Quirky aspects of Ran no Jidai that have a basis in fact

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You might have played the mod long enough that one of your named generals gets the Dim Mak trait. That always makes me bust out laughing because Dim Mak isn't Japanese, but has a Chinese origin. That sort of mysticism among the Traditional Asian Fighting Arts (See Don Drager), got its start with the Kung Fu series and the Shaolin priests, and then began to spread to chambara and jidaigeki films. Dim Mak is allegedly a death touch adminsitered by experts in Budo.

What's the historical basis? Even Gichin Funakoshi, the modern founder of Okinawan Karate who relocated to Japan (actually forced to stay for a period at their insistence!), in order that they could grasp the superiority of Okinawan Karate, believed in Kyusho. In the story, the Okinawans karateka were invited to do a demonstration, perhaps a bit mockingly by the Japanese, who felt that the Okinawans having been subjugated by the Satsuma (Shimazu) wouldn't have any true Budo that they could impart. So Funakoshi being very adept was chosen for his educational talents (he was a school teacher in real life), and also was very patient, kind, rather noble, and a gentleman.

When Funakoshi arrived, the karateka of Japan who had assembled directly challenged him to one duel after another to empirically test his abiltiy versus their own. He defeated them all, rather a big deal, and given he stood less than five feet tall, quite amazing.

Funakoshi wrote about pressure points in a Chinese diagram which is nearly identical to some Chinese medicine drawings of the time period for Acupuncture. He very lightly told his students to "study this diagram very deeply", but then for most of them, never actually went into the specifics. As the story goes, hitting a person's pressure points (Kyusho) in a designated manner and order, would then cause things like brief nerve paralysis, and then could even result in things like nausea and health issues.

Well, as you can imagine, in the evironment of the time period, and with the awe he generated, then a sort of dread and superstitious concern and a wide berth was given to those who studied under Funakoshi at the mastery (advanced sensei) level. This even was dramatically enhanced by the fact that the Okinawans at the time period had no dan rating (black belt rating) but merely believed that there were better black belts, often by years of very intense serious study.

So since the Japanese had 1-10 dan (example a tenth degree black belt was given to the founder of systems), and the Okinawans had no such system, the sensei said, "Let's give 5th degree status to Funakoshi as that's the midpoint...". Well, when Funakoshi wrangled everyone around in Japan, and tossed them to and fro, and made them look like amateurs, they said, "And this guy is only 5th dan!'

See where this goes? Kyusho has some legitimacy as every school boy knows who has struck the nerve plexus in their friends' thigh to briefly paralyze them. Or any martial arts student knows that a strike to the solar plexus can knock the wind out of their opponent.

However there was something more to this. Certain places in the neck are pressure sensitive. They are on both sides of the neck, and they are called the baroreceptors. Any strike to them fools the mechanism for controling blood pressure. Such is used in a chokehold, and this cause an opponent to pass out, as anyone has seen in the mixed martial arts.

Likewise in Judo, and in some Karate systems, there is a specific order of massage that is done when there is an injury which helps with pain, recovery, even to rouse someone who has been knocked out. All of that has some tenuous link with Kyusho.

George Dillman, a classically trained Traditional Martial Artist in the early seventies, who won innumberable awards, then went off the deep end and began to propose a new jiujutsu system based upon these Kyusho, with many startling claims, and it's a bit sad to see that happen as it doesn't hold up well to scrutiny.

The fact that a Chinese word is used is not an issue, for the Japanese language is based upon Chinese. Much of the culture was absorbed by the Japanese from the Chinese. Many martial arts originated in China and found their way to Okinawa and Japan. In fact, about 10-15 years ago, some scientist was doing some studies and found evidence that the Japanese might have migrated from Korea with a high degree of certainty, something that would make the rabid Japanese nationalists furious.

Karate before Funakoshi actually was translated as "Chinese hand" for it was the art of the Chinese empty (weaponless) hand as a martial art. Funakoshi taught a series of unusual atemi or strikes/punches, and while the striking surface was typically the side of the hand (knife hand) or the index and middle knuckles, there were some that used an unusual configuration where a single knuckle was carefully folded into a shape such that that knuckle then serves as a direct way to do a kyusho strike. Thus the practical and very real nerve strikes versus the myth of Dim Mak.

I could show a diagram, but I'll refrain as a beginner striking in such a way can break a finger versus the standard atemi. thus it would be irresponsible to show you.

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Early in Sengoku history, there was such a high level of conflict, that the martial tradition of the samurai was constantly honed by border clashes. You either developed a finesse to your archery and swordsmanship, or you got injured. And while Japanese medicine was pretty decent for the feudal period due to cleanliness and herbal remedies, being wounded meant infection and loss of limbs and possible death. Both have a way of eliminating the weak, right?

But the organized dojo system came way later. You have to have a series of buildings to construct cavalry, archers, and infantry, but in truth, the dojo sprang up out of regret and nostalgia.

The samurai regretted that they caved to the Tokugawa Shogunate. Unification led to their demise and irrelevance. Prior governmental systemic changes to improve the logistics of the samurai to the organized warfare regions, meant that less attention was focused on the samurai as a man wearing many hats to administer a largely rural fief. That empowered some peasants into leadership, and reduced the meddling of the samurai as leaders offering advice (and abuse for some samurai were not enlightened but forced peasants to work for them essentially for free at times).

So then the samurai becomes a true professional soldier, but with administrative duties in urban areas, and had a bigger living expenditure, for some then had to maintain two homes, not one. It gets worse, hold on.

So once you organize so many samurai in one place, then you have the ability to drill them to increase the efficiency and improve their ability. But these sorts of drills weren't dojo...yet.

Urbanization meant an inevitable drain on the village for personnel to relocate as well, and an opportunity for those who could organize the transition, who knew the craftsmen back in the village, who knew how to relocate these materials to the urban areas, and fundamentally altered the peasant from a rural villager to a urbanite who acted in a servant capacity or encouraged to become an artisan/craftsman, and caused the formation of guilds, and caused some to transition into the merchant class.

That facilitated the urbanization of soldiers. Otherwise they couldn't have been at various fronts in a timely manner.

And once Tokugawa accomplished his goals of unification, the samurai were not needed, but the administrator/bureaucrat sure were. Which means you have a wistful samurai sighing and hoping for conflict to practice their skills. And then some samurai began to teach in an organized way in dojo so the samurai could practice in a healthy way as a pressure relief valve to tone down urban conflict.

BUT, such irrelevancy of the samurai through unification meant that the expense of maintaining so many retainers was unnecessary. Though many daimyo had honed the sword so well to be used against their enemies, Tokugawa chose not to continue into Korea despite that wish. A fundamental change happened that rather ruined the martial arts in Japan. And the legacy becomes a dojo system where some who could afford it, then sent their sons to futilely attempt to hold on to feudal ideas when the ethos of the country was changing.

Lots and lots of ronin milling around in hovels, eking out an existence doing piecework for merchants for a few mon here and there...don't have money for dojos. But they did get in trouble a lot, just as soldiers today can't "shut it off" during peacetime."Now what do I do?"

A major portion of the revisionist rhetoric is that it was at this time of leisure by a handful of nostalgic samurai, who had still some stipend, then in their peaceful moments wrote in glowing terms of the past, and one that they felt eluded them as was their right.

Be neither a fan boy who unquestioningly places the samurai on a pedestal, for it's their fallibility and their mortality which makes them beautiful and human...not demi-gods, nor be a revisionist who doubts every written word as being questionable and unbelievable, but chose the middle path, for that is so very Japanese while playing Ran no Jidai.