Yamaoka Tesshu
Early Years and Training
by Romulus Hillsborough
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Yamaoka Tesshu was born in Edo in 1836, the fourth son of a samurai in the service of the Tokugawa Shogun. At age nine Tesshu began training in the way of the sword, which, combined with the study of Zen and "service to nation and lord," would be his lifelong devotion until his death forty-four years later. Endowed with a naturally strong spirit and overwhelming physique, he weighed around 240 pounds and stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall. Tesshu developed a reputation as a "demon" at the training hall. For all his physical and mental training, he was an unruly maverick within samurai society who lived by his own notions of the warrior's code. Saigo Takamori, the great military leader of Satsuma, once said, "Unless a man was difficult to control, I would never discuss important affairs of state with him." Four years after the two had met as adversaries, Saigo recruited Tesshu into the new imperial government, to serve in the vital post of chief attendant and confidant to Emperor Meiji. In June 1853, Tesshu's eighteenth year, an event occurred at Edo that would drastically change both his life and the course of Japanese history. This event, of course, was the sudden arrival of a flotilla of warships led by Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy. The Americans demanded a treaty with Japan, which for the past two and a half centuries had been governed under the peaceful isolationism of the Tokugawa. The Bakufu eventually yielded to the foreign demands, sparking the greatest upheaval in its history. Fifteen years of bloody turmoil ensued, culminating in the fall of the Edo regime and the establishment of imperial rule. During the peaceful rule of the Tokugawa many in the samurai class had lost interest in the martial arts. Their swords had become symbols of their place in society, rather than weapons of war. With the sudden threat of foreign subjugation, the samurai rediscovered the original purpose of their swords. There was a renaissance in the martial arts, and samurai throughout Japan now practiced fencing with a newfound purpose. In 1855, the Bakufu established the Kobusho, an elite academy of martial arts exclusively for the sons of direct retainers of the shogun. Here samurai of the Tokugawa camp studied fencing, archery, spear techniques and artillery under the top instructors in Japan. Tesshu enrolled at the new academy right away. In the following year, at age twenty, he was appointed as assistant fencing instructor. During those dangerous times Tesshu did not limit his practice to the training hall. He ate and slept with his bamboo sword, and even brought it with him to the privy. He was constantly challenging people to a match. It made no difference to him whether a man was an expert swordsman or had never before held a sword because he believed that a warrior must always be prepared to face any adversary at any given moment in any given situation. But pity the unsuspecting visitor to his home. Even the merchants from local shops were not exempt from a sudden challenge by the unruly swordsman, who was probably twice the size of most of them. He would rush out of his house into the front yard to meet merchants as they arrived. The merchants were, more often than not, filled with the fear of death. Tesshu would thrust a practice sword into their hands and demand that they attack him. He only ceased his violent behavior when the local merchants threatened to withhold services to his family. Tesshu was a warrior first and last. His family was poor and often in debt, so that when the bill collectors came to his house he was obliged to turn them away. On one occasion a particularly persistent collector would not be turned away so easily. He noticed that Tesshu had a sizable sum of money in his purse. When the collector pressed him to use that money to pay off at least part of a debt, Tesshu replied that he would sooner starve than use the money which he kept as a "war reserve." Tesshu's rough reputation did not escape the authorities in Edo. In the spring of 1863 opposition to the foreign treaties had so intensified that Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi was compelled to travel to Kyoto to promise the xenophobic emperor that he would expel the foreigners. As an advance guard to the shogun's visit, the government recruited a corps of ragtag swordsmen to suppress the rebels who terrorized the streets of Kyoto. Tesshu was assigned the daunting task of leading the so-called Roshi Corps, precursor of the notorious Shinsengumi, on the 300-mile overland journey to Kyoto. After Tesshu returned to Edo that spring, having successfully completed his mission, he finally encountered an opponent he could not defeat. Master The man's name was Asari Matashichiro. When Tesshu heard of Asari's reputation as a swordsman, he immediately challenged him to a match. The match took place at Asari's dojo, a small space of only eighteen by thirty feet. The two men wielded bamboo practice swords and wore cotton training robes, wide trousers and protective leather vests lined with resistant strips of bamboo. The backs of their hands were protected by thick gloves, and they wore shields over their faces. The match lasted nearly half a day without either man scoring a "kill," during which time Tesshu took advantage of his overwhelming size to repeatedly attack Asari with his body. But Asari skillfully evaded each attack, throwing the much heavier man to either side. When the two clashed head-on, pushing each other with their sword guards, Tesshu knocked Asari off balance. Asari landed hard on the wooden floor and immediately removed his facemask. "The match is over," he declared, sitting up straight and placing his practice sword at his side. "Yes. You fought well, but not well enough," said Tesshu, smiling triumphantly at his opponent, who remained seated on the floor. "But I won," asserted Asari. "The attack I delivered to your right side as I went down would have killed you had we been using real swords." Tesshu removed his protective vest, and, to his astonishment, found that three of the bamboo strips on the right side had been severed. Tesshu became Asari's student on the following day. Tesshu sparred with his new master everyday, and everyday he lost. He developed a mental block for his master. When he closed his eyes to sleep at night his mind was filled with the vision of an unbeatable Asari brandishing a sword. The vision haunted him for years. Even after Tesshu established a fencing academy and had a following of his own, he was obsessed with finding a way to defeat Asari. The more he struggled the less obtainable his objective became, and he continued to be troubled by the vision. Years before, at age nineteen, Tesshu had begun the practice of Zen. He now took to heart the teaching of his first Zen master that his ultimate objective must be nothing! "Only then," his master had told him, "will you remain as steady as a mountain, and never be afraid, even against a drawn sword." Tesshu continued his rigorous training year after year. He wrote in his diary: "Although I continue to practice diligently, I cannot find a way to defeat Asari. After practicing with him each morning, I have numerous matches with other people in the afternoon. At night I sit alone and meditate, with my eyes closed and concentrating on my breathing. But once I start to think about Asari, he suddenly appears before me invincible. No matter how hard I try, I cannot strike him down." One day he met a Zen priest by the name of Tensui, of Tenryuji Temple in Kyoto. "For years it has been my objective to combine swordsmanship with Zen," Tesshu told the priest. "But thus far I have been incapable of completely understanding Zen teachings." "That's very good," the Zen priest replied, then after a long, ponderous pause continued: "Right now it is as if you were looking at things through spectacles. While spectacles can help you to see, you don't need spectacles if your eyes are good. Actually it's better not to wear spectacles because they distort things. You have now reached the point that you no longer need to wear them. You must get rid of them. Once you do this, you will be able to achieve your objective. Since you have extensively studied the ways of the sword and Zen, once you are suddenly spiritually awakened you will attain freedom over life and death, and you will have supernatural powers." Early one morning, after meditating for five consecutive days, Tesshu took his sword in hand and waged a mental battle with Asari. At age forty-four, after training under Asari for seventeen years, Tesshu experienced an epiphany which changed his life. The vision of his master suddenly vanished. He rushed to the nearby training hall to engage his most skilled student. But the student soon gave up, throwing down his practice sword and saying, "I am no match for you." Tesshu now went to Asari to request a match. But not even the sword master could stand up against him. Asari laid down his practice sword and proclaimed that Tesshu had mastered the secret of his art. Yamaoka Tesshu Back to Table of Contents -- Samurai History Papers # 3 Back to Samurai History Papers List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Romulus Hillsborough. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com |