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Old 04-23-2012, 01:38 PM   #7
Keith Larman
Dojo: AIA, Los Angeles, CA
Location: California
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 1,604
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Re: tradition, craft, knowledge and historic inertia...

Well, my point was to generate some discussion because among those who do swordsmanship they often have very specific reasons for various aspects of their arts. And as Dan has pointed out, often you'll find they tend to run head-long in to each other. It makes my life, well, "interesting" in terms of doing mounts. Anyway, I had hoped to spark some discussion about the topic as I have my own point of view having done a lot of swords for a lot of very different people. And having heard all the arguments before, I found it interesting as a meditation on what happens during "transmission" of arts over generations. Especially when context and conditions change.

I had kinda given up, but since a few folk posted, I'll repost what I wrote as a follow up on my Facebook page... And I think it does have some relevance to many of the heated discussions we have here.

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Okay, thoughts on placing one tiny part (the kurigata) on a Japanese saya. What is correct.

Most will give an answer that says "in our style this is what we do". For me the response if often "Okay, but why?". Here's where I think it gets interesting for me, I think because I'm on the outside looking in on a variety of different lineages, styles, preferences, cultures, etc.

A very good friend of mine started iai back in the 70's. Small group. Only swords available were mogito from Japan, crap from elsewhere, or getting a sword mounted. This friend found a relatively decent sword and his sensei mounted it for him. The placement of the kurigata was like many antiques -- fairly close to the koiguchi. Now back track a bit... One estimate I've read based on bone studies was that the average Japanese male between 1602 and 1867 was 5 foot, 1 inch tall. Well, for me that is interesting as my wife is Japanese American and almost exactly that height. So over the years I've had her hold old koshirae in her hands and, well, voila, her hand when gripping but still relaxed fits almost exactly between the kurikata and the koiguchi.

So another related note. Talking with a sayashi from Japanese years ago I was told that first you ask what distance the martial artist wants. That's the first step for obvious reasons. They he said you try to convince him to consider the traditional method of measuring he was taught where you grab something of the correct size with a firm but relaxed grip. Measure that distance across the knuckles. That's the distance. The idea here is that if the hand fits between snugly but without pushing anything out when slightly relaxed, then all you have to do to dislodge the blade from the tight fit is squeeze the hand oh-so-slightly. The sword then pops out a bit, breaking the seal slightly, without much if anything of a visible "signal" that this has been done even with the thumb still on the tsuba ostensibly holding it in. The sword can then be tightly in the saya when not coming in to play, but easily brought to an almost completely loose state imperceptibly to anyone else, especially that fella in front of you also with a sword thrust through his obi. Then with the draw the blade is loose right from the start and you have maximal room for proper sayabiki in the obi.

Now consider a few other things. The placement of the kurigata on most iaito (or mogito if you prefer) is too tight for my hands. Why? Well, they're much closer to the placement on antiques, the "way it's always been done". But I go back to the 5'1" tall frames of the average Japanese male up until fairly recently. Have you ever looked at most antique armor? Yeah, few of us could wear that stuff. Most looks like they're child sized even, at least to me.

Now none of this means "this is right, that is wrong". I think that's the wrong way to think about it. And that's really what I'm arguing here. I just find it interesting to look at the history to see why we are where we are. And to sometimes gently suggest that people might consider rethinking assumptions...

So moving forward... This industrialist fella named Paul Chen decided to follow his passion of knife and sword making back in the early 90's. He met Bob Engnath at a sword show and also eventually got in touch with James Williams. Now James is a big fella, well over 6 feet (6' 4") if I had to guess. Big hands. James had Paul make a sword for his company that was selling a variety of things including bare blades made by Bob Engnath. So Bugei's "Bamboo" was born. With a kurigata about 4.5 inches down. Which I imagine felt great to James.

Funny thing was I remember the first time holding one thinking "Wow, that's way too far down". I'm 6' tall. It was then that I realized that when I practiced with my antique I was used to "crushing" my hand in the space. Or being told to keep my palm partly on top of the kurigata. Which got me first wondering about the history which spurred me to hit a local university and find a study on the average height of Japanese males in the Tokugawa era. Ah....

So now we have a lot of production swords with the kurigata placed fairly far down. That was the influence I think of Paul Chen's original decisions. Now one could argue they're too far down because it interferes with saya biki. Or one could argue that it is in fact correct because the hand fits in correctly for the taller modern practitioner. I'd argue that arguing about correctness is simply misplaced. Which is why I often glaze over when arguments start in person or on-line. It is silly because virtually all the arguments gloss over the complexity of the issue. They're all right or they're all wrong. It just depends on your point of view or what you consider important. And especially when it comes to production swords. They have to be placed *somewhere*. Maybe it should be tighter (and in all honesty I spec'ed a much tighter placement for the Peace Sword I designed for Bugei for this very reason).

So now let me add yet another factor... Some styles prefer longer sugata (longer blade lengths). So why is this an issue? If your style uses longer blades then things like sayabiki become more significant. So pushing the kurigata up towards the koiguchi to allow a more aggressive sayabiki makes sense with a longer blade. Ironically the longer swords might benefit from the shorter distance on the saya, something I keep in mind when I"m mounting swords. It may look "off", but in a functional sense it may in fact make more sense to allow the blade to clear the saya more easily during a draw. It gives them more room without distorting their bodies to get the blade clear of the saya. Frankly with some of these I am astounded they can do it. I have a roughly 32" blade here I'm reworking to put up for sale and I can't for the life of me draw that thing cleanly. The limitation is on my form, I realize that, but it makes the point that even a half inch of extra clearance makes a huge difference.

Then with a shorter blade the placement in fact doesn't matter nearly as much -- it will clear very quickly with a larger practitioner. And sayabiki becomes less of an issue.

So... We have the "correct" placement for vastly shorter people setting the standard for "correctness" for placement. To the extent where in some styles I wonder if the whole hand crushing fit is something that is partly influenced by longer blades but also by larger hands holding saya made for shorter fellas.

Me, I was greatly influenced by that drunken sayashi (Yeah, I fed him a lot of single malt that night). In a larger sense the idea of fitting the saya to the hand made a great deal of sense to me, especially in some tactical fashion. Of course it isn't the "correct" answer, I hope I made it clear that I don't think there is a "correct" answer. But I wanted to point out that something as seemingly minor as the placement of the kurigata is actually a fantastically complex and layered concept. And it is just one tiny aspect of thousands in mounting a sword. But as a means of figuring out a nice place to put a kurigata for a given person, it was a nice starting point. For those customers who leave it up to me I get them to measure their hands. Then that guides my placement.

You guys swing them. Tell me where you want it and that's where I'll put it. But I also encourage people to think more deeply about why it is the way it is. Things evolve for all sorts of reasons and sometimes our understanding depends on a rather superficial take on a topic. Sure, things become "encoded" within some styles. But often I wonder if the rationale for A over B is sometimes more about "well, it just worked out that way" due to some random and ultimately totally unrelated reason C. There are always grains of truth and experience involved. But sometimes I think it's also somewhat random and capricious. Much like most things in martial arts. And often our explanations of "why something is the way it is" can stop us from seeing that maybe there are other ways that can and might work better. And that we often subtly lose things through acceptance of post hoc explanations rather than taking the greater effort of trying to see things in a more complex, nuanced fashion.

No answers actually. Really only more questions. But I think this is one distinctive aspect of these arts and crafts. It ain't so simple. It ain't necessarily so. And being confident as to what is "correct" is almost always myopic since the complexity virtually guarantees each one of us, myself included, is probably missing some other detail that could upset the entire apple cart yet again. So we end up with the idea of emptying that cup whenever possible. But then hesitate to change anything without a damned good understanding of why you might be doing that.

Last edited by Keith Larman : 04-23-2012 at 01:46 PM.

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