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The Dojo Kun!

 

During my stay in Japan, I was introduced to the famous story of Musashi Miyamoto, the legendary undefeated samurai. It had been several years since I had read a book, and I just couldn’t put this one down. A true story that read like a movie: a reclusive lone warrior who fought with two swords, taking on challenger after challenger, defeating them all, and finishing with the final battle against his arch-nemesis, Kojiro Sasaki, a bully whom he defeated with a boat oar. If you’d like to see the final scene, search on YouTube under “Kojiro vs Musashi (Ganryu Island Duel)”. A huge fan of Musashi, Mas Oyama also trained in solitude and then travelled the world, introducing his Karate and taking on all challengers, defeating them all. The book was written by Eiji Yoshikawa, a prolific Japanese historical novelist who wrote several historical novels. After reading Musashi, I couldn’t get enough and had to read “Taiko”, which I liked even better: an incredibly true story of how a peasant named Hideyoshi Toyotomi rose to become the ruler of Japan. I became even more intrigued with Eiji Yoshikawa when I found out that a memorial dedicated to him was literally 15 minutes away by bicycle from my apartment.

 

I lived in Koganei city, a satellite city of Tokyo. Nobody really knows it, but when I mention that it’s the location of the famous Ghibli Studios, the eyes of animation fans light up, and they start rambling on about their favourite Ghibli movies. Mine would probably be “Castle in the Sky” and “Porco Rosso”: great family movies to watch with kids, but I’m starting to digress. I eventually discovered that Mas Oyama was a big fan of the Musashi Miyamoto book as well, inevitably coming across a story of how the writer played a major role in writing the Dojo-kun, known as the Dojo oath in English. The Dojo kun recited at the end of training is as follows:

“We will train our hearts and bodies for a firm, unshaking spirit. We will pursue the true meaning of the martial way so that, in time, our senses may be alert. With true vigour, we will seek to cultivate a spirit of self-denial. We will respect our superiors and refrain from violence. We will follow and honour our conscience and never forget the true virtue of humility. We will look up to wisdom and strength, not seeking other desires. All our lives, through the discipline of karate, we will seek to fulfil the true meaning of the Kyokushin way.”

 

During his time of solitude training on a mountainside, Mas Oyama kept a copy of “The Book of Five Rings”, a philosophical book written by the samurai Musashi Miyamoto himself covering strategy, martial arts and a way of life. Years later, when Mas Oyama established the honbu (headquarters) dojo in the Toshima ward of Tokyo, he made a decision to write his own dojo oath, a common piece of doctrine amongst budo organisations in Japan.

 

The following story was told at an interview with Chiyako Oyama, Mas Oyama’s wife. Every day, Mas Oyama would take a lunchbox made by his wife and sit under a tree outside the home of Eiji Yoshikawa, waiting for the opportunity to meet him. One day, while waiting, he noticed two of his maids chopping firewood used to heat the bathhouse. Bewildered that such arduous labour was being conducted by the maids, he cut the wood up for them and neatly stacked it in the yard. When the maids were asked by Eiji Yoshikawa who had cut the wood and stacked it in the garden, they explained to him that a Mr Oyama had been coming along for about six months waiting for the opportunity to meet him but was too polite to come to the house. The author then told the maids that the next time Mr Oyama came by, to let him know. When they eventually met, Mas Oyama explained to Mr Yoshikawa how he had just formed the honbu dojo and would be honoured if Mr Yoshikawa could write an oath for the dojo. However, Mas Oyama admitted that he could not pay anything in return, to which Mr Yoshikawa replied, that since the wood had been chopped, he could now enjoy a hotter bath each night and therefore owed Mas Oyama a favour.