How do samurai train

In the 16th century, European traders arrived in Japan for the first time. The Japanese paid large sums for their matchlock guns , quickly mastering the smithing techniques needed to mass produce the weapons. Although the gun is not traditionally associated with samurai, it was a major influence on Japanese warfare from that point on, allowing daimyos to raise large armies of relatively untrained men armed with cheap guns. Many samurai adopted the unreliable weapons, which were best used as a backup to the more trustworthy sword.

Some even wore solid-body-design plated armors, okegawa-do , intended to be bulletproof. Special thanks to Japanese-Armor. The samurai were not mercenary warriors, roaming Japan and fighting for whatever warlord would pay them.

They were bound to a specific lord, or daimyo , and also bound to their communities by duty and honor. This code of honor is known as Bushido , and comes from the word bushi , which means "warrior. The training and devotion needed to master these skills and bond with a horse led to kyuba no michi , "the way of the horse and bow.

Although Bushido is referred to as a code, it was not a formal set of rules that all samurai followed. In fact, Bushido changed greatly throughout Japanese history and even from one clan to the next. Bushido wasn't written down at all until the 17th century, after samurai had been in existence for centuries.

The first duty of a samurai was loyalty to his lord. Japan had a feudal system , in which a lord expected obedience from his vassals, who in turn received economic and military protection from the lord.

If a lord couldn't count on absolute loyalty from his vassals, the entire system would have collapsed. This sense of loyalty and honor was often carried to extremes by the Japanese, who would fight to the death in a hopeless battle to protect their master's castle, or commit suicide if they felt they had disgraced their lord. Samurai also had a duty of vengeance. Should the honor of his master be tarnished, or his master killed, a samurai was required to seek out and kill those responsible.

One of the most famous samurai stories, "The 47 Ronin," or masterless samurai , is a tale of traditional samurai vengeance. During a period of peace, their lord was ordered to commit seppuku because of an altercation with another lord.

Two years later, all 47 samurai invaded the lord's castle and killed him. They were arrested and forced to commit seppuku, not because they had fulfilled their duty of vengeance this was expected , but because they had done it with a secret attack, which was considered dishonorable.

The native religion of Japan was Shintoism , until Buddhism replaced it in the 5th century, A. One school of Buddhist teaching, Zen Buddhism , encouraged followers to attain enlightenment through intense meditation and contemplation of seemingly nonsensical questions.

This discipline was popular with samurai, who understood the need to train and practice until their combat skills became like breathing; something they did naturally, without having to think about it.

Honor was so important to the samurai that they would frequently take their own lives in the face of failure, or if they had violated Bushido. This honor-bound suicide became very ritualized, taking the form of seppuku.

Also known by the more vulgar phrase hara-kiri , seppuku was a way for a samurai to restore honor to his lord and family, and to fulfill his obligation of loyalty even if he had failed as a samurai. Ritualized seppuku involved the samurai wearing the proper garments while he was presented with the ritual knife , wrapped in paper. The samurai would then take the knife and cut open his own stomach, from left to right, with a final upward cut at the end.

However, seppuku was not a solitary act, and few samurai were left to die a slow and excruciating death from disembowelment. Another samurai would typically stand behind the one committing seppuku, and behead him with a sharp sword shortly after the seppuku cut was made. In later years, the act became even more ritualized, in some cases using paper fans instead of knives. Often, the Kaishaku-nin , or second samurai, would perform the beheading as soon as the ritual knife was touched, well before any pain was experienced.

In modern times, the ritual of seppuku has resurfaced in Japan, both as a traditional way to restore honor in the face of defeat, and as a means of protest. No one is quite sure who the first samurai was. Historians do have some idea of when regular warriors began taking on the characteristics of the samurai.

In the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries, A. However, most of the fighting was done against those people who were native to islands of Japan, which imperial Japanese referred to as emishi , or barbarians. Some emperors realized that the emishi were good fighters, and in later years, emishi were recruited to fight in battles against other clans or rebellious religious orders. Some of the military tactics and traditions of the emishi were incorporated by Japanese soldiers, and were later used by the samurai.

The samurai's status as an elite class comes from the proliferation of powerful families that lived far from the capital, passing their land, and their prestige, from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. The members of these warrior houses or clans attained noble status. Barbarian military traditions combined with elite status and the kyuba no michi warrior code to form a template for the earliest samurai.

By some reports, the word samurai first appeared in the 12th century. For a long time, the samurai provided the main military force used against emishi and other clans. In the s, two powerful clans served the emperor of Japan: the Taira clan , and the Minamoto clan.

These two families became bitter rivals, and in , Minamoto Yoritomo led his clan to victory over the Taira. The emperor , the traditional head of the Japanese government, declared Minamoto Yoritomo shogun , the head of the military. However, Yoritomo used his new power to strip the emperor of all political power, make his position as shogun permanent, and set up a military dictatorship known as bakufu.

So, the samurai went from being servants to the land-owning daimyos to being the rulers of Japan under the shogun. After Yoritomo died, his wife, Masa-ko, worked to hold the shogunate together. Though not perfect, her family, the Hojos, maintained control over Japan for over years. The Ashikaga clan wrested control from the Hojos in The Ashikagas failed to provide a strong central authority in Japan, and the clans descended into constant fighting.

During this period, daimyo built impressive castles with walls, gates, and moats that made them difficult to attack. This sengoku , or civil war period lasted until Tokugawa Ieyaso took control of Japan in Tokugawa enforced a strict isolationist policy , and kept control of the daimyos by forcing their families to live in the capital, while the daimyo himself lived on his estate.

Each daimyo was required to visit the capital at least once per year daimyos who fell into disfavor were given estates far from the capital, making the trip much more expensive and time-consuming. This policy ensured the control of the daimyos because their families were basically held hostage, and the expensive annual trips prevented them from gaining too much economic power.

Tokugawa also banned the carrying of swords by anyone but samurai. All swords owned by non-samurai were confiscated and melted down to make statues. This marked the samurai as a very distinct and noticeable class, above the common citizen. During Tokugawa's enforced peace, samurai were seldom used in combat. It was during this period that the samurai took on other roles, escorting their lords back and forth from the capital, working as bureaucrats in the bakufu, and collecting tribute in the form of rice payments from the daimyo's vassals.

Sendan-no-ita , kyubi-no-ita - small armor plates which hang from the shoulders and protect the cords that hold the rest of the armor together. During the peak of the feudal period, famed instructors in these arts opened schools under the protection of a single lord, who would encourage his samurai to train there. While training, samurai would use wooden weapons for practice against each other, then sharp swords against dummies made of wood or straw.

Samurai also would often practice their weapon techniques against live slaves and prisoners. Jake Wayne has written professionally for more than 12 years, including assignments in business writing, national magazines and book-length projects. He has a psychology degree from the University of Oregon and black belts in three martial arts. By: Jake Wayne. Published: 11 December, More Articles.

Home Sports Fighting. There should be many wellness and health tips we can learn from them. For example, here are a few examples of what we can learn from Samurai. Samurai had 2 meals a day, 8 hours of sleep every day. Eating healthy was necessary to maintain their body to fight well in the battle fields.

Their diet consisted mainly of brown rice, miso soup, fish and fresh vegetables. Rice still is the staple food in Japan. At the time, polished rice, or white rice, was something of a luxury. You might be surprised to know that even the small process can cause the epidemic disease. It is for sure that no Samurai was eating GM food.

Pesticides and genetically modified foods are the curses of modern life that did not exist at that time. Making your diet as plain as possible is one of the key factors of maintaining your health.

Samurai always ate for nutrition and never for the taste. Luckily, we can strive for both. There are a lot of healthy food options that are available to us today which were not available to Samurai warriors. You can create your own healthy tasty diet according to your personal preferences using natural and organic food.