ABSTRACT

Japanese culture has a distinctive talent that suits admirably well the underlying

personal perfectionism of Skillful Striving. This gift turns a putative weakness into a

strength. Cultivating its own ‘personal’ perfection, Japan has turned apparent limitations

into patent opportunities. The land is not particularly endowed with natural riches, and

its people have not been disposed to change the world through radically original con-

tributions.4 Customarily, they have looked to other cultures for inspiration. To explain in

the context of martial arts, these were largely incorporated from Chinese wushu (武術),

traditional martial arts. They also imported metallurgical knowledge for weaponry: their

Chinese imitation swords broke or bent when confronting the Mongol invading troops

arrived in Japan in the thirteenth century. The much-touted relation between Zen and

the samurai, which resulted in the warrior code of bushido¯ (武士道), and lucid accep-

tance of death, was largely due to the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century.

Native Shinto¯ (神道), literally way of the spirit, was quite averse to any serious con-

sideration of death. Likewise, the bunbu ryodo¯ (文武両道), the two ways of the pen and

the sword, was also, if not imported, then at least preceded by the Hwarang warriors

from the Silla Kingdom in what today is Korea. In short, none of these developments

originate from or are unique to the Japanese. What the Japanese did do was to adopt

and refine them to unparalleled levels.