On drinking, Spitting and Sword

Post By: Sensei Kris

Welcome to the second part of my irregular series on the Isshinryu Code. In this feature, we’ll examine one of the strangest of the tenets:

The manner of drinking and spitting is either hard or soft.

At first glance, one might wonder whether we are talking about martial arts at all. But I think this one line from the code nicely sums up a lot of what we do at Harp Karate.

First of all, we need to think more closely about “drinking” and “spitting”. Both deal with the same idea: are taking a liquid into your body (drinking) or expelling it from your body (spitting). If we replace the word “liquid” with “an opponent’s energy”, we get something interesting: The manner of taking an opponent’s energy and returning that energy is either hard or soft.

After a small amount of training, especially in circle attacks or sparring, we’ve experienced this. Sometimes you charge in at the person in the center in a direct confrontation (spitting hard). They respond by either meeting your charge with direct force like a block or a kick that catches you before you get too close (drinking hard) or by moving slightly and redirecting your energy (drinking soft). At other times, you try to be sneakier and attack the person in the middle more indirectly, such as a leg sweep while they are trying to reset after the last attack (spitting soft). They respond either by solidifying themselves against the sweep (drinking hard) or by allowing you to move them and then continuing that motion to their advantage (drinking soft).

We’re all used to sparring combinations. This tenet reminds us that there is a higher level of combinations – sort of a “meta-level” – where we think in larger terms about how we are being attacked and how we are responding to the attack. So here’s where my mathematician’s way of thinking comes into it. We have two ways of drinking and two ways of spitting. That’s 2 X 2 = 4 combinations of responding. To summarize them, we can

Drink hard and spit soft

Drink soft and spit soft

Drink hard and spit hard

Drink soft and spit hard

In sword, we refer to this by a more formal concept of yin and yang. Your partner attacks with the sword and you either block with yang (force against force) or yin (redirecting energy). Your counterattack after the block is either yin (following their movement) or yang (against their movement). Further, sword has eight basic strikes and eight blocks, so the combinations start to grow: eight strikes X 2 blocks (yin/yang) X 2 counterstrikes (yin/yang) = 32 combinations. When you factor in the three different distances that might be involved (close, middle, far) and how that affects the way you perform the technique, we suddenly get to around 96 combinations. Those on the Aiki side of the dojo are familiar with this combinatorial way of thinking (whether they realize it or not). But the karate side tends not to think this way too much.

At any rate, we’ve now got a lot of movements to memorize and practice. And to try and recognize which of those 96 you need at any given split second of a sword fight would result in “analysis paralysis” for most people. So the goal of our training is not simply to memorize all the movements and perform them perfectly. It is more subtle (did we ever think it wouldn’t be?). We need to think about the basic components of each of the movements – build our understanding and ability to perform them strong – so that we can use them as Lego blocks and build an appropriate response in the heat of the moment. This requires us to be fully present in the moment of each activity in the dojo and our personal training, aware of each of the facets (distance, the attacker’s technique, our block, our counter, etc.) so that we can develop a feel for what is actually happening that goes beyond what is easily seen.

So as you train in karate, Aiki, sword, automobile traffic, assignments, or whatever, think about how you take in the situation and how your give back. After all, it’s the season of giving! So drink up, everyone! (Or drink down, or…)

Photo By: Ken Smith