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Fame Kills...Integrity?
by Wayne Muromoto
One of the oddest things that my martial arts publishing endeavors has generated is a certain amount of notoriety for me. I guess it comes with the territory, but I wonder, now, why is it that some people involved in martial arts crave fame and publicity. The way certain people keep popping up in the mass martial arts media, you'd think they were addicted to fame.
That's not what I want. I'm the ultimate bookworm. I just want to know more about martial arts. But for some others, you'd think they would die if their pictures didn't appear regularly in other publications.
And you know, perhaps they would. Perhaps there is a deep need in some people to feel that they have attained the adulation of masses of people that they don't even know, to feel that they are loved and respected and idolized far beyond their own human frailties. That's what comes with stardom, I guess. And in our commercialized, Hollywoodized, glamorized modern world, where fame is as fleeting as 15 minutes on the television tube--as Andy Warhol would say; that ultimate fame-monger/artist--it's one of the biggest addictive drugs there is.
Personally, I find it kind of odd. --Odd that I've encountered some people calling me up and talking to me in humble terms, calling me sensei this or that when I haven't taught them anything directly, asking me in letters for answers to their lives, or getting all mad when I voice some cock-eyed personal opinion. Hey, I'm not your crazy Uncle Ivan. I'm just one guy doing the best he can. --Odd that some readers think I have all the answers, when I published Furyu the Budo Journal and Furyu Online to find the answers!
Of course, there are positives for gaining a small rep. When I wrote my first series of martial arts articles for a national magazine, I was contacted by Dave Lowry. That was some 18 years ago, give or take a few years. I was simply honored to be able to correspond with him, and our correspondence grew so that now we are close friends and pen pals, exchanging lengthy letters concerning all things under the sun, as both of us old fart grouchy-asses grouse about everything that bugs us.
When I worked as a beat reporter for The Hawai'i Herald, I was able to interview and meet many outstanding citizens of Hawai'i, and as a freelancer, I encountered many people who I now consider friends, acquaintances and colleagues, including Meik and Diane Skoss, Hugh F. Davey, Tom Bolling, and so on. My own martial arts training has brought me into contact with several other wonderful teachers, such as Quintin Chambers, Donn F. Draeger, Otake Risuke, and so on. Of some of them, I can surely count them as friends. Others are acquaintances, and others simply probably forgot about this one single dorky reporter that they met years ago.
The thing that impressed me about many of these people is that they weren't publicity hounds. Donn Draeger, perhaps the most well-known martial arts researcher, historian and practitioner on both sides of the Pacific, treated me like any budo teacher would treat any eager but not-so-physically gifted student. He didn't belittle me, nor did he expect me to lick his shoes. We just trained. Of course, the plus side of working out with someone like a Draeger is that even his offhand remarks about a technique are full of incredible gems of experience.
But Draeger wasn't without his own human foibles and weaknesses. He was no god. And he probably would be the first to admit that. Still, I enjoyed his wild tales of trekking around Southeast Asia, encountering headhunters, some of the crazy experiments he did to see if certain techniques really did work, the gossip he shared about what budo was like in Japan during the Occupation and immediately thereafter, and so on. --By the way, in some Internet chatroom recently, Dave Lowry was faulted for being so rigid in his definitions about what makes a legitimate koryu. A writer was saying stuff like, "Oh, Draeger would never be so rigid or strict about definitions, etc. . ." Well, I've got news for you. There are certain people still active in America today that Draeger pointedly once said that he had half a mind to go over and stick a jo up their asses for being such defamers of the koryu. And those are pretty much his words, not mine. So those of you who never really knew Draeger shouldn't try to use him for your own opinions. In person, Draeger had as strong a set of personal opinions as anyone I knew.
Anyway, so I'm minding my own businesses teaching high school and doing freelance work, putting out this publication, and thinking that maybe all my effort will help pay off the mountain of bills I have every month, and the least of my worries is fame. That's why I find it so odd to see the same people, who seem to thrive on publicity, on the covers and centerspreads of other martial arts magazines all the time.
Let's just say that some of my favorite artists are the Shaker furniture makers and Japanese artists like Soetsu Yanagi (the author of the Unknown Craftsman). They were most concerned with producing beautiful works, not in achieving fame. For all his importance on modern art, I therefore don't think much about someone like an Andy Warhol, compared to the unknown and unheralded Shaker craftsman who made a stool or table out of humble concerns to make a usable piece of furniture for someone. Warhol may have made his mark on the literati of New York City and art historians everywhere, but I'd rather follow in the footsteps of a Shaker cabinetmaker than him.
I'm thinking about the simple, honest warrior of the past. You'll find them in any history of any culture in which warriors were honored for their nobility and honesty, not for their greed and viciousness. I just saw a TV documentary on the Roman empire. A lot of it was pretty gruesome. It was an empire built on the raw power of the Imperial armies and its massacres of outlying tribes and peoples. But one name stood out, a Roman citizen named Cincinattus. When Rome itself was threatened, Cincinattus was called upon to save the city. Although a wealthy Roman landowner, Cincinattus liked to farm his own land. When the heralds asked him to command the legions, he put aside his pitchfork, hurried to Rome, and took command of the army as the Dictator. He led the Roman army against a barbarian horde about to attack Rome itself. After several days' worth of fighting, Cincinattus returned to Rome triumphant. On the very day that he returned, he resigned his command and went back to his farm and picked up his pitchfork again, foregoing power, glory and fame.
Cincinattus stands still in military history as the epitome of the classical warrior of East and West: humble, not seeking of glory, loyal and brave. George Washington, it is said, attempted to emulate Cincinattus when he was besieged in the darkest days of the new American republic. And Cincinattus was very much like that most revered of classical warriors, Kusunoki Masashige.
So if we are to speak of warriors, then, let us not write about the latest faddish martial arts person whose claim to fame is the last tournament win, or their appearance in an awful Grade-B movie. Let us, instead, focus on such true warriors such as Masashige, Cincinattus, or even modern-day classical bugeisha, who teach and train not for fame and glory, but for the sheer love of training. They achieved their own place in history not because they sought fame, but because they wanted to do the right thing.
We're not alone in this endeavor, of course. Other publications, such as Bugei, Koryu Books, Aikido Journal, Aikido Today, Journal of Asian Martial Arts, and so on are also doing a good job, perhaps sometimes even a better job than what Furyu, with its limited resources, can do. I daresay, none of these publications make a lot of money, but we all seem to be surviving, which may be throwing the whole economics of martial arts into a tizzy.
As it is, we continue to print stories about good teachers, history, philosophy and methodology of martial arts, not for our own ego, but to learn and pass on what we learned. That's our own bottom line. If we can turn a profit, fine. If we achieve some kind of notoriety, it's more of a curious aberration that impinges on my regular, ho-hum daily life than something I seek. That's the attitude I think we want to share with the artist Soetsu Yanagi, the Shaker craftspeople, or even that of generals like Cincinattus or Kusonoki Masashige. Their fame lay in their true craftsmanship, their integrity and their humanity.
And if we can inspire you and make you feel that we share the same kindred attitude about training in the martial arts, then great! There are more of us out there than we knew! And let's hang in there together!