Johnathan FlowersMartial Arts as Aesthetic Experience

The resistance to the consideration of the martial arts

as forms of art, in the aesthetic sense, is rooted in the

notion of the martial arts as ultimately practical. In the

common usage, this word “practical” intends to reduce the

martial arts to activities that are primarily utilitarian in

their deployment. The martial arts, under this thesis, are

activities with the practical aim of self-defense or

offensive action. This association with the practical, as

opposed to the aesthetic which is done for the sake of

emotional life, is the ground that most aestheticians employ

in their discrediting of the martial arts as aesthetic

forms. To this end, the practical/fine art distinction must

be done away with.

Dewey locates the determination of a process as useful,

and not artistic, as an error in our perception of the

process undergone. Useful activities are useful for

something, not merely “useful” in isolation from their

consequences. Further, Dewey articulates the notion that,

should we understand the actual consequences of the actions

that we call “useful,” like the toil in a factory, we may

call these activities detrimental as opposed to “useful.”

That is not to say that Dewey does not recognize

activities that are merely “useful,” rather, he considers

these activities to be the anti-thesis of what he will come

to describe as aesthetic. For Dewey, these activities are

not arts, but routines, and a routine, for Dewey,

“exemplifies the uniformities and recurrences in nature.1”

Routine, taken out of the context of meaning for human

existence, becomes mere utility in the sense that it helps

us to make present the rhythm of nature, however, it is only

in the context of human existence that this rhythm has any

meaning for us.

Further, this pulling apart of the “self-expressive”

activity, and the “useful” activity generates a more serious

problem for Dewey. Self-expressive activity, or the usage of

self-expression or expression of emotion as the ground for

1 Dewey, John “Experience, Art, and Nature” in The Later Works of John Dewey Volume 1: 1925 Experience and Nature ed. Boydston, Jo Ann, pg. 271

aesthetic activity, “is the product of egoism due to balked

activity in other occupations.2” As the useful, in the

common understanding, is divorced from the expressive, an

entire category of activities had to be created to give

voice to the blacked emotions. Traditionally, we call this

category of activity “fine arts.”

The essential problem, for Dewey, in the “fine arts”

and the “useful arts,” may be reduced to the following

statement: in both, there is a separation of processes from

their ends. In “fine art” we discover that what we take as

art done for the expression of emotion is merely the

“production of a class of commodities that find their sale

among well-to-do persons desirous of maintaining a

conventionally approved status.3” As such, it deliberately

avoids the repetitious nature of nature itself and is

resigned to a position of reminiscence rather that

commemoration: it’s purpose is to remind the perceiver of

the experience, not to enable the reproduction of said

experience.2 ibid, pg. 2723 ibid, pg. 273

In the “useful” activities, as indicated earlier, an

emphasis is placed on the relationship between some products

and the processes that create them. To take the critique of

the martial arts, for example, an emphasis is placed on the

relationship of the activity of doing a martial art and the

“product” of self-defense or defeating one’s opponent, as

opposed to the situation of the process of training in the

martial arts and the consummation of that experience in the

actual deployment of martial technique. Put simply, these

activities are taken as Kantian means, and thus divorced

from the totality of human experience.

The problems with the distinction made above in common

discussion of art are made clear when Dewey’s understanding

of art is placed against it. Art, for Dewey, is the

successful integration of means and ends. It is activity

where the end of the activity is projected through the whole

of the activity itself, and thus cannot be disentangled from

one another: the art product cannot be made distinct from

the art-work itself. To fully understand this point, we must

understand Dewey’s concept of “means” and “ends.”

Means, for dewey, are only limitedly causal conditions.

However, this relationship between means and causality can

only be reversed when causes have the quality of free use.

Free use, here, eliminates the “accidental” property of a

causal condition: a means is a chosen way of proceeding

forwards towards an end. Put more specifically, causal

conditions only become ends when the conditions are chosen

for the sake of a particular end. We may thus say that

artistic skill as a means to produce art is only limitedly a

causal condition: artistic skill becomes means when it

involves the free deployment and arrangement of elements to

produce a art product. When it involves intelligence.

Likewise, ends are only limitedly effects of a causal

condition. An end becomes an end when it is chosen and

actively moved towards: it is not merely the result of a

succession of causal events. Ends are more thoroughly ends

when the causal conditions that give rise to their presence

are chosen freely, that is, an end becomes an end when

intelligence guides the conditions for its arising.

The above is not to deny the presence of external

factors in the creation of art and art products: we may look

at photography for a clearer example of means and ends. If a

photographer were to seek to capture a brilliant sunset, he

would have to determine the precise time to arrive at his

chosen venue, ensure he arrived on a day when the

atmospheric conditions were right, and position himself and

his camera such that he captures the sunset in the way he

desires.

In the example, the photographer does not control the

motion of the sun or the condition of the venue or the

atmospheric conditions: he controls his position within

these conditions and thus enables himself to capture an

image as he desires. The photographer’s skill allows him to

determine his position for favorable light, the shutter

speed of the camera, the ISO or the hue when the photograph

is taken. Further, the photographer’s skill allows him to

turn the uncontrolled aspects of the situation into the

means: he freely chooses the time, place, and season for the

capturing of the image, as opposed to their occurrence

accidentally.

This is a position that Dewey himself articulates in

the following:

Paints and skill in manipulative arrangement are means of a picture as end, because the picture is their assemblage and organization. Tones and susceptibility of the ear when properly interacting are the means of music, because they constitute, make, are music.4

The integration of means and ends, thus, is that which

constitutes the product of art. However, it should not be

taken that things recognized by the “art world” are the only

products of the successful integration of means and ends.

Dewey indicts science, baking, politics; the whole of human

experience lived properly as the integration of means and

ends. It is only in their separation do we find dysfunction

in life.

For the purposes of the demonstration of martial arts

as art work, an example is required to demonstrate the

successful integration of means and ends. To this end, we

may discuss the practice of tameshigiri as a particular

4 ibid, pg. 275

instantiation of the integration of means and ends in the

martial practice, specifically the practice of Japanese

swordsmanship.

Tameshigiri, in Japanese, literally means “test cut.”

“Tameshi” in tameshigiri implies the action of testing, as

one would test the temper of steel or test the quality of an

object; the suffix, “giri,” is an articulation of “kiri,”

which means “to cut.” Literally, tameshigiri is a cut with the

intention to test the object being used to cut. Generally

used in the context of the martial arts, tameshigiri is

applied to all forms of cutting implements from cooking

knives to the ubiquitous katana.

Historically, the practice of tameshigiri was performed

on executed felons or other such individuals whose bodies

were not to be returned to the family for burial. In its

historical situation, the implication of tameshi in the

context of tameshigiri almost exclusively implied the cutting

of human targets for the testing of the sword. Should a

human target be unavailable, the practitioners would use

soaked rice paper mats called tatami-omote or bamboo.

In its modern context, tameshigiri now refers to “test

cutting of stationary targets made of conventional materials

to assess and evaluate the skill of a swordsman.5”

Tameshigiri, now divorced from the connotations of testing a

live blade against a human target, falls into line with

other martial practices like tameshi-wari the testing of empty

hand technique on a stationary target. Thus, it can be said

that both tameshigiri and tameshi-wari serve as expressions of

technique, or the mastery there of.

In traditional tameshigiri, the practitioner stands before

a target stand upon which a single target is placed. The

practitioner then assumes their kamae, or stance, and

executes the cut. Provided that their technique is correct,

the blade appears to pass effortlessly through the target,

with one portion remaining on the stand and the other

portion having fallen to the ground. The cut, or another

cut, is repeated until the target has been completely cut.

The ability of the martial artist to cut through the

target relies on the successful integration of the means of

5 Obata, Toshishiro Shinkendo Tameshigiri, pg 45

cutting, which we may take as the technique of cutting, and

the cut itself. Let us take the example of migi-kiriage, or an

upwards diagonal cut from right to left. Proper execution of

a cut requires a mastery of the toho-jusshinho, the ten basic

methods of the sword. For our purposes, only nine of these

are relevant to the migi-kiriage. Primary among these is

tenouchi, the proper gripping of the sword. If the weapon is

gripped improperly, when the blade slices into the target,

the weapon will push back against the wielder and, perhaps,

fly from their hands.

Maai, hohaba, and awase, refer to the aspects of distance,

weight distribution, and timing during a cut. One’s maai

should be far enough from the target to enable the monouchi,

the first third, of the sword to pass through the target.

Further, one needs to be aware of the distance of their body

as they step forwards or backwards away from the target.

Hohaba refers to the distribution of the weight of the

practitioner as they cut, which is achieved by the

positioning of the feet and the bending of the knees. The

weight of the practitioner should “sink” down into the earth

as they execut their cut. Finally, awase refers to the

timing of the cut in conjunction with the stepping motion

involved in the cut. Stepping prior to the cut, kiriage in

this case, can place the leg in danger; stepping after the

cut can change the maai of the cut and result in a miss.

Stepping must be done simultaneously with the cutting action

in order to ensure success.

Tachisuji, hasuji, and kakudo, refer to the motion of the

sword through the air, the motion of the edge of the sword

relative to the line of attack, and the position of the body

with regards to the action of cutting. Improper tachisuji is a

common error among beginning students as they may not have

the proper tenouchi resulting in a cut that does not pass

through a straight line in the air. Further, the hilt and

the blade of the sword must pass through the same line or

the weapon will not slice, it will merely slap the target or

knock it from the stand.

Hasuji refers to the action of maintaining the alignment

of the edge of the sword with the path of the sword’s

travel. In the kiriage, the blade typically passes through a

forty-five degree angle relative to the target itself.

Should the edge not be in line with the path of the cut, a

slicing action will not occur and the sword will likely

knock the target from the stand or get stuck in the target.

Kakudo, for the kiriage is most important as the kiriage

requires the turning of the upper body and hips to enable

enough power to be transferred from the body to the sword to

cut through the target. Kakudo refers to the overall angle

of the cut: in kiriage, since the majority of the body is

turning, and the cut begins from the lower left side, it

becomes more complicated to maintain a cut angle. Further,

improper cut angle can lift the target from the stand and

into the air, or merely shave along the target.

The final concept in the toho-jusshinho is the martial

representation of the Dewean requirement of unity of ends

and means. Jushin-n-ido is the alignment of the whole body in

conjunction with the sword. All of the above elements come

together in the concept of jushin-no-ido to generate the

totality of the cut. That is, the whole body is united with

the sword in motion and a cut emerges out of this unity: it

is not a product of the unity. In jushin-no-ido all aspects of

the practitioners movements are brought into alignment to

make the cut.

For dewey, successful kiriage cannot be separated from

the end of cutting. The organization of the body, the

positioning of the sword, the distance of the body relative

to the target, the action of cutting , the pulling of the

left hand upwards as the weapon moves, all of these things,

when arranged properly constitute a cut. They are the means

where by the cut is produced, and the totality of the

training of the practitioner is made present to the

practitioner and the observers.

More specifically, technique and the disposition of the

body in executing technique give rise to the cut: cutting is

the means whereby technique is made present, and the skill

in technique is the means where by a cut “happens.” The end

of the cut would not be possible without the presence and

mastery of technique, and mastery of technique could not be

made present without the result of cutting.

What is made evident through the discussion of the

kiriage, the photography, and Dewey’s own example of the

activities of music and painting is the requirement of a

fundamental unity in order to give rise to an experience

that is called aesthetic. Put more plainly, unity is the

prerequisite of having an experience in general: the skill

of painting is united with the end of an image, the skill of

photography is united with the end of taking a picture, and

the skill of cutting is united with the end of a cut.

Furthermore, “an experience has a unity that gives it

its name, that meal, that storm, that rupture of

friendship.6” Experience is thus predicated upon the coming

together of elements, as in the above demonstrations, that

gives rise to a singular quality that flows through the

totality of the experience in such a way as to give rise to

a felt condition. This felt dimension of experience is that

Dewey terms its quality.

Quality is a part of everyday experience, for Dewey,

and is the way in which we determine one experience from

6 Dewey, John Art as Experience

another: a typhoon has a different quality to it than a

tornado, yet they are both experiences of storms. The

qualitative difference between a typhoon and a tornado marks

them as distinct experiences unto themselves without which

we would be less able to discern one from another.

As all experiences have a qualitative dimension to

them, they may be stated to be aesthetic. Put another way,

the ground for all of our experiences is primarily

aesthetic. That is not to say that all experience has the

quality of art, but that in every experience there is

something felt that makes it an experience and distinguishes it

from other experiences.

Further, in our daily activities, “we are not aware of

the qualities of many or most of these acts; we do not

objectively distinguish and identify them. Yet they exist as

felling qualities, and have an enormous directive effect on

our behavior.7” We can speak of the activity of opening a

car-door: if, when opening, something feels “off” about the

experience of opening of the door, we are prompted to

7 Dewey, Later Works, pg. 227

investigate the door itself. If we enter a room and

something feels off, say a chair has been moved, or a desk

removed, the fundamental unity of the elements in the room

has been changed from one day to the next, and we are wont

to investigate.

These “feelings” are immediate qualities of things

generated by the fundamental unity. It is the task of art,

through the integration of means and ends, to intensify the

immediate quality of an experience, such that it can be

“had” by all who stand before it. Art accomplishes this

through the deployment of skill, as evidenced in the example

of painting given by Dewey, and so does the martial arts

through the proper deployment of technique. Art, therefore,

come to a consummation of experience in its ends.

Since the ends of art are integrated with the means, it

is not possible to conflate the “end” of a work of art with

the “end” as in the stopping of an activity: the end is

present at every step of the creation of the artwork. A cut

is performed with the intention of cutting through the

target and, as such, the end of cutting through the target

is present within the fundamental unity of the activity of

cutting. The consummation of the cut is what Dewey

articulates as the “end-in-view.” Dewey explains thusly:

The end is then an end-in-view and is in constant and cumulative reenactment at each stage of forward movement. It is no longer a terminal point, external tothe conditions that have led up to it; it is the continually developing meaning of present tendencies—the very things which as directed we call “means.” The process is art and its product, no matter at what stated it be taken, is a work of art.8

The end-in-view, as the intensification of a quality within

experience, serves as a guiding principle for the selection

and arrangement of the materials. It thereby becomes the

meaning of the materials used by the artist and the activity

of producing art, without drawing attention from the work

itself, or breaking up the totality of the work.

In the action of kiriage the end-in-view is the cutting

of the target which is made present through the organization

of the body towards the target, the technique selected to

cut through the target, the adjustment of one’s body and

technique to ensure the consummation of the activity in the

8 ibid, 280

cut. Technique becomes the raw materials organized by the

end-in-view of cutting, and its application varies depending

on adjustment of that end: multiple cuts require subtler

control and adjustment of the technique, expressions of

particular kinds of qualities of a cut also require

adjustment of the raw material, the technique, so that they

may be immediately had.

A question thus arises: if a work becomes aesthetic due

to the organization of its movement and the integration of

all of its parts into a “whole,” which results in the

enhancement of a quality of experience, what is the quality

of the martial arts? The answer to this question is found

within the name of the category of actions relegated to

organized systems of armed and unarmed combat: the martial

arts.

The definition of “art” has been thoroughly elaborated

upon in the preceding, so there is no need to discuss it

further. However, as art is the intensification of the

qualitative aspect of experience, martial as a quality of

activity requires further explication. Dewey, in his

discussion of sensitivity, intends that the quality of a

thing emerges from the way in which it is organized. To

discern the quality of a thing is to be receptive to a

patterned activity and then to discriminate between patterns

of activity on the basis of a result.

Feeling, then is constituted by reactions from the

organism’s sense organs, which determine patterns of

activity through interaction with the world around it. That

is not to say that a feeling is reducible to the responses

of our sense organs: “mind,” which emerges out of

interaction with other creatures through culture, allows for

the attaching of meanings to “feelings,” which enables one

not just to “have” feelings, but for these feelings to be

significant of something. This significance thereby forms

the ground of what Dewey calls the “quality” of a situation:

that which art is intended to enhance.

So a martial art is an activity organized by the quality

of “martial,” which then directs the organization of

materials towards an end-in-view. All of the materials of

that which we are calling martial arts thereby have the

quality of martial applied to them when evidenced in the

action of proceeding towards the end-in-view. Thus, it may

behoove us to supply the definition of “martial,” if it that

which is being enhanced by the martial arts.

In definition, “martial” intends anything connected

with the practice of war or combat. That is, something is

martial when it evokes the quality of combat or engaging in

warfare. So the martial arts are those activities that have

as their end-in-view anything “martial.” This definition is

apt, and would suffice to describe the martial arts the

world over, should it be so desired. It would thus enable a

description of martial arts as the expression of meaning

through activities that make present the quality of war or

combat. However, this definition fails to account for the

presence of arts like Aikido or Tai Chi Chuan whose end-in-view

are, arguably, the establishment of harmony, an aim out of

synch with the martial program.

Here, we may turn towards the Japanese rendering of

“martial arts” as budo. Budo is made of two ideograms: bu

meaning, having to do with those things that are martial;

and do, a way of life, or a lived path. For the purposes of

this project, we are concerned with the character of bu. The

ideogram for bu is composed of the character for “stop”

under two crossed spears. That is, bu is not merely having

to do with arms and war, but has the intention of stopping

the crossing of spears.

Budo, then, should be more properly read as “the way of

stopping spears.” In this sense, “stopping spears” can be

done through any means and may not directly relate to the

deployment of violence. Taken in the qualitative sense, the

martial arts are those activities that have as their end-in-

view the stopping of conflict. Thus, while the end of

conflict gives rise to a certain “martial” feel about an

activity, this feeling need not be the dominant quality of

the activity.

Aikido, as part of its philosophical orientation, takes

as its end the resolution of conflict through the resumption

of harmony. Thus, the techniques, the raw materials, of

Aikido are organized in such a way as to pursue the end of

conflict through the establishment of harmony. Motions in

Aikido have a “flow” about them: they harmonize with an

oncoming force and redirect it to a balanced resolution. In

this way, Aikido maintains the “quality” of bu, through its

pursuit of the end-in-view of harmonious conflict

resolution, while still retaining the martial quality about

it.

The end-in-view of Aikido enables a qualitatively

different feeling to be had when it is placed alongside

another martial art like karate-do which takes as its end-in-

view as the cultivation of self-discipline and restraint

through the development of martial power. This qualitative

feeling emerges in the structure of its strikes: each motion

in karate is hard, determined. Karate-ka advance inexorably

forwards through power developed through self-discipline and

mastery of the self.

This mastery is made manifest through tameshi-wari, the

breaking of multiple boards through the application of

technique. A focused mind must see beyond the board and not

“stick” on it in order to correctly apply technique. When

technique emerges is it he culmination of self-discipline:

the board is already broken in the mind of the practitioner,

and the strike merely makes that actual.

The concept of the martial arts as aesthetic forms is

not new in the Eastern contexts: as the martial arts are

ways of life that condition and cultivate the inner selves

of the practioners, they become methodologies of the inner

life of the practitioner. In the Deweyan conception, the

distinction between practitioners within a particular style

is a difference in the way in which a person deploys the raw

materials to reach a particular end-in-view: there may be

Aikidoka whose aikido is harmoniously violent, or Karateka whose

Karate emphasizes softness as opposed to hardness.

If we take the experience of an individual to be

conditioned upon the totality of their history, so too must

be the expression of an end in view for the martial arts.

Martial artists approach the practice of the martial arts

for a variety of reasons which emerge out of the totality of

their history, which then shapes their experience: this

allows for differing ways of reaching for the end-in-view of

the martial artist. Thus, the appearance and the quality

generated by the experience of the martial art, while

governed by the overall intensification process of the

specific art, will have a unique quality from practitioner

to practitioner.

Bibliography

Obata, Toshishiro. (2005). Tameshigiri: Samurai Swordsmanshipand Test-Cutting. San Gabriel, CA: International Shinkendo Federation.

Dewey, John, (2005) Art As Experience, New York, Ny: Perigree

Trade

Takeuchi, S. Alexander (2009) Tameshi-giri (and Suemono-Giri) as a Sub-Cultural Custom and Social Structure in Feudal Era Japan: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of Transformation of Its Symbolic Meanings and functions