Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

evolved over more than two thousand years as an integral part of the martial
culture of Japan, over time becoming an important symbol of the
Japanese spirit and tradition. Swordsmanship has been practiced by court
aristocracy and warriors of various affiliations as a fundamental form of
fighting, together with mounted archery and halberd and spear fighting. It
was first practiced to supplement other battlefield fighting methods, when
close combat was inevitable. Later, it gained primacy over other forms of
fighting, and eventually became transformed into a competitive sport in the
modern period. The survival of swordsmanship over the centuries, and
through significant transformations in the characteristics of warfare in
Japan, is due to the place of the sword in Japanese culture.
The Japanese sword has always been to its bearers more than an instrument
of war, marking status, social affiliation, and position or serving
as a weapon with mystical powers for religious rituals. The compilers of
Japanese mythology established its association with religion in the early
eighth century when they recorded a battle between a fierce deity, Susa-noo-no-mikoto,
and a dragon. After slaying the dragon, the deity found an
unusually long and sharp sword embedded in the dragon’s tail. He took the
sword and presented it to his sister, who became the ancestral goddess of
the Japanese islands and the imperial dynasty. The goddess Amaterasu (Sun
Goddess) presented the sword as one of the three sacred regalia (i.e., mirror,
beads, and sword) to the god who descended from the heavens to the
islands. The three regalia became legitimizing symbols of the imperial dynasty’s
connection to Amaterasu, marking the dynasty’s authority to rule.
As such, the sword, regardless of other more practical weapons, became
the symbol in the Japanese psyche of a pure heart, indomitable mind, and
a sharp and decisive spirit—the ideal yamato damashii (Japanese spirit and
soul).
Sword fighting in Japan began in the Jômon period (ca. tenth–third
centuries B.C.), with crude stone-carved swords of approximately 50 centimeters
in length that, judging from their shape, were effective for striking
more than for slashing or piercing. Little is known about these prehistoric
swords other than what has been unearthed in archaeological sites. Based
on these findings, archaeologists have concluded that these stone-made
swords were used for hunting, as symbolic instruments in religious rituals,
and as instruments of warfare in actual fighting. Since they lacked the qualities
of the later metal swords and those who used them were at an early
stage in social development, it is highly unlikely that Jômon people developed
any kind of methodological sword-fighting skills. On the other hand,
having been a society of hunters and gatherers, they probably developed
techniques for hunting in a group, and shared knowledge of how and
where to strike various animals. Nevertheless, whatever fighting and hunt-
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