Anon

Samurai Military Training

Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia, Karl Friday, Ph.D. wrote the following in response to a question about samurai military training posted on the Budo conversation site, E-Budo.com. The original and much more can be seen at http://www.e-budo.com. Dr. Friday can be reached through his office:

Karl Friday
Dept. of History
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
ph. (706) 542-2537
kfriday@arches.uga.edu

Samurai military training differed from era to era. During the late medieval period, the "Age of the Country at War," military training for most samurai was not all that elaborate. Most warriors, especially rank-and-file samurai and ashigaru, probably learned just the basics of weapons handling from their fathers and/or their peers, and then acquired most of their skills through experience and practice--kind of the way American inner-city kids learn to street-fight today. Some took this sort of thing more seriously than others and went looking for teachers or had access to real bugei experts nearby--or passing through. Most didn't need or seek out extensive formal instruction. There were, of course, a handful of men who really dedicated themselves to perfecting the arts of blade-to-blade combat, but the fact that so many ryuha trace themselves to the same people strongly suggests that this wasn't all that widespread a phenomenon. There are a few dozen really famous martial artists from the late 15th and 16th centuries, and there probably weren't more than a few hundred teachers around at any given time, even in medieval times.

During the Tokugawa era, when bugei ryuha evolved into the kind of organizations we know today, the vast majority of samurai probably did little or no training. Tokugawa samurai were sword-bearing bureaucrats mostly, not sword-wielding warriors--because there were no wars. In fact, it's likely that the total number of real experts, and possibly even the total number of serious students, in the bugei wasn't significantly higher in Tokugawa Japan than it is today.

Please don't, BTW, confuse ryuha with "clans." The tie-in between the two isn't direct.

Most medieval and Tokugawa era daimyo had personal bugei teachers for themselves and their families, and these teachers all belonged to one ryuha or another. But the same ryuha could and did provide this sort of teacher for more than one daimyo. And daimyo could and did employ teachers from more than one ryuha. Many daimyo, especially during the Tokugawa era, also operated domain schools staffed by teachers from one or more ryuha for their samurai retainers. Policies as to who could--or must--attend this sort of instruction varied from domain to domain and daimyo to daimyo. And, of course, there were also a great many ryuha that were entirely or almost entirely localized in a single domain. Many domains had several of these, including some, like the Kunii house's Kashima-Shinryu, that were purely family traditions. Other ryuha were more national in scope, headquartered in major cities like Edo or Kyoto and offering instruction to samurai from numerous domains. (This was why bugei schools became focal points of the anti-shogunate movements during the late 1800s: they were places where samurai from different domains could legally meet and interact, without immediately drawing the suspicions of domain and shogunal officials.)

One more thing--a pet peeve: the word "clan," in reference to political/military organizations of medieval and Tokugawa era daimyo, is one that should be thrown out. The guys who write the subtitles for samurai movies seem to love it, but it's a lousy word for describing what Japanese warlords headed up. Daimyo did make use of familial-sounding terms and titles for their subordinates, but daimyo armies and polities weren't really built around kinship ties. "Domain" is the word most historians use for these things.

The following was written by Dr. Friday in response to a further question about clans and bugei training prompted by what he wrote above.

"Clan" has basically zero relevance to warrior history, and little meaning at all in Japanese history after the 8th century or so. The main familial unit for warriors and non-warriors alike was the household. Kinship ties, both real and fictitious, were exploited in various ways by would-be warlords attempting to establish "feudal" (for lack of a better word) control over large areas of lands and peoples, but the bonds that were formed were actually based on financial and military dependency, not kinship. What late medieval and early modern samurai controlled were essentially autonomous countries (in medieval times) and semi-autonomous satrapies (in Tokugawa times). "Domain" is the term most historians writing in English use to refer to these entities. In both the early modern and medieval eras, these domains could be defined by geographic boundaries, but in the Sengoku period they were really defined as the sum of the lands held by the lord and his vassals, whose lands were in turn defined by those held by themselves and their vassals, and so on down the line. Which meant that domain shapes were fluid and contingent on vassal loyalty, which was itself highly fluid and contingent, until warlords began to find ways to change this, in the late 1500s and beyond.

http://www.budogu.com/html/samurai_m...y_training.htm

Jonathan Locke

Nice article

__________________
Remember, the enemy gate is down- Andrew ¨Ender¨ Wiggin

Stuart Mackey

Sorry about the long delay in responces. Work is such a drag at times.

Reasons backed up by what evidence?
European edged weapons virtualy could not do so, hence the use of mace's, war hammers etc. I fail to see why katana would be different, after all they are just steel and hardly magical nor possesing the characeristics of lightsabres

Stuart Mackey

So show it. You are talking a lot of 'if's' seemingly with an expectation that the knight would simply stand there like a shop dummy. How does the samurai do so, what is the knight response.

Stuart Mackey

With out..certainly you are more agile,but its for nought if you cannot get att he man inside. But when in battle they would hardly be with out.
The thing is do you actually know what european armour weighs?, how it is distributed over the person? how they fought in said armor? In short back up you claims with evidence.

Stuart Mackey

Not really no.

Ahh, I see. So once again you think one is better than the other in given circumstances without a shred of evidence.

Slow? heavy? By all means show some evidence to back this up.

Not really, no

Stuart Mackey

May I reccomend research?

What speculation? I have asked people to back up claims, and that is not speculation.

[quote]
The fact is a 'pike', or any of the longer heavier pole weapons were intended for fighting in formation. One on one, they are not as effective.[quote]

Correct, and they were used with other weapons mixed in as well.

Irellivant, the discussion is not about Romans

Prove it.

Thats nice, and perhaps he will sit still so the samurai can have a cup of tea before finishing him?

Anon

Short of dressing you up as a pike wielding knight and i as a Choku-To wielding Samurai the only thing we have to go by is common sense.

Common sense clearly dictates that a man with two hands on a pike that misses and finds his target rapidly bursting in at him is not going to have time to drop the Pike, draw his weapon, and deflect the incoming thrust.

Your best bet in that situation would be to attempt to evade the incoming thrust entirely, but that of course is easier said than done against a well trained opponent armed with a sword noted for it's speed in action.

I would definitely go so far as to say that the warrior that found himself in that situation would be in the most serious of trouble.

Can i prove it absolutely?

Sure, i'm sure i could if i felt like spending 4 hours reasearching Pike vs Sword on Google to find god only knows how many citations of that happening in battle throughout history.

However since it is such a self evident situation, i really see no need.

Anon

"Thats nice, and perhaps he will sit still so the samurai can have a cup of tea before finishing him?"

Once inside the Samurai can just cut-leg or otherwise sweep the Euro Knight as one of many options(to include thrusting his Choku-To Katana clean through a weakpoint in the knights armor).

They call it a 'guard' for a reason you know. Once someone is inside your guard, you are um....significantly less 'guarded', and therefore very vulnerable.

And i find it ironic that you opine the Samurai wont have time to deliver a killing, stunning, or de-feeting blow(the 'sipping tea' comment), but yet you have this illogical belief that the Samurai will indeed sip tea once inside the Knights guard while the Euro changes weapons and regains a good defensive or offensive posture.

If someone gets inside your guard, and they know what they're doing...you have serious problems.

Jonathan Locke

Look, the average European knight was equally, if not less, as strong as the feudal Japanese samurai. The weight of a plate/chain mail armor drags your movements, therefore creating a slower reaction, with that said, the knight "could" still be moving fast, but slower than the samurai, who regularly wore leather armors only.

Jonathan Locke

It really shows you have never been in a swordfight.

The samurai's blade is basically made from the steel mines in the mountains of Japan, which i believe you can tell that Japan is not the same as Europe. The metal found in these mines is then folded into sheets over and over again, to reinforce the blade's strength, then most skilled swordsmiths layer the blade with a minute coating of a different steel, to create a contrast. Then as a last touch, the richest and most advanced smiths apply a thin layer of a variation of titanium in the blade's edges, making the blade able to cut throgh pretty much anything.


as for your comment regarding if the knight would stand there like a shop dummy... Well, Snipe gave us the scenario of the samurai puncturing the knights armor, which means the blade has gone through it, so once the weapon has gone throuhg he armor and reaching the unprotected flesh, the knight is dead. Sure he could move around all he wants, but the sword is still gonna be trhought the armor, and even if he gets it off, now the samurai knows that he can break the armor and kill him, even if it takes another stab or hack.

Anon

There was a show on the history channel where a guy had an authentic Italian plate armor suit made by one of the very few men left alive who can actually build one.

He put it through all kinds of paces, and indeed, it was surprisingly well designed and gave excellent load distribution.

Some of the drills he ran were duels, a mock battle against several opponents armed with a variety of weaponry, and mounted exercises. For instance, he was able to throw himself off a trotting horse and get right back to his feet, as well as mount the horse to begin with unassisted. Overall he praised the armor as being the equivelant to the modern day tank.

However, he had three complaints.

1) While nowhere near as encumbering as he'd thought it would be, it did slow him down more than he'd have liked.

2) He tired significantly more quickly in the Armor than out of it.

3) The vision was extremely restricted. When dueling he took to lifting his visor to gain peripheral vision.

Wish i could remember what the name of the show was, it was very informative, entertaining, and he stated numerous times as historically accurate as possible.

He also struck the armor with several common weapons of the medievil to rennaisance era, and few had any real chance of penetrating the helm or the chestplate, but again, he noted that once he was grappled a knight could still be knocked to the ground, and that indeed, there were many parts in the armor where even a powerful dagger thrust could deliver a killing blow.

Then, as now, there is no such thing as invulnerable armor.

FlyingCaddy

Ok what you said does not suprise me in the least however it also did not convince me that the Samurai is not inherently superior at swordplay than the Knight. Of course armor is emcumbering, putting on football or hokcey, or any other sport equipment is encumbering to some degree. Its not a total suprise that he tired more with the armor on than not, I doubt any armor does not tire out its user. Should I apprehend that the face mask the samurai wears has no effect on peripheral vision? Finally, like you said, no armor is invulnerable, therfore the samurai is equally vulnerable to a swordblow, perhaps more so if he is using laquer armor.

I think this debate is much like the Me109E and the Spitfire MkI, its the man, not the machine.

Jonathan Locke

i explained this before, in a previous post.

I asume that you are talking about the red, iron masks that they show in museums/historic shows/movies/etc..., where the mask has sort of a human resemblance, but the image is blended in with some type of animal, most likely a dragon or eagle. If so, i will say it again, most samurais did not wear masks or iron armor, shogun and warlords wore those things, the samurais wore wide legged pants and robe-like shirts made out of cotton or another cloth, and if they knew they were going to battl, they would probably wear a light leather armor or something of similar confortability and weight.

deadkenny

I suggest you do some, since you've contributed nothing to the discussion.

Since it pertains to a sword weilding fighter vs. an opponent with a pole weapon, it's clearly relevant.

Not interested in 'proving' anything to trolls.