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Give me today, for once, the worst throw of your dice, destiny. Today I transmute everything into gold.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Caesar: Alea iacta est inquit. - The die has been cast, said Caesar
Suetonius, Vita Divi Iuli
Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
Matthew 6:3
Let's play rock paper scissors. Mail in your answers, and let's see who won.
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
The other day at a formal new year party everyone had to choose small gifts. In Japan if people have to choose about something between themselves they play rock paper scissors. In Japanese it is called jankenpon or jankenpoi or janken. It's used for everything. Who gets to choose the first piece of cake. Or who plays first in a game or a sport. Or who gets to cross a bridge first. Japanese people wonder how people in the west get along without it. Well we have games like odds or evens. Robin Hood and Little John decided who got to cross the bridge first by fighting with quarterstaves. A quarterstaff is a strong stick for fighting similar to a Japanese bo. Apparently boy scouts once learned how to use it! But deciding with janken is less painful.
When I first had to play janken many years ago I did the sign for paper like a karate chop. A tight tegatana or shuto uchi knifehand strike from aikido or karate. My fingers were close together. So people told me I had to relax. That sounded familiar. Everyone who does martial arts has to relax. In janken you have to let the fingers spread slightly so it is more like paper.
Then there are the tactics. You can sometimes win with beginner's luck. But if there is a tie and you have to repeat the game you are in big trouble. At first I used to try to outthink my opponent. But I usually lost. So then I decided to try a random choice. The trouble was to me it was random but obviously it wasn't to my opponents because again I usually lost. Even if it had been random I could only win 50% of the time playing against one opponent. But some Japanese people never seem to lose.
And janken is the same as a martial art. You have to do it with kiai. That means not half-heartedly or weakly. You have to be full of determination and energy. A loud voice is good too. Hmm. There's more to this than tossing a coin.
One way to get good at it apparently is to play your right hand against your left hand. Seriously. And you have to do it often. Until it's ingrained in your body. That's like a martial art too. But don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
I have an essay in a charity e-book put together by some writers and photographers to raise money for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku on 11 March 2011. It costs $9.99.
01-21-2012 09:53 AM 
