markjudgelovejapan

Hayami Gyoshu - Village in Shugakuin, 1918. Ink and color on silk,  Shiga Museum of Modern Art

Scenes from the Genpei War

源平合戦図色紙

Artist Unknown, Japanese

17th century

MEDIUM/TECHNIQUETwelve unmounted album leaves; ink, color and gold on paper

DIMENSIONSImage: 31.2 x 27.3 cm (12 5/16 x 10 ¾ in.)

CREDIT LINEWilliam Sturgis Bigelow Collection

Uesugi Samurai Festival Masamune

Photo  by Ayami 

“It is easy to crush an enemy outside oneself but impossible to defeat an enemy within.”― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

The Japanese war fan, or tessen (Japanese: 鉄扇,てっせん, romanized: tessen, lit. ’“iron fan”’), is a weaponized Japanese hand fan designed for use in warfare. Several types of war fans were used by the samurai class of feudal Japan and each had a different look and purpose.One particularly famous legend involving war fans concerns a direct confrontation between Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima. Kenshin burst into Shingen’s command tent on horseback, having broken through his entire army, and attacked; his sword was deflected by Shingen’s war fan. It is not clear whether Shingen parried with a tessen, a dansen uchiwa, or some other form of fan. Nevertheless, it was quite rare for commanders to fight directly, and especially for a general to defend himself so effectively when taken so off-guard.

Learning Judo by Japan Airlines

Judo is considered the basics of Japanese Martial Arts as it teaches you techniques to fall the right way to avoid injury so that it will become your second nature, natural instinct or reaction when you’re about to fall. It is called, Ukemi. 

Ichiyuri, a geisha in Kyoto, Japan.  Photographer Edy Lianto

Shinto Priest with a Child.  In earlier generations, the infant mortality rate in Japan was high, so infants are always blessed by a Shinto priest.

 by MeAmore5

Pair of Tea Jars with Poetic Inscriptions by Aoki Mokubei (Japan, 1767-1833)