Testing the combat scripting of Musashi ZP
Just had my “practice day” with a friend of mine.
Him and I are both going to be competing in a “adult sports day” tomorrow
Events are:
- Handstand Hold
- 100 meter sprint
- 400 meter race
- 1200 meter race
- Wrestling (starting from knees)
- “Push-Hand Fighting”
Push Fighting, rules explained
- Two people stand across from each other, square stance, one arm-length apart from each other. An outstretched hand should just barely be able to reach the opponent.
- The goal is to push the other person off balance, whoever’s feet moves first, loses
- This is intricate because pushing their body is not allowed, you can ONLY push their hands
- If you try and push my hands, and I just go limp, there’s no real way you can push me
- Rules: no moving your feet or else you lose, hands have to be raised (so they can be pushed) at all times, if you push someone’s hands and accidentally touch/push their body, that’s a “foul” and the push doesn’t count.
I’m going to go in chronological order of the events that happened.
First, some SERIOUS freaking inner-circle-but-martial-arts people manifestations… I started telling him that I was going to go to a Filipino Boxing Gym that also specializes in Two-Stick Fighting (Kali.)
Him and I talked about that for a while, I joked “the guys who teach martial arts in their basement are either the best, or the worst” and he said “yeah they’re usually pretty bad unless you know the guy who teaches Kali in his basement but is also one of the foremost experts in the world on it… luckily I know that guy.”
Me: WHAT!??!?!?
Conversation goes on and my friend says “yeah I was training Kali and Jujutsu with him.”
Me: “Oh that’s cool, I’m not really interested in Jujitsu though.”
Him: “Not Jujitsu, JU-JU-TSU…”
Me: “What’s that?”
Him: “Think of it this way, Brazilian JU-JI-TSU, popular now, is 100 years old. JU-JU-TSU practioners from Japan came down to Brazil, brazilians loved the ground work, and they popularize JU-JI-TSU by getting involved in the UFC. But JU-JU-TSU is what the samurai trained. It’s standing, involves weapons, wrist locks, throws, it’s for inflicting maximum damage and finishing your opponent in two concise movements.”
At this stage I’m already thinking wtf is in this subliminal I listened to it yesterday and now I’m connected to an actual 9th Dan Black Belt + Kali aka 2-Stick-Fighting master? Come on…
And I had never mentioned ANY interest in Musashi or Samurai or anything to my friend.
Then comes the actual physicality, but I’ll try and be brief.
One of the competitions will be a “handstand hold” and I don’t 100% know if it’s going to be a totally static handstand, where if I move my hands, I lose, or if I’ll be allowed to move my hands freely, aka do a “handstand walk” not a “hold.”
If it’s a walk, I might win, but if it’s a hold, I’ll absolutely lose.
Except, I said “when I do a handstand walk I’m falling forwards and catching myself” and then I thought… why don’t I just try and do that, but do it without walking?
And I went and did a handstand and did the longest handstand hold I’ve ever done in my life, first time, just from being able to conceptualize the technique better in my mind, think of a new way of doing it, and then trying it out.
For the wrestling, my friend and I didn’t do full on sparring… we just explored various pulls, twists, techniques, and he was showing me some Jujutsu that could apply to starting-from-knees wrestling involving placing the hand on the opponents neck to apply pressure to the jugular and get them to the ground. How fast I was learning and applying and understanding was incredible, and I even showed him how the technique would have to change.
My inner understanding of how to move my body and how to dissect another person’s body in that context was unparalleled. We spent most of our wrestling-time talking, imagining consequences, and dissecting the human body’s fall-points, to create a strategy going into the wrestling. We made amazing progress.
Then, finally, for the push-hands-fighting… that’s where the scripting really kicked in. This is the MOST similar to a swordfight of all of the events. Two men, facing each other down, no running away, no tricks, just an understanding that it’s a fight to the death (elimination) and that it’s impossible to eliminate your opponent without attacking, therefore also putting yourself at risk of elimination.
Dokkodo #17: I spurned not Death, in practicing The Way
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Miyamoto Musashi- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Then I laughed, in the middle of practicing, because a quote from my Musashi book came rushing to my head after we had spent a good ten minutes testing whether it was better to stand with our feet pointed directly at the opponent, or ever so slightly angled outwards
1000 days of training to forge
10,000 days of training to refine
But a duel is decided in an instant
And that’s exactly what it felt like. Spending over 2 hours contemplating what tiny tiny adjustments of the body we could make, knowing that if we could just be a bit more prepared than the opponent, we would win in a split second.
My understanding of the physicality stayed strong, and when we got to the sparring him and I did together (push-fighting is essentially no-contact, so totally safe), I was completely outclassing him even though he’s done this many many times and I was basically figuring it out as I went along.
I was actually remembering something Musashi related, not sure if in the sales copy or the book, regarding “if you can stop your opponent from attacking, you’ve already won.” And I created some really effective strategies in that regard that always gave me the advantage, and if you tried to counter the advantage, you would immediately lose… in order to counter it, you’d have to know I’m going to do it before I do it… this is what I’m referring to when I say all that work and strategy, just to win a duel that would be over in a split second.
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