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This entry is guest authored by the Minivan Samurai at Blackbear�s request. Many of you know that while you were away at war pillaging and shopping I was at a martial arts camp. This was the first week-long camp in our Dojo in my memory, and in some of those with memories much longer than mine, so I gather it had been about twenty years since such a camp had been held. Needless to say, many wonders occurred and many honors were bestowed and yours truly was excluded from neither, but these are not my current tale. At the campground where this magnificent event was held, there is a building grandly entitled the Natatorium. This is, of course, the building which houses the swimming pool (yes, an indoor swimming pool at a campground -- go figure -- but this is hardly the only wondrous feature of Camp Young, which I defy you to find on any map). This pool gained the honor of becoming the site where our Sensei would teach his eager students the fundamentals of Eihojutsu, the classical Samurai method of combat while swimming (theoretically in armor and potentially on horseback) -- even though he proclaimed it �dead water� because it had no current. By way of personal background, allow me to share with you at this point that I had always considered myself a pretty fair swimmer. My Mom always called me her �water baby.� I was on swim teams in my youth, and while never the fastest, knew all the basic strokes and dives, could do reasonable kick turns, and had pretty good endurance. My favorite thing is to swim underwater, even though I have to do it blind with my contact lenses, and I could hold my breath for three minutes, and can still probably come pretty close. In progressive swimming I got my shark patch and never really had the chance to try for dolphin because we moved, and I thought shark was pretty cool anyway. I still love to play in the surf, even when it�s pretty rough, and I often do it longer than Educait even wants to be at the beach. Okay, the first thing I learned is that I can�t swim; none of this is helpful in Eihojutsu. Without giving too many secrets away, I can tell you that in Eihojutsu ones priorities are stealth and awareness -- keeping your head well above water so you can see what�s going on. This involves a frog kick and a very stately crawl-like stroke. By western swim team standards it is not a very efficient stroke. You can take two approaches: one, you try to propel yourself forward fast enough that you get some lift that keeps your front end (head) above water. This does not work for very long. The other approach some of us figured out was to try to keep your legs under you so that you�re mainly kicking upward. This works better; you move slowly, but speed is not a priority. The problem is, if you�re in a pool full of other people trying to do the same thing, the slightest contact with another person throws your rhythm off, and you go under. Also, of course everyone wants to be in the deep end, and your not-so-humble correspondent, confident in his swimming ability, was stubbornly in the (very crowded) deep end every time. Of course, we weren�t there to learn the easy way; we were there to learn the samurai way -- which you can pretty well bet will be the most difficult way imaginable. Yes, even more than the cowboy way. Well, the highest priority, as you can imagine, is not to get ones weapon wet. (No, it�s not to not drown; don�t be silly!) So we practiced the same stroke with one hand holding a (wooden) sword above our heads, with two hands holding a sword above our heads and with two hands holding two swords above our heads. Sensei had asked us to each write a haiku about each day in camp, and I will here recount one of mine pertaining to Eihojutsu: Swimming through water, My sword high above my head, F---! This is hard! Naturally, it�s not enough to just swim with a weapon; you have to be able to use it. To this end we would divide into long lines along either side of the pool, swim to the center holding our swords out of the water, swing them at each other, deliberately swinging high to just hit swords, then swim back. This isn�t enough like real combat though, so after we swam back, Sensei had two guys swim to the center to demonstrate another drill. These are the guys he had demonstrate: one is about 6� 4� and is preparing to take some Army Reserve test where he�ll have to swim in full combat gear including boots and a rifle, and the other is a Navy SEAL. The drill was to swim out to the center holding the sword parallel in front of you with both hands near the ends and clash the swords together. Well, of course, in no time these two were each trying to get the upper hands, literally, and push each other under. Sensei stopped them and carefully explained that the idea was not to push down but just to push toward each other, parallel to the surface of the water. Then Sensei told everyone to pick an opponent on the opposite wall and point to them with our swords. So, I picked a guy who�d been in the Dojo a long time, let�s call him Harry Rex because you wouldn�t believe his real name, and pointed at him. Sensei then blew his whistle, and we all swam toward our respective opponents. So I swam up to Harry Rex, presented my sword parallel to the water, whereupon he instantly turned his sword vertically, hooked his handle over my blade and pushed down. And that was how I nearly died at summer camp. The first time. |
 
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Minivan Samurai's Eihojutsu Memories