Thought Experiment

[Lingonberry]

Say you were tasked with creating a university program that focused on nihonto that had 101, 201, 301, and 401 levels. How would you structure each class and what topics would you include? What would be the required reading and what kind of exercises or homework would there be?

 

101: Beginner Course a.k.a. "An Introduction to Nihonto" a.k.a "READ A BOOK!"

Basic terminology/parts of a nihonto

Different blade shapes (Tachi, Katana, Nagamaki, Naginata, Tanto, Wakizashi, etc.)

Different time periods

How to tell authentic nihonto from machine made or Chinese fakes

Gokaden

Books:

Facts & Fundamentals of Japanese swords - Nobuo Nakahara and Paul Martin

The Samurai Sword: A Handbook - John M. Yumoto

The Japanese Sword - Kanzan Sato

The Craft of the Japanese Sword - Leon & Hiroko Kapp, Yoshindo Yoshihara

Encyclopedia of the Japanese Sword - Markus Sesko

 

201: Advanced Beginner

Famous smiths and their styles

Offshoots of the main schools, prominent smiths

What are "kantei points?"

NBTHK and NTHK - what are they and what do they do?

How to tell what era a sword came from (shape, hamon, hada, etc.)

Common kizu, what is fatal and what isn't, what is "normal" for a given time period

Books:

The Art of Japanese Sword Polishing - Leon & Hiroko Kapp, Yoshindo Yoshihara, Setsuo Takaiwa

The Connoisseur's Book of Japanese Swords - Kokan Nagayama

Koto Kantei - Markus Sesko

Shinto Kantei - Markus Sesko

 

301: Intermediate

Into to Tosogu(?)

Reading NBTHK and NTHK papers

Reading Mei in Nihongo

???

Books:

Fujishiro's Nihon Toko Jiten(?)

Uhhh... Toko Taikan?

Koto Kantei - Markus Sesko

Shinto Kantei - Markus Sesko

 

401: Advanced

How to kantei to a specific school or even smith

Shoshin Mei vs Gimei

???

Books:

???

[Gakusee]

I think you a bit ambitious with the books and levels. Nakahara is level 3-4 and fact and fundamentals is levels 2-4.

NBTHK reading is also level 2-4

Koza by Junji Honma and the Gokaden series by Tanobe sensei should be in there (probably same as Fujishiro, level 3-4) and also specific smiths or schools books

[Hoshi]

I think Markus's sesko's Kantei series is probably one of the best reads I've had. For university material course, this is good for 101. More generally, it can all fit in 101 if you have decent students. Most students will realize that books repeat themselves, and thus can be skimmed. Soon, quality notes will begin to circulate stressing the differences between books which need to be memorized on top of the common grind. Memorizing all the schools and kantei points is the sort of raw painful upload process our university systems specializes in. 

 

More generally, I think we woefully overestimate the amount of knowledge that needs to be gained in order to reach a proficient level. The reason for this is that in the west, information is hard to get. Especially hands-on experience with good blades. If we had an online coursera with 500+ Juyo blades representative of good schools an multiple choice questionnaire on kantei points we could practice for a month, we'd all be far better at Kantei than we currently are. What we're dealing with is absence of information or poorly organized information, not a problem of volume of information. 

 

At the end of the day, if you focus on the good schools from Koto to Shinshinto. There aren't that many. Let's say we have about 30 big schools, including Ko/Sue variations. Let's say these 30 schools have about 10 distinct kantei points, and about four smiths which need to be remembered (Jo-saku koto, or Jo-Jo saku for later). That's a total of 1200 kantei points matches to school and smith. Now I don't know the numbers precisely and If someone has them it would be interesting, but my gut feeling is that there isn't a lot that needs to cram learned. 

 

Then we need to match these textual attributes into image attributes. This is where the problem of information really kicks in. The real challenge is creating the train and test material. We would need far more advanced photography of blades compared to what we can find in the Juyo volumes, because physical handling is not an option. After that, you want to pepper some historical knowledge, enough to fill in a detailed book on the topic. 

 

At some point, expect your students to complain about the cram learning of the 1200 kantei or so points. Soon, they will make the argument that the only thing that truly matters is the ability to match a textual attributes to an image attribute, and plug it into some quick and dirty excel lookup table, and pull up likely candidate and links to book pages. They'll argue that the only thing that matter is distinguishing between the ambiguous categories of non-archetypal shapes and expressions. So, being a good teacher you reformulate your course.

 

No more cram learning of kantei. You teach students to match visual attributes into textual attributes on an online platform with progressive difficulty multiple choice, and it works beautifully. The ability to navigate a database of 2000+ Juyo and growing high definition images of Nihonto really starts to payoff. You put up an open source platform for your students - analog to the calculator - where they can input the visual attributes into textual attributes, and returns a list of possible candidates with a little colored bar on the side indicating the most plausible ones, with hyperlinks to texts describing the kantei points of these smiths. Now, the goal of your students is to discriminate within likely categories based. It gets tougher, but you've gamified your online learning platform to the point where you have 'addicted' students who keep grinding it to perfection. After just six months, your students now exceed just about any western collector in the art of translating a textual attribute into an image attribute, and discriminating between likely candidates. 

 

Once you have kantei covered you move to Nihonto scammology, and after that you should have a solid foundation. 

 

My point is that, it's not about the books. The books repeat themselves a lot. What I've come to realize is that we're basically stuck due to the paucity of high quality images of blade to study - because let's face it, we can't all go to kantei meetings and study good blades, it's not not going to happen. The playing field is unequal. If your mission is to efficiently impart knowledge, then gathering and organizing this information which is lacking is the first thing to do. 

 

In the end, it will strip away some of the mysticism, but this will democratize the field and lead to the biggest revolution after the opening of the Hon'ami lessons by Koson. 

[Lingonberry]

That... sounds like something that could actually be done. I have multiple friends who are software developers, at least one of whome is a "game developer," and I imagine one could gather enough photos of Juyo or at least Tokubetsu Hozon pieces off the internet...

[b.hennick]

I think that the 201 level needs lessons on sword quality. Kantei for quality - which of the five swords presented is the best one? Reasons? Worst one? Reasons?

[Brian]

I think you would need a whole section on hataraki, hamon and hada. It is more complicated than just falling under terminology.

[Peter Bleed]

Dear Lingonberry,

You are acting like a good academic. If that is what you are and wish to remain, good on ya. I wish you well. 

In fact, however, I think the academic paradigm is NOT the way to become a satisfied sword afficianado. I think there may be a sword program at one Japanese university. The reality is, however, that swords are politically incorrect in Japan. Trying to treat them in bookish/academic terms in Japan is very difficult. Telling Japanese academics that you are interested in swords is comparable to telling German academics that you are really interested in 3rd Reich daggers.

I would also say that interest in Japanese swords in a NOT a 4 year program. We're talking a life-long addiction here. sonny!

 

In place of an academic program, I would encourage people interested in Japanese swords to follow a street hustle approach.

 

Yes, yes, all the books and sources that have been listed are worthwhile. At least they won’t hurt you – much. My recommendation would be to look at those books, AND

1. spend time LOOKING AT SWORDS, - GUNTO, SHOWATO, FLAWED JUNK, GREAT SWORDS IN ANY COLLECTION YOU CAN FIND. Ask prices, get advice, , but LOOK at swords. If you do this you soon
2. realize that YOU don’t need to own every sword you see, KILL YOUR GREED!
3. Learn 100 or so common characters found in sword signatures. If you spend time with that (great) kanji chart in Robinson’s book you WILL become able to read signatures.
4. LOOK at picture books! If you look at pages and pages of nakago you WILL learn to use the kanji you are learning.
5. Developed a network, meet other collectors, go to sword shows, join organizations. If you wish to you MAY join a Japanese group, but there are other networks out there.
6. Decide what YOU like.

Peter - who knows what a lingonberry is

[Lingonberry]

Thanks Peter. Truth is, I've been perpetually a newbie since I was in high school because I've never been able to afford to travel to the shows until I finally landed a job last Spring which *gasp!* actually pays market value for my education, professional certifications, and 5 years of experience. The other problem I've had is that it seems there are very few collectors in my area, though apparently there used to be enough to support a show?

 

I was looking for a way to structure my study so I could finally grow from a novice to at least intermediate.

 

As for killing greed, I've addressed that by deciding that I will plan a collection and will only purchase something if it is a high quality example of something I intend to include in my collection.

 

Lastly, I thought a thread like this might help other newbies get an idea in how to grow their knowledge beyond drooling over photos on the internet.

 

("Lingonberry" was the username I picked for the gunboards forums when I was collecting Swedish Mausers. Still need to find an m94/14 Cavalry Carbine, an M96 with diopter sights, and a Mauser Obendorf M96, but that's another story...)

Edited January 28, 2019 by Lingonberry

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am not familiar with university levels etc. so I'll try to give a common advice. It is tough one but try to study 1,000 hours per year. That is about 3 hours daily, when you do that year after year you will achieve great results.

 

I would also add Japanese language to the mix. In optimal settings I'd try to learn at least 2-4 hours of Japanese per week. I would also recommend adding general Japanese art history and folklore, this is unfortunately part I seriously lack in. The study of fittings and koshirae would be so much more pleasurable if I'd even have the basics down in this. It is always so enjoyable as experienced members explain the details and "hidden" meanings in the design (which are often common knowledge for those interested in the field).

 

Chris is correct that the playing field is not equal but you can try your best regardless. We have amazing online resources available to almost all who have access to the Internet. You can start lightly and read 15 minutes of Nihonto Message Board, browse different online dealers for another 15 minutes, when you encounter something interesting you can flip open some books and other sources for more intense study. Soon you'll notice an hour has easily passed by. Not a structured way of study but easily doable and enjoyable way of studying.