Spirit of Budo
at Amazon.com
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| The Cover of Spirit of Budo |
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| Books by Trevor Leggett at Amazon.com |
The Japanese title for this book is "Nihon Budo no Kokoro", or "The heart of Japanese Budo". The English translation is sufficient, and I don't think there is any real meaning that goes missing. I was given this book by a very good Japanese friend who found it in a bookstore in Tokyo. I was really quite touched to receive it, as my friend knew that I am interested in reading things about "budo", "bushido", and similar topics.
Trevor Leggett was one of the very first Westerners to study martial arts in Japan, and also introduce judo to England. This book is a collection of essays and thoughts, reflecting back on a life-time of dealing with these themes, and cross-cultural issues, and continually knitting them back to the central theme of "budo". I thought that this book was quite interesting, and it refreshed some of my thinking as well.
Now I realize that many things I have said and written in regards to "budo" and "bushido" hold it closer to the light of "fiction" and "mythology" rather than an active element which is intrinsic to the present "Japanese mind". I still hold that to be true. But I also acknowledge that Mr. Leggett and I experience two very different "Japans". His is one that is a nation rising out of the ashes of the Second World War. His experiences of Japan is a nation that struggles to re-assert its identity, that suppresses the fascism of the 1930's and 1940's. His Japan is one that is tentative and afraid that its culture will be washed away by Western influence. His is a Japan that, in the attempt to find some good at the core of its culture, actively tries to reach back into its past to find some kind of anchor.
My Japan is one that is swimming in Western influence, that is crumbling from the inside due to turning over the country to a faceless bureaucratic machine that chugs along mindlessly ignoring the growing perils of a rapidly aging society, nihilistic youth, a failed educational system, and profound apathy that eats like a cancer on any collectivism of a prior age that the Japanese may have taken for granted. Yes, there are still flashes of the Japan that Mr. Leggett experienced frequently, shining through the styrofoam, the vinyl fashions of youth, the pollution that chokes a shrinking natural environment, but it is a dwindling dream.
Mr. Leggett has developed a few interesting themes relating the "budo" experience to the definition of a "gentleman", a "gentleman" with sensibilities that transcend East and Western culture. As an English gentleman I found the writing quite evocative and interesting. A Canadian who might write something similar would have a very different psychological, as well as cultural context from which to explore and evaluate these themes.
This book is short, and is in reality only 126 pages long. Its length is attributed to being in both Japanese and English. As a work exploring the "budo" that exists between Japanese and Western nations, this book is evocative and creative. It relives the dream of "budo" as a binding and vigorous quality that cultivates the very best behavior in people, that cements a society, and pushes people to evolve individually in both body and spirit. It is a beautiful dream. And as a dream, it has a certain reality to it.
Dreamlike, thoughtful, and fun. Enjoy it for that, because that would be enough.
Mark Groenewold
Kanazawa, Japan
February, 2004
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