In this series of articles, I am attempting to translate and contextualise the dōka of Hasegawa Eishin-ryū. All articles in this series can be found here. In this article, I will be looking at the tanka for the eighth technique, Namigaeshi.
Hachihon-me: Namigaeshi
The Sea Off Satta, by Hiroshige
Namigaeshi is the eighth technique in Hasegawa Eishin-ryū. It closely resembles the immediately preceding technique, Urokogaeshi. The tanka that accompanies the technique reflects this similarity.
Namigaeshi (浪返) means “the retreating motion of a wave.” A common phrase is yosete wa kaesu nami (寄せては返す波), meaning “waves breaking on the shore and retreating.” This image correlates fairly well with the physical movement of the waza. However, if we look at the dōka for this technique, it appears to run contrary to the image of the retreating wave. At first, this seems to present a problem when relating the tanka to the technique, but a little exploration of the imagery here offers some possible explanations.
In the tanka below, the image of a wave washing unstoppably over high obstacles is used as a metaphor for the motion of the practitioner.
Below is the waza Namigaeshi as it appears in Musō Shinden-ryū:
An attack from the rear is met with a 180 degree turn towards the opponent and a horizontal nukitsuke, whilst keeping the body relatively low. This is followed by a step in, and a kneeling kirioroshi to finish off the repelled attacker. The waza is essentially the same as Urokogaeshi, but this time the practitioner is responding to an attack from directly behind, rather than from 90 degrees to their left.
浪返
あかしがた瀬戸越す波の上にこそ
いわをも岸もたまるものかわ
Namigaeshi
Akashigata
Seto kosu nami no
Ue ni koso
Iwao mo kishi mo
Tamaru mono ka wa
Even the high rocks
And cliffs that tower over
Akashi’s shoreline
Cannot contain the waves that
Roll in from across the strait
The poem itself is fairly straightforward. It describes waves crossing the Seto Inland Sea between Awaji Island and Akashi. In the poem, the large rocks and cliffs that lie in this region offer no barrier to the waves that cross the strait, which swell up to wash over any obstacles.
Scene of Akashi from the Tale of Genji, by Toyokuni
Akashigata refers to the bay of Akashi, in modern-day Hyōgo prefecture. This area features prominently in Japanese literature. In the Tale of Genji, Genji flees from the capital and lives in the area around Akashi and Suma for two years. In the novel, the word Akashi is used as a play-on-words, to suggest “illumination” or “cleansing,” reflecting Genji’s future return to the capital. In the novel the waves on the shore are used as a metaphor: Genji describes messengers returning to Kyoto from Akashi as “retreating waves.”
There is a rich tradition of the bay of Akashi appearing in Japanese poetry. Descriptions of the strait often focus on the waves themselves as they roll in and out, but also commonly touch on the mist hanging over the bay, the reflection of the moon on the sea and the flocks of plover (chidori、千鳥) that fly above the waves. In The Tale of the Heike, we find the poem:
有明の月もあかしの浦風に波ばかりこそよると見えしか
Ariake no
Tsuki mo Akashi no
Urakaze ni
Nami bakari koso
Yoru to mieshika
Akashi at night is as bright as the day
Waves roll in with the sea breeze
Illuminated in the light of the morning moon
There is some wordplay here – the word Akashi is, as mentioned above, a homophone for “illuminate,” and the word for the waves rolling in (yoru) is play on the word for “night.” In other words, the moon is so bright that the only “night” (yoru) the speaker can see is in the breaking (yoru) waves.
However, this poem does not have very much in common with the Eishin-ryu tanka: it has been included simply to give a sense of the kind of poetry that has been written about this area.
As outlined above, we can see that although the title of the Eishin-ryū tanka might be translated as “retreating wave,” the imagery of the poem describes a wave surging forward. The movement of the practitioner, stepping back, seems also to run counter to the movement of the wave in the poem. However, if we look in more depth at what is implied by namigaeshi, some possible solutions to this apparent contradiction emerge.
Although namigaeshi describes a retreating wave, what I believe is implicit here is that the wave draws back from the rocks and cliffs, but the receding motion is accompanied by a swell before the wave surges forward again. Kaesu can also describe something turning over or repeating – emphasising the feeling of a “rolling” wave, washing in and out repeatedly. As we saw with Urokogaeshi, the word kaeshi can mean “resistance,” and in the case of waves or wind it can also be used to mean “resurgence,” (after temporarily falling still).
Therefore namigaeshi could be thought of as a wave initially retreating from an obstacle, but then rolling back and swelling up to crash forwards again. This feeling is emphasised by the phrasing in the poem: the final line, tamaru mono ka wa, takes the form of a rhetorical question. If translated more directly, the line reads, “can the rocks and cliffs contain the wave? [No, in fact they cannot.]“
This interpretation of namigaeshi, if it is correct, seems not only to describe some of the practitioner’s movements in more detail but also highlight the crux of the technique and how it relates to the tanka.
Map of the Seto Inland Sea – the Strait of Akashi is directly to the north of the island
The feeling and message of the poem, if not the imagery, is clearly very similar to that of Urokogaeshi. The final line suggests that the rocks and cliffs will be overcome, but the poem does not describe the event explicitly. In the same way, the final line of Urokogaeshi suggests that the carp will successfully scale the waterfall, but does not describe the actual leap of the fish. Both tanka describe resisting or pushing against an obstacle, and then merely state that the the carp/the wave (i.e. the practitioner) will prevail against the rushing waterfall/the cliffs of the strait (i.e. the opponent).
It may be worth noting that the word for strait (seto, 瀬戸) used above can be an abbreviation of the form setogiwa (瀬戸際), a metaphor for “the critical moment.” The word used for crossing the strait (kosu, 越す) can mean “to overcome,” or “to survive through.” Therefore, a possible interpretation of this phrase is “to pass through the critical moment” – perhaps meaning that by resisting and surviving the key moment in which the struggle is decided, the practitioner will overcome the opponent, regardless of how strong they appear.
The retreating movement of the wave – as emphasised in the title of the poem – could be seen as a metaphor for the turn, rise and nukitsuke – in other words, the method by which the practitioner overcomes the opponent’s attempts to suppress him. From the subject of the poem, it seems implied that when the wave comes to the rocks and cliffs, it rolls back, swells up and crashes down over them. If we look at the movement of the practitioner, he is not repelled by the opponent, but turns around (perhaps reflecting a wave’s “rolling” motion) and rises (the swell) while stepping back with his left foot and drawing his sword (the wave drawing back temporarily). Having risen against the opponent and successfully driven back his attack, the practitioner is poised to move forward and “wash over” him.
Please bear in mind that I am a beginner in the fields of both iai and translation, and that this basic look at the tanka may contain errors. As always, I leave it to those more experienced and knowledgeable than myself to find the deeper meaning in the poem.
Any comments and constructive criticisms are very welcome.