Preface

I caught a lucky break when I was eight years old. My father, who was thirty-eight and beginning to sense he might lose the race to keep his high school track and field physique, signed up for karate classes at a local "chop shop." The instructors were Caucasian, the school was non-profit, but the workout was good, and so was the reputation of the style's chief instructor—a Japanese man who inspired a mixture of respect, fantastical storytelling and not a little terror among his students, especially the eight year olds.

I say I was lucky because my father could have joined another school in our suburb, all too easily given the advertising of the commercially driven competitors at the time. I have often wondered how different my life might have been had my father (with my sister, my twin brother and myself in tow) signed up for a Westernized, bottom-dollar-driven version of karate. A version of lesser pedigree, and quite possibly, of lesser substance. Would I have continued training into adulthood? Would I have been the same person, learned the same lessons?

The motivations for devoting a lifetime to studying an art, and the effects of those motivations on the practitioner partly inspired this book. Entering my third decade of training, and sensing the end of my own race with athletic achievement, I find myself increasingly curious about the differences between those who commit a lifetime to the martial arts, and those who begin the journey, but never see it through. What is it, I wondered, the latter group misses?

Not only is this book inspired by the question of what lies ahead for the committed practitioner, it is also inspired by those best able to answer the question—the unique people who have devoted their lives to the martial arts. Above all, this is a book about people. Having experienced first-hand the depth, sincerity, spontaneity and wisdom of my own teacher, I gambled (rightly in the case of the fifteen masters interviewed in this volume) that in those who devoted their lives to the ideals of the martial arts there would be universal traits—whether a natural result of age, or an inclination to devotion, or of long, serious inquiry of any kind, martial or not.

This book is also concerned with the inevitable loss of these people, for they are a unique generation.

Like the rest of Japanese society, Japanese martial arts were enormously impacted by the events of World War II. The militarism still present in many martial arts schools today traces most conspicuously to the building of Japan's war machine and the nationalism that perverted many of the country's institutions—a development deeply resented by the Japanese public following the war's conclusion. The occupation of Japan by Allied forces further impacted Japanese martial arts, first through the ban instituted on all budo—martial ways—by General MacArthur's General Headquarters of the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers, but also through the exposure of western servicemen and women to Japanese culture. (Karate was the one exception to the ban, as it was misunderstood as simply a form of Chinese boxing.) Although Japanese martial arts had spread around the world through the immigration of the Japanese, the arts were largely confined to expatriate communities, and unknown to the general populace (judo being the possible sole exception). By the end of Japan's occupation, on April 28, 1952, by decree of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, a wave of non-Japanese ambassadors of the martial arts—the Allied troops, many of whom had received martial arts instruction—returned to the Western world.

Following close behind was the first contingent of Japanese martial arts instructors, sent to establish official presence around the globe, and to foster the spread of various newly formed or re-formed martial arts associations and styles. Many of these instructors had learned directly from the originators of their art: from Gichin Funakoshi, the father of modern karate; from Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo; and from Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido. Having experienced the earliest incarnations of their arts, these first international instructors were aware of the original intents, motives and contexts under which the arts were developed.

The abuse of the martial arts during the war led to a recommitment to the ideals of budo as a means of self-cultivation. Indeed, the war itself—and the horrors of war—were instrumental in the development of Shorinji Kempo by its founder, Doshin So, who sought to restore the pride and self-respect of the Japanese people amidst the devastation of post-war Japan. While the nonviolent ideals of budo are still professed in today's sport-oriented martial arts communities, I wonder if they will remain as prescient once the experience of the war passes from living memory? That experience also profoundly influenced Japanese-North Americans, four of whom are included in this volume.

Sadly, it is this generation of martial arts masters—who trained under the originators of their arts, who were transformed by the experience of World War II, who pioneered the globalization of modern Japanese martial arts—that is dying.

The masters included in this volume share two traits: They all practice a form of gendai budo —modern Japanese martial ways—and they have all continued that practice throughout their lifetime. Some are political figures, or hold the highest rank in their art; some represent historically significant family lineage; others built notable sporting careers, or pioneered the spread of the martial arts in a new corner of the world. All of them deserve to be celebrated.

Regrettably, no book could capture the contributions of all the World War II martial arts masters alive today. The masters who are included should not be considered spokespeople for their art (although a few do act officially in that capacity) or as premiere exponents of skill, accomplishment or position, as any such selection would be arbitrary at best. Rather, these fifteen masters represent (besides who was willing to be interviewed, was available to be interviewed and to whom I had an introduction) a cross-section of the experience possible during a lifetime study of modern Japanese martial arts.

The emphasis on personal experience over technical matters, and the fact that not all disciplines of gendai budo are represented in this volume, underscore its non-encyclopedic aim. Just as the Journey from student to master involves unexpected meetings, unrepeatable events, unique experiences and surprising turns, so too are these interviews presented: unbound by formula.

My own equally serendipitous journey to interview these masters began with a search for active, war-era martial artists.

Guided by numerous researchers, academics and senior students of the disciplines, and with the all-important introductions of a few well-known Japanese instructors, I cultivated a series of connections and recommendations that led me, almost blindly, from one master to the next. Over a two-year period I traveled to Toronto, Ottawa, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris and twice to Tokyo. Although Japan is—appropriately—represented most heavily in the book, I felt it was important to search out masters in North American and European countries, to reflect the worldwide spread of Japanese martial arts, and to include opinions on the training methods and experiences of Western students, whom I envisioned as the principle audience. Although I did employ a professional interpreter in Japan, who later reviewed my transcripts of the interviews using my audio recordings of each event, close students, and in some instances, family members of the masters who spoke English as a second language, helped clarify their ideas.

Accompanying the words of the masters is a collection of photographs that are figurative, rather than literal. My intent was to capture the aesthetics of the classical martial arts. An unfinished, unpolished quality to the imagery, a counterpoint to the masters' presence in the book, is meant to imply the learning process itself. Each unique moment of practice, the importance of the feeling within a motion, the need for students to be led organically to their own unique expression—all themes touched upon in the interviews—are, at their most ambitious, themes also reflected in the photographs. The images play a final role in the book by underscoring its implied thesis, when, hopefully, they speak to the common essence that lies beneath the martial arts' disparate surfaces.

Universal appeal among martial artists was certainly one of the early goals of this volume. But at its conclusion, it is clear that the thoughts of the fifteen remarkable men and women contained here far outreach the martial arts community. While this volume is the very antithesis of a martial arts textbook, it remains a manual nonetheless—a manual for a way of living, compiled from fifteen lifetimes spent living the Way.