The
deeper meaning beneath the superficial is a recurrent theme in traditional
Japanese culture. In the art of garden design, it is actually given a name,
hiegakure, which means "that hidden from ordinary sight." The average shlub
strolls through a Japanese garden gawking at the sights, entirely unaware of
the paths beneath his feet. To the connoisseur, however, these same paths
offer a lifetime of study and appreciation. Here the paths are smooth,
hurrying one along. There, the stones are rough, irregular, or stepped,
causing the visitor to slow down, something planned by the garden's
designer, who may have wanted visitors to pause at a certain point.
(Dave
Lowry)
Dave Lowry
Dave Lowry has written several excellent books concerning the
martial arts, but his consideration of calligraphy is perhaps the most
interesting.
He examines significant
Japanese words
(characters) in an attempt to unravel a deeper root significance.
The book is called Sword and Brush.
It is a magnificent accomplishment.
Receiving (uke)
This is what Dave Lowry had to say about receiving:
When the conversation leads to the subject of
toughness, as inevitably it will among young men and women in transit on the
Way, opinions will flow liberally. This master, it will be recounted, knocked an
opponent senseless with the briefest riposte. That one, someone will say,
uprooted young trees with his bare hands. Still another will be said to crush
stalks of green bamboo with his bare hands. Comparative feats of strength are
presented as proof of toughness in these conversations, especially those among
younger bugeisha (a student of old style martial arts). The more senior
exponents, however, tend to have a different way of measuring toughness. With
experience comes too, the knowledge that toughness is less a matter of dishing
it out and is really more the ability to receive.
Uke is a pictographic kanji (Japanese character), one written to depict two
hands, one reaching down, the other stretching up, and between them is placed
the character for "boat." This "conveyance of goods from one person to another"
became, over the centuries, the kanji to indicate the act of "receiving." The
bugeisha uses the word frequently. In grappling bugei, the method of falling
safely are collectively called "ukemi," the "receiving body." In judo
terminology, the exponent thrown is "uke," the "receiver." Of the pair in karate
practice, the one under attack is the "ukete," the "receiving hand." In kendo,
the defender is "ukedachi," the "receiving sword."
In these and other expressions in the bugei lexicon, the importance of the term
"uke" is significant. It is commonly mistranslated in judo circles as the
"taker" of a technique. Uke is thrown and so is considered the "loser" in this
way of thinking.
To understand that "uke" means more exactly "to receive" opens new views for the
practitioner. To be on the uke end of training is not to be passively accepting
of the technique. It is instead the attitude of receiving, meeting the throw on
one's own terms. The mentality of the uke is not one of resignation or worse
yet, of stubborn resistance. The uke flows, absorbs the force of the throw, and
while he does fall, his ukemi does not necessarily signal defeat. His fall is
one he controls. He receives - and bounces up again.
The term "ukete" in karate and "ukedachi" in kendo are subject to a similarly
misleading translation. Here they are thought of incorrectly as designating the
participant who "blocks" an attack. Not so. The "ukekata," or "receiving forms"
of kendo and karate require a receiving of the incoming force in order to
redirect it away or to use it to come back against the attacker.
In the mature training hall will be very senior bugeisha, older men and women,
and they can be seen happily taking falls or blows, over and over, from children
trainees. Against adolescent members, young and full of themselves, the senior
will be just as complacent, mildly taking all the excess energy of youth without
a bruise or wince, until, among the brightest of the youngsters, will come the
realization that there is something more to all this activity than it seems.
They will, some of them, begin to suspect that the toughness of these older
bugeisha is a thing yet to be discovered out there along the way. They will have
begun to see the true toughness of receiving.
(Dave Lowry)
Page created 10 April 1998