Aoinagi Karate

"Fight!"

The school yard implodes with little bodies flying to the scene like iron filings to a magnet. The word, "Fight," echoes and reverberates as children suddenly explode with overwhelming excitement.

Their little bodies are reminders of our heritage. Sometime in the distant past we fought for survival. Those who fought well survived. Those who did not fight so well perished. It wasn't a schoolyard then probably. It was far more likely a piece of land along a river bank. And it wasn't children then either but was adults struggling to maintain the right to hunt and gather precious food, and drink the precious water of the river, and have a decent shelter from the nightime or rain or enemies. They had to fight to defend their "territory" against those who would possess it.

Small glands setting right on top of the kidneys developed a means to help our ancestors. These ad-renal glands produce epinephrine (adrenalin, sympathomimetics) which give an "adrenalin-rush." The adrenalin rush is a hormone-induced fight-or-flight response where the eyes dilate, the heart rate increases, digestion is diminished, and blood is shunted to the major organs of the body. The individual is almost instantaneoulsy made ready to fight or to flee.

Such biochemical preparation for battle had major implications for survival to our forefathers and the reflex has not been replaced.

We see this in the uncontrollable behavior and excitement of the school children rushing around the playground after someone yells,"Fight!"

The Advantage of Technique

The little children may fight by pushing, shoving, biting and even sometimes hitting. They are usually quite ineffective, unless someone has shown them a technique or two, i.e., how to hit effectively. When they learn a technique or two they are much more awesome opponents. They are now armed with the "fight-or-flight" mediators and an effective means of doing destruction, i.e., a few techniques.

The next time the child gets in a fight, he or she throws his technique. Against an unwary opponent the technique succeeds; success. The child is victorious and feels the rush of invincibility (the same invincibility that Mussolini called Facism).

Perhaps the child fights again. Then again. Then again. The child keeps winning until the child comes against an opponent who does not fall to the child's technique. Perhaps the new opponent is bigger, more experienced, or has a technique or two that our child never saw before. Defeat.

The advantage of technique brought our child to multiple successes. Unfortunately, our child continued to fight and, because of this, met defeat. Technique is an advantage, but it does not overcome every opponent.

The People of Arms

Our ancestors learned the advantage of technique, too. I can see an ancient father teaching techniques to his children. I can see the father teaching unarmed strikes, how to launch a surprise attack and even how to make and weild primative weapons to his children. All of these techniques gave advantage to his sons. Why would he not teach them? The answer is he would. And, he taught the best techniques he had learned during his life of fighting for survival.

The little band of people along the riverbank had to learn the advantage of technique also. If they didn't they were soon ousted from their riverbank home by another band of people. They learned the advantage of passing information from one generation to another by teaching so that the band could remain stable at the riverbank. The elder soldiers and those with more experience taught the younger soldier techniques of offense and defense (although probably not divided into those words). The better the techniques taught and the better the techniques were implimented the more likely the band survivied.

When the tribe was attacked the youth used those techniques they had learned. They probably also implimented new ones. If their techniques were sufficient to overcome the attacking band no matter how large it was the tribe survived. If the band's techniques were inefficient, the tribe was conquered or killed. The fate of their genetic progeny was determined in the matter of a few hours or less.

The riverbank band needed to teach the youth useful techniques which would allow them to defeat any attacking enemy. This was not a matter of who owns the riverbank. It may well have been a matter of whose genes would pass to the next generation. Although many of the techniques were probably useless, the tribes that survived may well have developed very unusual personal combat techniques for the time.

Army

For a very long time in the history of tribal warfare wars were fought on the basis of individual engagements. It was "our side" against "their side" but the idea of working together as a unit did not develop. Individuals fought in melee or in individual contests.

Nowhere can we see unit-organization better than in the example of the Greek phalanx. The Greek phalanx was a unit-organization technique where the safety of each individual in the phalanx depended on the discipline of the individual next to him. The Persians had no such organization but attacked in melee. The phalanx cut through the strongest and most proficient Persian soldiers like a hot knife through butter.

The Greeks weren't a superior people. The Greeks had superior technique. In this case it was a rigidly organized closely knit body of soldiers.

And with the Greeks new kinds of tactics and strategies emerged; those of an organized army.

Command and Commanders

Strong organization requires leadership. A tribe could not give up individual melee in battle unless it had strong leadership. Any leader who had to get a group of people to act in unison had to have the power to command prescribed behaviors. For example, if only a small contingent of the phalanx failed its responsibility the entire army would be routed and, perhaps, killed. The command of life-and-death over the soldiers was needed. And, so the command emerged. The armies of less well commanded societies disappeared or were conquered.

Who knows how commanders originally emerged. Perhaps they emerged because they had the best fighting skill. Perhaps they emerged because they were the eldest or had the most brothers and sisters. At any rate commanders developed, commanded and led. And who they commanded and led became what we today know as soldiers.

Emerging Technologies

Someone once told me that Jericho on the Jordan River was the earliest known walled city. It dates to about 8000 years ago. Why the wall? The wall bespeaks of the military advantage of technology. Instead of relying on "fight-or-flight" responses and a few techniques, societies began to develop and impliment technology for protection of their clans and tribes. Thus, emerged the cities.

In the next few mellinia social units banded in several centers. Harappa, China, Sumer, Akkad, Egypt emerged. By just 3000 years ago the world was speckled with cities and cultures each needing protection from its enemies.

It never ceases to amaze me how some cultures protected themselves. Athens built a wall from its hills all the way down to Pireus Bay. Sparta destroyed everything we would consider "family" and made a military society with rules we would call in-human. Rome started as one small city and conquered new territories in almost a panic of being conquered itself. The Hittites used a technological material we call iron to destroy their enemies even before they knew how to write and record their learnings.

So, as we put some of the pieces of the puzzle together we find the chances of survival growing out of certain human developments;

• our genetic development including
• • fight-or-flight responses
  • intelligence
  • the will to survive
• group consolidation
• • leadership
  • discipline
• improved technology

Our own social and genetic survival depended on our chances of survival. Our chances of survival also depended (depends?) on our war-like organization. How can it be that anyone living today can doubt the importance of war to us. We, the children of the warriors of old, exist because they developed what was needed to improve the chances of our survival. And, so