Tozai - School of Iaido - Art McConnell

Tozai Iai Kai
A Method of Japanese & Chinese Martial Arts

Chief Instructor: Art McConnell, 5th Dan
Member of New York Budokai

The Night I Met Mifune
By Art McConnell
Reprinted from World Competitor Magazine
Empire States Karate

The year was 1965, I was twenty years old. For the past five years, I had been hanging out at the Buddhist Academy on Riverside Drive, watching films of Samurai Sagas, starring the great Chambara actors of the Japanese Cinema screen. Katana icons like Shintaro Katsu, Tamba, Nakadai and Mifune, who was now to make a personal appearance at the Toho Cinema in Manhattan. At that time, I was training at the NY Samurai Dojo in Queens. The Sensei, John Slocum, taught Shotokan Karate, that he had learned in Hachioji City, Japan at the Kenkojuku Hombu, while serving as a jet mechanic in the Airforce at Tachikawa Air Base. He had instilled the spirit of the Samurai Warrior tradition in our minds and in our hearts; a spirit that is still embraced by many of the old school teachers in our modern day world.

Two of the upper rank students, Najdek and Correa were talking about going into the city on that Tuesday night, which was a primary scheduled class night. I said I would go too, but another student, Annunziato, decided that he would pass as he was the Dojo Manager, so to speak. The three of us were so high on going to see Mifune at the opening of his newest film, “Samurai Assassin,” (Directed by Okamoto) that we never thought of the possible consequences for carrying out this zealous mission on class time. Anyway, we went for it.

Standing first in line at the Toho Cinema, the three of us, students of the NY Samurai Dojo, waited patiently without speaking. Then down the street, in the off-Broadway night, comes Toshiro Mifune in a white and gold jacket and Hakama. His walk reminiscent of the redemption scene at the end of “Yojimbo” (The Bodyguard). As this Samurai reincarnate approached the entrance door, he stopped and looked at our Karate lapel pins from Sensei Okano’s Dojo in Japan. At this point, the three of us bowed “OSS” in unison. Mifune then returned three bows the same after which he entered the lobby and taking the stage, drew out his “Katana”, and said, “This is Samurai Sword,” to which every one laughed and related. Then he demonstrated a few interesting drill routines cutting and moving across the stage. At the end he was greatfully applauded. Mifune Toshiro was a true professional, an actor, a master of his portrayals. In the film that night , “Samurai Assassin,” a group of Samurai are after the head of the mystery man who is being transported in the Palanquin, by his paranoid servants and protected by a handful of Samurai bodyguards, who eventually fall during the onslaught. One of the young Samurai gets struck in the head and rolls down an embankment landing unconscious as the battle wages on the ground above. He was to be the recorder of the diary of events of all the encounters of that clan, acting in the capacity of an archaic war journalist. Mifune’s character, Niino, eventually gets to the mysterious traveler in the Palanquin, not realizing that the man is his long lost father, and is also Lord Ii. The film ends with Mifune walking through a blizzard with the head of the victim on his sword, held high! At that moment, the young Samurai crawls back up over the embankment to witness the victor’s drunken with power, glory march. One of the few survivors, he would live to record the outcome of this small scale battle in his journal. I had just begun writing and could easily identify with this character. It was thirty years later, when my book, “The Ronin Soldier’s Diary” was at the publishers, (Fine Art Magazine), that Mifune passed on near the end of 1997, at the age of 77, which was to be one before his mentor, Akira Kurosawa would pass away at 88.

I read all of the Obituary articles that I could find on Mifune San and decided to add an epilogue on the final page of the “RSD.” This is what I wrote in his memory:

Epilogue

Toshiro we shall miss you as our future days go by,

your enduring spirit issued the ancient value system

of the Ancestral Samurai.

So as you join the band of Warrior arch-angels

your loyal coterie here on earth shall remember you as a man

who possessed genuine power charisma, spirit and great worth. . . .

Across from this was placed a photograph doing a posture with the Japanese sword from the Hasegawa Ryu School (armor wearing forms the 16th Century). I felt that a great circle had been closed but this is not the end of the story.

When we returned to the Dojo on Thursday night, the word was out. All students lined up downstairs, in what we called “The Sweat Box.” We waited in line, not moving for quite a while. Finally, Sensei Slocum came down the stairs. He walked down the line, looking into your eyes, and out through the back of your head like a veteran Paris Island D. I. With nothing good to say to you. Then he slowly paced back and forth like a big white tiger walking behind an invisible cage. The silent vibes were heavy. Sensei was not that much older than us, but as I look back in retrospect, many years later, I have a better understanding of that situation now. It must have been hard for him to get mad at us, because we were actually motivated by blind zeal, following the guidelines of the spirit that Sensei Slocum had instilled in us, just as his teacher in Japan, Sensei Okano, had instilled in him, in the same way as Okano Sensei’s teacher, Funakoshi Gichin, had instilled in him. Maybe the Sensei wanted to go, and bring the whole school. These things were never considered by us. We did some hard abrasive training that night; we were fighting to keep up with the drills and exercises all the way through.

At the end of that class, we ran to line up again. The Sensei slowly walked up and down the line; after stepping into the first spot, we bowed to the Kamiza photographs, of Mr. Okano and Sensei Funakoshi, Mr. Slocum stepped out facing his students of the NY Samurai Dojo. We had gone through another Baptism of Fire, and I sometimes think that he was secretly proud of the three of us, but he was the Sensei and unlike Mifunesan, he only bowed once . . . . .

by Art McConnell - Tozai Iai Kai System

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