is a fairly large and obvious one (the subtle ones are, for the moment, beyond my ability to perceive in a combat situation). A person’s mind can be in one of two states – reactive, or proactive. These map approximately to defense and offense, but in practice it’s not quite so clear-cut. When you’re being reactive, that means you’re just waiting to see what happens. You’re not initiating an action, and in this way you’ve yielded the initiative to your opponent. This is a problem, because it gives a sufficiently-skilled opponent the opportunity to control you – if you’re only going to react to what they do, then they get to choose the action, and thereby the reaction. For example, if they strike at your head, you’re likely to parry high, and they know that, so they can anticipate your action and take advantage of it.

When you’re being proactive, you may in fact still not be initiating an action, but you’re intending to, and that makes all the difference. I’ve talked about intent before, and it’s the essential element in maintaining flow. Without consistent intent, it is impossible to move smoothly from one technique to the next, because you literally have to stop and think, “what am I going to do now?”

So, finally, what’s wrong with my technique? What I’ve discovered is that when I’m attacked with force, my mind goes reactive for a second, which is to say that I lose my intent. What that means is that I can’t immediately respond to the attack, so if the attacker’s intent is solid, they can attack again, forcing me to respond again. This, obviously, is a recipe for dying – if I can’t recover the initiative, I can never re-establish my offense, so my opponent can freely keep attacking until I screw up my defense and they get me.

Now that I’ve figured this out, what am I doing about it? Well, first, I’m making an effort to maintain my intent, even when I’m not actually attacking. This is hard to describe, but it means maintaining an offensive mental stance even when I’m on the defensive. In other words, I’m not really defending, I’m just doing what I have to in order to set up my next attack, and that’s where my mind is. That way, the attack will immediately follow the defense without my having to figure out what to do after the parry is complete.

Second, I’m trying not to let my opponent drive the tempo of the bout. That means interrupting his (or her) attacks, making him constantly adjust position rather than letting him set up for an attack at his leisure, and forcing him into situations where he’s not comfortable. In particular, fencers tend to hate infighting, so I try to move in close as often as possible. This also helps negate the fact that most of the people I’m fencing are taller than I am, with a corresponding reach advantage.

“Feeling” maai and suki

Two terms frequently heard in Japanese martial arts are maai, meaning distance or timing (literally “interval”) and suki, meaning a gap, commonly in attention, but also in stance, guard, etc. The image to the right illustrates the concepts – the left-hand swordsman has created a suki by lowering his sword, and the right-hand swordsman has moved into it. The attacker is exactly at his maximum effective range (even allowing for the chopping cut one can perform with a shinai) – two inches farther away, and the cut would miss. He has chosen his optimal maai to strike without being struck.

Understanding maai and suki are necessary in order to fully grasp intent. It’s not enough for me to intend to attack, intend to move forward, intend to occupy your space. My intent needs to be expressed in my actions in order to have an effect, or it’s just positive thinking.

I use the concept of an “attack surface” to visualize this. The attack surface is the surface of the volume around your body in which you can attack. In other words, it’s your maximum range at every point. This obviously depends on your position – with sword extended high as in the right-hand swordsman’s stance, the interesting piece of his attack surface (the front) forms a triangle with the tip at his sword point and the sides curving outwards (as his downward cut could curve to the side). The left-hand swordsman’s attack surface, in contrast, forms a sort of cone with the tip out beyond his sword point (because his arms are not extended), and sloping back towards his body in all directions (because any cut he performs will necessarily be shorter than his maximum thrust). I’m focusing on the swords here, but the attack surface also includes possible motions of the body, such as a kick with the front foot.

If my attack surface does not impinge on your body, that means that I can’t hit you with a single motion. Therefore, you know that you’ll have at least a fraction of a second to adapt to my movement before I can reach you, so you don’t necessarily have to adjust to whatever I’m doing right now. On the other hand, if some part of you is inside my attack surface, that part is in immediate danger, so you have to move – either to remove it from danger, or to guard against the threatened attack. I control my attack surface using maai – the distance between us, plus my stance, determines the shape of my attack surface. Because I can force you to move by changing the shape of my attack surface (even without actually attacking you), I can, in principle, control your actions strictly via maai.

However, we haven’t yet considered suki. While I’m manipulating you by playing with maai, you’re obviously trying to do the same thing to me. Assuming roughly equivalent skill, we end up with a shifting play of “forces” occupying the space between us. I can create a perceived force upon you by altering maai to threaten some part of you, the same way that a chess player can force a reaction by placing his opponent’s king in check. Similarly, you can resist this force by adjusting maai to ensure that you can react to the threat. Until one of us makes a mistake, nothing will happen (note – attacking when there’s no opening is making a mistake!) This mistake is suki. It’s about intent – each of us needs to continually adapt our intent so as to flow with the forces generated by changing maai. The instant one of us fails to adapt, there is a suki, a gap, and if the opponent is sufficiently alert, he will move into this space and strike.

In the image above, we may assume that the left-hand swordsman created a suki. The right-hand swordsman was in a threatening posture, probably jodan (with sword held overhead), and the left-hand swordsman did not correctly adapt to the change in maai by either stepping back, raising his sword, or establishing a counterpressure (say, by extending his sword point a few more inches towards his opponent’s belly). The right-hand swordsman, perceiving the suki, struck, and connected without being struck himself. He is clearly vulnerable to a thrust to the belly, but by understanding his opponent’s maai, he knew that he could execute his attack without being countered.

At a sufficiently high level of skill (which I don’t claim to have achieved, though I can sometimes “see” it from where I’m standing), this becomes almost telepathic. Two swordsmen may face each other, hardly moving, for long periods (by which I mean seconds or minutes – the stories about swordfights lasting for hours or days are only legends, unless both combatants were not only hopelessly incompetent but also tremendously unlucky). Every so often, one will shift his stance minutely, and the other will instantly, to all appearances simultaneously, counter with a similarly minute shift. Each knows that an attack made now would be fatal, so neither can move. Finally, one will fail to adapt, probably by the barest fraction of an inch, or even by just a twitch of the eyes indicating a lapse of attention, and the other will strike with full confidence that he is safe, at least for that fraction of a second.

Without intent, a swordfight (or any other fight), degenerates into what amounts to wild flailing, with neither opponent having any idea whether any given attack will be successful or even not suicidal. Under conditions like these, victory can be achieved only through luck, and relying on luck will quickly get you dead.

How many attacks?

This is a quiz I like to give advanced students: choose a short sequence of movements, like the ipponme kata (which has three steps followed by two cuts), and ask them how many attacks are in the sequence.The first answer, naturally, is “two”, meaning the two obvious cuts. OK, I say, but what about the “blocks” that come before each cuts? Why couldn’t those be attacks, given the right situation? Then, what if I were to stomp on your foot in one of the three steps? What if I were to put a shoulder into you? What if the “blocking” motion is actually a strike with the tsuba, the fist, or the elbow?

I think that most martial artists have probably encountered this facet of kata before – they’re never just what they look like. The Chinese have a concept called “seven stars”, referring to the shoulders, elbows, hands, hips, knees, feet, and head. These are the natural striking surfaces of the body, because those are the bits that stick out; it’s pretty difficult (though not technically impossible) to strike someone with your ribs or your throat, just because they’re recessed areas of the body. When you put a weapon in your hands, you add some additional striking surfaces, but they’re basically all variations of striking with the hands.

So, the way to think about this is, for each motion, how many of the seven stars are available as striking surfaces? If you think about all the possible variations of movement and all the places where an enemy might be, it turns out that in general every movement can be a strike with any surface. This usually blows the student’s mind, so I have to go through several dozen examples of strikes hidden within the apparently-simple ipponme kata before they start to get it. Since I can’t easily demonstrate any complex movement in writing, imagine simply stepping forward. How many attacks do you see? Some possibilities:

• Every movement forward could be a strike with the head.
• The leading shoulder and hip can always strike.
• Every time you pick up a foot, it can be a kick or a stomp.
• When the foot moves forward, the hips and shoulders turn, which can drive a strike forward with the leading hand, elbow, or knee.
• Similarly, the trailing hand and elbow (though not knee, usually), can strike backward on the same movement.

Now picture the same movement while holding a sword (which effectively introduces one more joint into your arm), and think of all the extra options it gives you in terms of striking with the point, the edge, the guard, the pommel, and so forth.

Obviously, it’s impossible to keep all of this in your head simultaneously while you’re performing a kata. So, what good is it? First, if you maintain structure and balance throughout your body during every movement, then all the strikes are there whether you’re aware of them or not. If a target should suddenly appear, you’d hit it with some power (though obviously not as much as if you were to focus the strike), and without disrupting your own movement.

Second, this is one reason why you need to perform thousands of repetitions of each kata. When every smallest movement can be an attack, it takes that many tries just to think of all the possibilities, much less to drill each and every one of them. While you’re doing all of this, of course, you’re also honing your body awareness and your movement, which will make everything else easier.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: when you think you understand something, you don’t. Look deeper.

Why do you practice?

When you think about it, practicing martial arts is a huge waste of time. Unless you’re in an environment where you expect to actually get in fights (military, police, bouncer, etc.), the odds that you’ll actually get to use your training are fairly low. Practicing weapons, that’s doubly true – I’ve spent I-don’t-know-how-many thousands of hours practicing with a sword, with no expectation of ever using it to defend myself. If you are only interested in fitness, you’d probably get better results by doing aerobics or pilates. So, why do we bother? The answer is different for everyone, and at some point you have to decide for yourself what you’re looking for, or you won’t follow through with your practice.

I had such a moment recently. Since my Sensei got in a motorcycle accident last year, he hasn’t been teaching, so I’ve been looking for another group to join. For the last six months or so, I’ve been practicing kali (aka escrima) with Doug Marcaida and the Rochester Kali group. Guro Marcaida is amazingly skilled, and an excellent teacher, but I found that I was having a lot of trouble getting myself to practice and go to class, beyond simple laziness (which is my constant enemy). Finally, I sat down and thought about what it was that I wanted to get out of martial arts, and whether I was getting it from kali.

My goal from my practice is control. I’m primarily after self-control, but control of self, taken far enough, provides control of others. This is most obvious if you look at the purely physical (good structure and movement lets you easily overpower someone whose structure and movement are less good), but it works on the mental plane as well.

Kali is a pure combat art. The Filipinos have been using it to kill people for hundreds of years, and are still using it today. The people I was training with were, in large part, people who expected to use the art in practice: police, bouncers, etc. Because of this, I had a hard time connecting to what they were doing. They aren’t after control as an end in itself – they need control insofar as it makes them more effective combatants, and no farther.

There’s a lesson in this that everyone should consider carefully. You need to know what it is that you want out of your martial arts practice. There are no right or wrong answers, and your answer will likely change over time, but if you don’t know, then you’re not going to be able to tell whether what you’re doing is right for you.

Why do you practice martial arts? This is a serious question – I’d really be interested in feedback from anyone who reads this.

Battojutsu

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CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Battojutsu is one of many names for the art of drawing and cutting with the sword. Suisha Ryu teaches battojutsu (or “batto”) as covering the first one or two movements after the sword is drawn; after that, it’s straight kenjutsu. Note that there’s a definite difference between battojutsu and the better-known art iaido. Iaido, like many modern “do” arts, focuses on self-improvement, sometimes to the exclusion of combat effectiveness. Battojutsu is the combat draw – it’s about getting the sword into action as quickly as possible, without getting hit in the process.

Superficially, the batto draw looks like the iaido draw – the sword starts sheathed edge-up, comes out on the left side of the body, and (usually) cuts across the body from left to right. However, there are some subtleties that make batto and iaido, at least conceptually, extremely different. First, a disclaimer: I’ve never practiced iaido. You should take everything that I say here about iaido as hearsay; I’ve spoken to iaidoka, I’ve read about it, but I’ve never really studied it, so my knowledge is pretty superficial.

The primary difference between batto and iaido is that the batto draw is not a single movement. The problem is that, in a combat situation, it just takes too long to get the sword out, no matter how skillful you are. Think about it – the sword can’t be effective in its usual mode at the very least until its full length is clear of the saya (scabbard). That means that the entire sword must move, lengthwise (not the easiest way to move the sword), its full length, and only then to the position where it can be useful. That’s a good fraction of a second, which is plenty long enough to get killed.

Instead, batto tries to make the sword useful before it clears the saya. This can be done in several different ways. The most obvious is simply to turn the draw into a strike with the kashira. Obviously, this won’t do a lot of damage, but it can certainly stop an attacker momentarily, while you’re completing the draw. Slightly more subtly, the tsuka can be used to hook an attacker’s hand, arm, or sword, tying it up briefly, or the blade can be used for a parry while it’s still being drawn.

All this complication, naturally, changes the nature of the draw. Iaido attempts to make the draw into a single, seamless, flowing movement. Batto doesn’t necessarily work that way; a batto draw may actually be a rapid sequence of short snappy movements. For example, imagine drawing a katana in close quarters, with an enemy only a few inches in front of you. The initial draw is a strike to the bridge of the enemy’s nose with the kashira; when he flinches (whether or not the strike connects), the katana clears the saya at a sharp upwards angle and the left hand comes up to the spine of the sword to push it through a close-quarters version of kiriage that strikes to the shoulder, the neck, or the side of the head. To my knowledge, there’s nothing like this in iaido.

Batto is one of the subtler parts of studying the sword. You can (and must!) do thousands or tens of thousands of draws before you will start to understand even what the parts of the draw are, and you’ll still be learning subtleties after you’ve been practicing the same draw for decades. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I’ve certainly done many thousands of draws, and I feel like I understand only the general outline of what’s going on. Back to training…

Striking with the body

There was once a conversation on Sword Forum International about whether anybody would ever use a body strike in a sword fight. The general consensus was that no, nobody would ever get that close. This was one of the reasons why I stopped reading SFI. Why in the world would anyone not use body strikes in a sword fight?

First, a clarification – by “body strike”, I mean atemi – any strike not using the sword. This might be a shoulder strike, a kick, a punch, etc., but not a strike with the kashira or tsuba. In his Water Book, Miyomoto Musashi writes:

Also “the long sword in place of the body”. Usually we move the body and the sword at the same time to cut the enemy. However, according to the enemy’s cutting method, you can dash against him with your body first, and afterwards cut with the sword. If his body is immovable, you can cut first with the long sword, but generally you hit first with the body and then cut with the long sword. You must research this well and practice hitting.

This seems fairly unambiguous to me (though the SFI folks felt that it was a metaphorical statement). Imagine, if you will, that you beat your opponent’s sword to the side and step forward into the gap thus created. You could, if you chose, cut back across with your sword. However, this has a serious disadvantage – if your opponent is faster or more sensitive than you, he might get his sword back before you do. If you’re cutting, you must be at sword distance, which means that you are open to a cut as well. Instead, think about stepping all the way in, and striking with your shoulder. At this range, you are too close to be cut. While they are stumbling backwards and unable to express any power, then you cut him. In my opinion, this is the strategy that Musashi is espousing in the quote above.

Most swordsmen focus on the weapon in their hands, and forget that they have any other options; this means that they won’t think of doing anything other than trying to cut you until it’s too late. Because of this narrow focus on the weapon, opportunities for body strikes arise far more frequently in sword combat than most people are aware of. Any time you’re within sword length, you are also in distance for a kick (though naturally, you want to kick low, or you risk losing a foot!) Cutting distance is fairly close to punching distance, and one can cover that gap in a fraction of a second. If your sword is out of line, oftentimes you’re better off moving in with the body than trying to recover your guard, since this allows an offense rather than merely a frantic defense.