Martial arts -- HISTORY AND TRADITION

[jtweymo]

Hi ya guys and good morning to ya!

The explanitory remarks on koryu are appreciated, I've never really had any contact with them and never known any koryu men (to be honest there weren't many around in the states back in the day... hell, one rarely ever heard of the koryu until about the late 1980's.)

I can really appreciate what you describe too, our jujutsu group(s) ran themselves like that, we called it 'not being presumptuous or assuming'. Matter of factness and plain behavior was preferred and considered 'only natural'... really though, at the time, we all thought that this was a response to the way other dojos ran themselves (mainly Karate, TKD and occassionally Aikido) where the instructors made a big tah-doo out of things, had a flashier outfit and belt, bowed all over the place and generally behaved very strangely... which had the whole class behaving strangely. Point is that we thought the matter of fact approach we were taught was merely contrary to this?

Maybe... maybe it wasn't, in light of what you said... maybe the Japanese themselves had demonstrated this to our instructors while they were stationed over there in Okinawa?

You maybe just opened up a few doors for me. TYVM if it turns out that way.

Hyper_shadow said: Just to make a quick point on that, you do have to look at each individual school. I'm not Japanese and I don't pretend to be (never been that short, meself ;p) but if I am given an old (genuinely really antique) object be Densho, Tachi whatever; I will honour them simply because they wereb a gift. Out of respect I would then find out what exactly whoever gave said object to me wanted me to do with them. Usually if these things are passed with a title, case in point someone recieving Kaiden, their use and how you set about figuring them out is a mystery and generally the only person that can help is usually dead or on their deathbed. But that's neither here nor there, I have to contest that statement based on what I know and have seen.
I cannot deny that there are places where those objects are just (for want of a better word) ornaments and have been bought and sold. But there are those that are treasured items to people and they are only passed on to those who've shown an outstanding aptitude in the arts.

This raises the possibility of a good sub-point: one thing none of us has mentioned is that there is a type of these objects (which we are sometimes calling "status symbols") that actually do have much more literal value (if not valuable for money's sake then for importance.)

These are such as the listed objects but which are possibly antique, maybe even unique (ryuha specific?) AND have been passed down for a generation or three.

This is probably where the other classes of objects in question derive their extended value?? The copies of the texts and documents are handed down so that the body of the document (even though recorded as a copy) then becomes the object (the documentation as a document is arbitrary -- it's then a form of succesive transmission, transferal of the body of the document as an object) This is then a matter of lineage, I believe is what is commonly stated of it -- which makes sense, right?

Beats me I dunno for sure.

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