La Autoeficacia: conceptualización y estado actual en el deporte

T

he fi rst thing that comes to mind when examining the tengu portrayed in the bugei tora-no-maki and densho¯ is that they are often carefully drawn with a strong sense of movement and realism. Many of them have a true feeling of vitality as if sketched from life, itself.

Having studied art and amongst other interests, followed a career as an illustrator for forty or more years, I see in many of these draw-ings the hands and eyes of master swordsmen determined to do justice to their subject, or to direct another more talented artist to carefully render technique and inner meaning as accurately as possible. There are, in such works, and not only Japanese, many subtle details that the observer inexperienced in the arts of war might well miss; the posi-tioning of hand grips or the feet are just two of these. It is the innate suggestion of the deeper understanding of what the master requires from these important scrolls that is the most diffi cult, yet vital, core that must be conveyed onwards so that the interpretation of the gokui, the inner philosophy, is transmitted in a deeply meaningful way to initiates separated from the original inspiration by many generations.

These tora-no-maki were aide-mémoires of the greatest value to each successive headmaster and they were rarely seen by any other eyes.

It should be borne in mind that all these traditions were practised and passed onwards orally. Only now and again was anything written down. If anything descriptive was committed to paper, such a docu-ment probably was delivered into the hands of the current head and to no one else.²³⁹ To put the matter bluntly, these were, to the masters of each tradition within the bugei, matters of the greatest secrecy, never to be divulged outside the ryu¯ except with express permission of the headmaster unless the student had, himself, gained full mastery. In the words of Tu Mu (803-52), a commentator on Sun Tzu’s great work:

‘These are “mouth to ear” matters’;²⁴⁰ or to put it another way, they constitute important military theory and are, therefore, matters of life and death.

THE SOˉ -JUTSU DENSHOˉ

The densho¯ is limited to fi ve forms, although doubtless there were more as most ko-ryu¯ traditions focussed on a number of martial skills.

Fig. 30 A splendid and animated representation of Marishi-ten from the Kurama Shinkage-ryu¯ densho¯ . Here, this female deity is presented as a male standing on the Buddhist ‘Wheel of the Law’. Note the sun and moon symbols.

Fig. 31 Winged tengu instructing in So¯ -jutsu (the Art of the Spear) from unidentifi ed So¯ -jutsu densho¯ . (Drawing by the author as close as possible to the original.)

As is usually the case, the tengu takes the role of uchidachi, the instructor who initiates the attacks, and the kenshi is shidachi, the ‘one who receives’.

(It is unfortunate that the original densho¯ illustrations are so faint that they are impossible to reproduce. Descriptions will have to suffi ce.)

1. The tengu, uchidachi, human-faced, winged, and garbed as a yama-bushi, stands wide-stanced with his left foot leading. His su-yari blade is lowered to below hidari-seigan-no-kamae to a position termed kasumi-seigan. The term seigan-no-kamae means to point the sword or spear tip, kissaki, at the opponent’s eyes, rather in the manner of the ken-shi, shidachi, here - a posture suggesting calmness of spirit – readiness without physical stress. The tengu’s posture with the kissaki lowered suggests that he intends to employ the ‘unexpected’ in his attack.

Kasumi means ‘mist’ or in the case of all kasumi postures; ‘obscured’

in the sense that nothing of uchidachi’s intention is given away but there is a strong sense of tension in his whole posture, a prepared-ness to deliver his thrust like a coiled spring. The tengu wears sashi-nuki-bakama, secured below his knees and the yamabushi kyahan.

He is barefooted. His face suggests a ‘foreigner’ rather than a Japa-nese, in clear contrast to the faces of the kenshi in these drawings.

He is bearded and moustached.

Shidachi employs a long-bladed nage-yari with a wide hadome, parrying bar, in all fi ve illustrations.

2. The second tengu is dressed in all ways similarly to the fi rst. As uchidachi, he stands in wide left posture in kasumi-gedan-no-kamae, that is, ‘mist lower position’ with his yari. Shidachi is drawn in the hidari-kasumi-seigan-no-kamae, evidently as a possible defence against the unexpected attack to be delivered by the tengu.

3. The face of this yamabushi-tengu is drawn consistently with the others.

He stands in hidari-seigan-no-kamae, the yari point rather high in this case.

The kenshi, shidachi, is also in hidari-seigan but with his yari-kissaki a little lower and, therefore, normal.

4. The tengu fi gure is drawn in a hidari-kasumi-seigan-no-kamae pos-ture, again like the fi rst fi gures, with his feet fi rmly apart and knees (unseen but suggested) by the angle of his lower legs. Unfortu-nately, the scanning of this illustration has obscured shidachi stands in the fold and stands evidently in an identical posture with his nage-yari.

5. Both uchidachi and shidachi stand in a fairly deep hidari-seigan-no-kamae with horizontally levelled yari, the tengu fi gure as usual with a short-bladed su-yari and shidachi with the long-short-bladed nage-yari.

At the end of the densho¯ either the artist or the master has depicted an unusual fi erce ‘deity’ (‘avatar’ or ‘bodhisattva’) seated, cross-legged, on the back of an inoshishi standing with its cloven hooves fi rmly planted.

The fi gure seated on this mount wears extravagantly billowing loose sleeved robes, grasping a sanko-geki trident raised in his left hand, his right hand seemingly holding nothing symbolic but is folded into his lap. The deity’s eyes glare directly out from beneath the upstanding hair often pictured in the gongen fi gures. This is refl ected in the manner that the inoshishi’s bristles are fl ared and upstanding. It is possible that the

‘deity’ has three faces, although this is not clear from the poor repro-duction of the densho¯ . On either side of the fi gure’s head is positioned a fl aming cosmic jewel, nyo-i-shu.

Comment

This fi gure, evidently deeply infl uenced by Buddhist and Shugendo¯

symbolism, is diffi cult to quantify. The forward-looking face has echoes of Fudo¯ -myo¯ -o¯ but this trident form is that usually associated with an infrequently invoked deity, Muno¯ sho¯ (Aparajita), who also is usually depicted with an empty but pointing right hand. However, Muno¯ sho¯ is also portrayed in the angry, right leg raised, posture of Zao¯ -gongen and, therefore, an image closer to the esoteric Shugendo¯ . E. Dale-Saunders explains that the trident symbolizes the dissemination of Buddha’s Word through his three acts – works, speech and thought. Additionally, the three tines may symbolize the three Jewels (tri-ratna): Buddha, the Doc-trine and the Community.²⁴¹

The implication of this carefully drawn fi gure is to remind the densho¯ ’s recipient that the transmissions he has mastered, therefore validating the document of his attainment level, carry with them a deep moral commitment. The transmission of this secret level derives from Marishi-ten through her Marishi-tengu otsuki and backed by the power of the pictured deity. The tengu fi gures, in themselves, refl ect the hypothesized origin of so¯ -jutsu within the ægis of the proto-yamabushi. Close examination of the tengu fi gures’ wings, the fact that they are always shown spread, never folded, on any winged fi gures here and elsewhere, and are drawn here complete with the hawk’s back and tail feathers, might suggest that they have always been intended to represent a winged cape and not an actual imagined therianthropic projection. We shall return to this ques-tion later.

SOˉ -JUTSU MOKUROKU SCROLL – EDO-JIDAI

This short scroll²⁴² dating from the mid-Edo period is included here not for any images of tengu but because the uchidachi fi gures are all yamabushi, identifi able by their tokin. The scroll features just fi ve forms without any captioning which would usually give the kata’s name. The yamabushi uchidachi and samurai shidachi fi gures all wear sashinuki-bakama pulled in and secured beneath the knees. The draw-ings are all cursively drawn without much detail. Most of the yama-bushi are probably intended to be wearing kyahan but not the usual Shugendo¯ type with a triangular front fl ap covering the instep. All have long straight hair, drawn unbound, and their faces are ‘Japanese’

as opposed to long-nosed ‘Caucasian’. The uchidachi all wear long tachi and long-bladed dirks, although the latter may represent wakizashi at this period. The yamabushi all wield straight-bladed su-yari. The samurai shidachi also wear slung tachi and wakizashi; they are armed with nage-yari provided with wide hadome, each with a single up-turned tine.

The uchidachi display just four kamae postures, including hidari-seigan-no-kamae with the yari blade grasped horizontally; hidari-katsugi-hidari-seigan-no-kamae;

hidari-jo¯ dan-no-kamae; and hidari-gedan-no-kamae. The corresponding shi-dachi kamae are: gedan-no-kamae, two seigan-no-kamae, and a hidari-kasumi-seigan-no-kamae.

The question here is whether or not the yamabushi uchidachi repre-sents the headmaster of the ryu¯ or is thought to be the yamabushi otsuki sent by Marishi-ten. A mokuroku may be part of the go¯ kui in a ko-ryu¯ , or simply a ‘certifi cate’ awarded when a deshi has mastered a particular level. It is an aide-mémoire. This example clearly links the so¯ -jutsu skills to the ancient roots developed by the proto-yamabushi.

Fig. 32 Top: Yamabushi instructing in So¯ -jutsu. Middle: Tengu-yamabushi instructing with yari. Bottom: Beaked sho¯ -tengu instructing in kenjutsu. (All three drawings based on poor reference illustrations held in private collections. Redrawn by the author.)

THE SHINKAGE-RYˉU TENGU

This famous tora-no-maki has been illustrated many times but rarely have the tengu fi gures received the detailed attention they deserve. The fol-lowing observations may, hopefully, be useful.

1. All eight tengu depicted in this scroll are presented as therianthropic and whilst they all have long-nosed human faces and are hirsute, they have taloned hawk’s feet.

2. These tengu are presented wearing the distinctive yamabushi costume but an interesting point is that each tengu is provided with the decorative plate suneate of the type worn by senior ranking bushi in the early- and mid-Muromachi. The artist has carefully detailed where necessary that these shin defences are correctly secured at the front of the ankles – the upper shin below the knee being covered by the folds of the sashinuki-bakama.

3. In each case the tengu is equipped with a tachi, all of them slung in the usual manner; their long swords are all drawn, of course. It can be seen that in two of the tengu/kenshi parings the human shidachi carry their swords as tachi in the style of katana with the saya thrust through the himo of the hakama (and the obi), edge downwards. This presumably has sig-nifi cance in the meaning of these particular forms, something that does not concern us here. One of the tengu has a hio¯ gi-no-tessen, the ‘fan of invisibility’, at his back, suggesting that the handle is thrust into the himo at the back of his sashinuki-bakama. It may or may not be signifi cant that this particular tengu stands in hidari-gedan-no-kamae, a posture that gives his opponent little, if any, advance information about what move might follow.

4. Returning to the drawn portraiture, all the tengu have pronounced pinched elongated noses, bridged and with large nostrils. The faces are remarkably suggestive of the Caucasian type, despite the obvious cari-caturing of the noses. They are also drawn intensely concentrating their gaze on their partner, shidachi. With knitted eyebrows and often frown-ing. It could be said that these are depicted as aggressive and intently watchful. However, when we examine the human swordsmen we fi nd that they are mostly carefully turned out with drooping moustaches and short chin beards, trimmed to a point. The likeness that runs through all these moustached and bearded human faces suggests that they might be a portrait of the same man who is receiving the transmission from the deity by way of the tengu. Other kenshi here are clean-shaven; some youthful, others more mature.

It has been suggested that the Shinkage-ryu¯ tora-no-maki, or the beautiful illustrations therein, was the work of a professional artist but, as I have pointed out earlier, it was vital to the tradition, itself, that the visualization

of each form, and especially in the hiden or go¯ kui should convey the true essence immediately to any ‘uchi-deshi’ even after the passage of cen-turies. My personal opinion is that they are the work of an initiated master-kenshi within the ryu¯ and not an outsider.²⁴³ One notable feature of the tengu portraiture is the consistently drawn rather prominent ears.

These in no manner follow the conventional Buddhist infl uenced style of portraying demonic spirits. The three fi gures of ‘demons’ in the vari-ous versions of ‘The Five-Hundred Rakan’ have a certain similarity and are, possibly in the Japanese versions of the work, intended to be ‘Bud-dhist’ tengu, but in the tora-no-maki and densho¯ under discussion these otsuki of Marishi-ten lack any connotation of being ‘devils’ or ‘mischie-vous’, ‘tricky’ or ‘out-of-control’. They are clearly transmitting secret transmissions and in deadly earnest. Any hint of anything else would have been instantly rejected. We should never forget that the recipient of these ‘divinely-revealed’ teachings depended on their veracity for his very life and honour. Two illustrations are shown in Plates 2 and 3.

The use of ‘Western’ visages, the prominent forward pointing noses, the gaunt features with high cheekbone structures, the unkempt hirsute faces, raises another interesting question. It is known by many Kendo his-torians²⁴⁴ that several prominent bugeisha voyaged with the ‘Tally Ships’

from Japan to Ningpo¯ where they remained while the more prominent merchants travelled to the Imperial capital. It was probably during these months lodging on Ningpo¯ island that these bugeisha met and studied with their Chinese counterparts. These visits were doubtless occasions similar to modern trading fairs. The Japanese masters would have met with numbers of martial experts, Westerners amongst them, and even studied the bugei with them. We have no concrete proofs of this, of course, but as already pointed out, most of the surviving So¯ -jutsu betrays clear fundamental infl uences deriving from the Chinese use of both the spear and the staff; in swordsmanship and the use of staff weapons – and in particular the Lucerne Hammer in Talhoffer’s fi fteenth century man-uscripts - we can understand the transmission travelling all the way back to Europe as well as enriching the Japanese concepts. There can be little doubt that somewhere in the fourteenth and fi fteenth century there was prolonged contact between these martial cultures.²⁴⁵ The ‘westernized’

tengu fi gures suggest that the ‘spiritual revelations’ many masters expe-rienced were later expressed in these ‘foreign’ fi gures, thereby adding to their mystery. I am not proposing here that some or many of these Muromachi ryu¯ actually derived from ‘western’ contact but that, pos-sibly, the strangeness of these ‘foreigners’ faces remained imprinted in the subconscious minds of a few brilliant masters and later manifested themselves in the tengu fi gures. In the late-Sengoku era and onwards to the early Edo period, many western foreigners were to be seen on the streets of Edo, Kyo¯ to and Sakai; some much further afi eld with the Jesuit missionaries. Intuitive revelations experienced by numbers of

the founders of the great ko-ryu¯ after their self-imposed ascesis wherein, in many cases, they must have had fearsome hallucinations, might well have been expressed, even rationalized, in the form of these ‘foreign-looking’ otsuki. We can only speculate but will examine the processes that produced these ‘visions’ later.

TWO FINAL TORA-NO-MAKI AND DENSHOˉ

Taisha-ryˉu

Although I have discussed the Taisha-ryu¯ in a previous work,²⁴⁶ it would be appropriate to look at two of the tengu drawings that appear in an early-Edo period series of densho¯ given originally to a Nabeshima-han swordsman, O¯ bushi Kansuke, around 1670–75. The Taisha-ryu¯

developed directly from the Shinkage-ryu¯ and the founder, Marume Kurando¯ -Dayu¯ , was a leading student of Kamiidzumi Nobutsuna, the fi rst master. The Shinkage tradition, itself, came directly from the Kage-no-ryu¯ , which argues a very strong underlying belief, at fi rst and second-hand, in the powers bestowed by Marishi-ten. It comes as no surprise that there is a strong sense of realism in all the tengu drawings from this almost unique collection of documents.²⁴⁷ The fi gure illustrated in Plate 1 has a tremendous sense of vitality and authority in his whole posture.

His wide-open fi rmly staring eyes capture the strongest feeling of zan-shin-no-ri, ‘awareness’ internalized.²⁴⁸ The form is one of several in the Iai-jutsu go¯ kui levels, each interpreting different situations when faced with attacks by enemies armed not only with swords but also spears.

Apart from the tengu’s yamabushi clothing, his tokin, and hirsute fea-tures, it should be noted that his sword, although turned by his left hand, is actually worn as a katana, edge upwards. Interestingly, the katana blade is drawn in readiness to strike, ‘earth-to-sky’, and about three or four inches clear of the saya.

Almost as dramatic as the drawing (Fig. 33) – a superb visualization of a tengu otsuki. Here, again, we have a tengu preparing to draw his sword, ‘earth-to-sky’ with a katana, not a tachi. These upwards Iai-jutsu forms are considered by some masters to date the original inspiration to the transitional period between swordsmen wearing slung tachi, a custom that faded out towards the end of the Muromachi, and the later wearing of katana, blade edge uppermost, during the Edo period. Similar forms are found in the Hayashizaki Shigenobu-ryu¯ and the Hasegawa Eishin-ryu¯ – both strongly infl uenced by the Taisha-Eishin-ryu¯ , and probably other traditions.

o O o

Shingan-ryˉu

This tora-no-maki,²⁴⁹ dating from approximately the early- or mid-Edo

This tora-no-maki,²⁴⁹ dating from approximately the early- or mid-Edo

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