An old Japanese warrior who belonged to the famous Byakkotai Youth Regiment and who survived the battle of Suribachi Mountain at the turn of the century, told this story on a radio program when I was a child.
"I survived because I was too young to be a good swordsman. I mainly ran. From behind a tree, I witnessed a famous old warrior surrounded by enemy swordsmen fighting for his life. The warrior kept twisting and shifting his body, placing his body under the enemy sword in an angle in which it was difficult for the blade to slice the body. He kept placing his body in that angle as the swords kept coming down on him. From where I stood, it looked as though he was dancing a graceful dance. Suddenly, I noticed that he was in a very different position. I did not see it happening because it was done so gradually and subtlely, but somehow he removed himself from the center of the circle of swords. His enemies were now behind him.
After the battle, he showed me his clothes and his body. All his clothes were shredded into pieces, but his body had only small cuts he called scratches. That's when he taught me how to place your body under the blades"
This story helped me, at one point in my life, when I was attacked from all directions and had to make series of quick decisions and moves.
Tell us if there is any story that helped you to survive.
21 comments:
I was working for my family @ this time and was speaking to a friend on the phone when a tall African man was standing @ the door. I said my good bye and stood up to approach the door to say that there was no work.In one foul swoop I was rushed of my feet across the room smacked up against a wall. Seconds later four more men came in, one with a gun and the other with a serrated knife. The one with the knife had been around before asking for work ...... i believed that this moment was my last moment of life and then the strangest thing happened. They were scared and very intense, one was shouting at me with a gun pointed at my head while the other was in contemplation off cutting my fingers to get my rings. As I stood surrounded by these injured souls, my mind flipped through infinite possibilities of survival solutions, almost like flipping through a very thick book where each page was a choice. I resisted being gagged and omitted a controlled relaxed energy, they began to move away from me searching for money or things of value.
As this happened , like a cock crowing his morning song for the world to hear, I cocked my head back and yelled from the depths of my soul "Help" .......... people had always joked about how loud I could be and to be honest on that day my voice saved my life. My voice alerted the whole area, people heads popping out of windows, doors opening, there was panic, confusion and mayhem. They did catch them but I did not prosecute, I understood there plight and was soooooooooo grateful to be alive.
Once when I was homeless in Southern California, I was raped at knifepoint in the back of some guy’s car. The only thing I could remember was back in the late 70s when someone at a high school assembly spoke to all the girls about how to survive rape. One of the suggestions was to not resist the attacker if there was any sort of weapon involved. Then, while I was being attacked, I remembered that I had a condom in my backpack so I said to him, “Well, if you’re going to do this to me, I have a condom so you can go ahead and use it.”
I think this took him aback, but he then said something rather strange to me. “In that case, this isn’t a real knife.” Then he put away the knife and I gave him the condom to use, which he did. While he never really paid for his crime--and the whole point of my following that old advice may have prevented prosecution in the first place--I did walk away with my life intact. In a very real way, I was able to place my body” under the blades” and came to no physical harm.
Once...
There was girl called Anne. Anne goes to high school and she had new class. Anne was strange for others so they called her names and they teased her so much. They was so bad for her. And she cried so much... She felt she was dying, her soul was dying so slowly. She cried, she was so sad and once she thought "Hey! I'm suffer because I'm listening their painful words If I will stop hearing and stop belive in their words I will be happier." And she did it. She don't hear their words anymore and she believe that she is good person and she is so precious.
Anne was placing her body next to the blades and she was injured. She changed her and she place her body under the blades...
Anne is me...
I still believe in happy endings...
My technique is also about moving away. Only sometimes i choose to stand. The question is how to stand. Sometimes i stand with bad posture in bad places and this helps no one.
Tonight i stood in bad posture at a bad place. It made things worse. I can predict where the deal will be struck and where peace will break out though.
I am a fighter who would prefer not to fight. A dancer who would prefer to dance. Acorns inpire. Your stories may serve to increase my resolution.
Thank you.
If they don't mind my saying so,
I have read the other stories that your readers have posted here.
Perhaps they will help me someday,maybe even today.
But The story that has helped me the most has been the Bible.
Even in sorrow,even in joy,
even in guilt and even in pride,
I may read the stories there.
and feel grateful to be a creation of God
There is a Book out there about the Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy
Galway. Its about nonjudgmental awareness. You ride the ball. After leaving the born again church in the early 1980's, I had a near death experience, which made me think I was destined for hell. Along with that which I applied to my pool game, and other positive stuff about Pool, my mind had enough good stuff going in which did one day result in my seeing the breauty of human life.
My history involves my Mother, who was kidnapped and murdered when I was a child. The killer was found.
All the time I cried for her I never thought that perhaps she tried to escape. Perhaps (we will never know as they are both dead) she struggled and hurt him. Perhaps everything didn't go exactly according to plan...all I know is as I got older, I thought perhaps she did run, and she didn't get away, but I am sure she tried.
And I can run!
It has empowered me in some ways, to face off evil, look it in the face in fact, sometimes befriend it in some way, and I still believe the power of reason can be the most powerful thing of all.
Something terrible happened to my mother, but it didn't happen to me.
your story
helps me to survive
his story
helps me to survive
and now
these stories
help me to survive
I wish I could tell of some brave defeat that I had accomplished,but I only have me. Just me. Emotional me that doesn't fit in. Emotional me that is afraid
Emotional me that cries.
I don't know how I survived middle school where I was tortured and mocked.
I dont' know how I survived High School where I was ignored altogether.
I have become myself, I have married, I have children, but
I just can't seem to do much more than survive.
I dream.
I write.
I smile.
But I cry as often-
for the world
for people
for nothing at all.
My emotions are my blades
and I am trying to slide under them.
I need to escape them
run from them them
hide- NO
defeat them
and think clearly
and make progress
Nobody likes a poet anymore.
These tears are useless.
"This story helped me, at one point in my life, when I was attacked from all directions and had to make series of quick decisions and moves."
I understand, Yoko.
The 1960's was NOT a time of peace & love, it was a time of prejudice & ignorance. I'm glad you and John survived it.
Sorry I couldnt check this blogspot yesterday.
You ask us about a story which helped us to survive. Well...it is not a story. It's You, Yoko.
When really painful things happened/happen to me I think of you... I said to myself: if she could survive to that painful loss...I have to try. When I feel in pain and sorrow for a loss...I just look up to you. And there you are: with you dignity, teaching us all how to survive thru mourning.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0. =imagin.
It is important to put the wish, and to take the action .
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
y.mori
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0. =imagin.
It is important to put the wish, and to take the action .
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
y.mori
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0. =imagin.
It is important to put the wish, and to take the action .
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
y.mori
The war of the country and the country shifts to an inhumane very meaningless, ridiculous war by the motive of the person who sells arms and the person who buys arms at development of the economic supremacy principle and a simultaneous period since the World War II end. It seems that this flow is in the direction of the expansion by some of men's hands now.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%A6
Courage that every day of me confronts the trifle and the difficulty springs when the soldier who is well versed in bushidou of Japan that died is done in imagin with Battle of Iwo Jima (fight of = Suribachi Mountain) in World War II. I execute wisdom and the device for all the people to survive by my method.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A1%AB%E9%BB%84%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E3%81%84
The Pacific War from December 8, 1941 to August 15, 1945 (=Pacific War). About three million Japanese die for this period of about 3.5 years. (About 120,000 of one atomic bomb to Hiroshima by the United States. Atomic bomb to Nagasaki by the United States((In this nuclear power bomb, I was originally a town in Kokura to which it lived in the principle target now. )) Death about 200,000 people per one in about 80,000 people and total ･･･ A lot of those afterwards due to radiation damage for atomic bomb who die. )
The Japanese killed about 20 million Chinese for http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%9F%E5%AD%90%E7%88%86%E5%BC%BE and the Pacific War period.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E5%B9%B3%E6%B4%8B%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0 as one of men who are born in Japan and live in Japan. =It is important to put the wish, and to take the action imagin.
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
love&peace
y.mori
The war of the country and the country shifts to an inhumane very meaningless, ridiculous war by the motive of the person who sells arms and the person who buys arms at development of the economic supremacy principle and a simultaneous period since the World War II end. It seems that this flow is in the direction of the expansion by some of men's hands now.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%A6
Courage that every day of me confronts the trifle and the difficulty springs when the soldier who is well versed in bushidou of Japan that died is done in imagin with Battle of Iwo Jima (fight of = Suribachi Mountain) in World War II. I execute wisdom and the device for all the people to survive by my method.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A1%AB%E9%BB%84%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E3%81%84
The Pacific War from December 8, 1941 to August 15, 1945 (=Pacific War). About three million Japanese die for this period of about 3.5 years. (About 120,000 of one atomic bomb to Hiroshima by the United States. Atomic bomb to Nagasaki by the United States((In this nuclear power bomb, I was originally a town in Kokura to which it lived in the principle target now. )) Death about 200,000 people per one in about 80,000 people and total ･･･ A lot of those afterwards due to radiation damage for atomic bomb who die. )
The Japanese killed about 20 million Chinese for http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%9F%E5%AD%90%E7%88%86%E5%BC%BE and the Pacific War period.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E5%B9%B3%E6%B4%8B%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0 as one of men who are born in Japan and live in Japan. =It is important to put the wish, and to take the action imagin.
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
love&peace
y.mori
The war of the country and the country shifts to an inhumane very meaningless, ridiculous war by the motive of the person who sells arms and the person who buys arms at development of the economic supremacy principle and a simultaneous period since the World War II end. It seems that this flow is in the direction of the expansion by some of men's hands now.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%A6
Courage that every day of me confronts the trifle and the difficulty springs when the soldier who is well versed in bushidou of Japan that died is done in imagin with Battle of Iwo Jima (fight of = Suribachi Mountain) in World War II. I execute wisdom and the device for all the people to survive by my method.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A1%AB%E9%BB%84%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E3%81%84
The Pacific War from December 8, 1941 to August 15, 1945 (=Pacific War). About three million Japanese die for this period of about 3.5 years. (About 120,000 of one atomic bomb to Hiroshima by the United States. Atomic bomb to Nagasaki by the United States((In this nuclear power bomb, I was originally a town in Kokura to which it lived in the principle target now. )) Death about 200,000 people per one in about 80,000 people and total ･･･ A lot of those afterwards due to radiation damage for atomic bomb who die. )
The Japanese killed about 20 million Chinese for http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%9F%E5%AD%90%E7%88%86%E5%BC%BE and the Pacific War period.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E5%B9%B3%E6%B4%8B%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89
I keenly entreat the soldier for arms to become 0, and to become 0 as one of men who are born in Japan and live in Japan. =It is important to put the wish, and to take the action imagin.
Though it is a small action
It is thought that it is a role I live to tell a correct historical fact of the war and the atomic bomb in Japan to more people.
It is thought that this will help others to live.
love&peace
y.mori
I'm sorry. I'm sorry really.
The comment on the same content has been sent many times.
The cause is like the mistake caused from the trouble of the interchangeabi
lity of my pc and blogger.
It takes care at the following.
...malicious..
y.mori
Thank you Cynth the poet for sharing your story. I love the calmness in it. I’ve felt completely reflected in your way of approaching violence, but I always thought I was stupid by not hitting back. You have made me see that, although it’s painful, it’s the most intelligent way of behaving. Your story will help me to survive.
Of course, as Kalamachandra says, it’s Yoko herself with her life thoughts and works who help me to survive. Going to her music, poetry, life and philosophy in times of troubles, it’s like entering Sanctuary. That’s why I’m here writing, although sometimes I feel a little silly and childish by doing it.
Tere is a film “Dersu Urzala” by Akira Kurosawa that have helped me a lot to survive in life, but it’s not about a warrior, but about an isolated man in the wilderness that try to maintain the balance in his relationship with people and nature by respecting both.
Thank you for a very profitable opinion.
It was an anniversary of the tenth times's death of Akira Kurosawa
yesterday by chance.
The re-broadcasting "Seven samurais" that was my loved movie was
telecasted with NHK-TV.
I saw this movie tens of times.
It is a movie of SAMURAI where it lives as a person for the person.
“Dersu Urzala"､I love it,too.
It acts aiming at doing the balance of nature in the keep as people.
Especially, for years, I want to correct myself from whom the balance that takes hold in general in the city starts collapsing reflecting.
It was ..&.. long, long, and the invention of human race's Sanskrit (gun, large ordnance, rocket bomb, atomic bomb, and = etc) in history was very very recent, and it was not possible to kill and wound it about people by large-scale people before that.
Therefore, all should be better, and the knowledge of modern arms be understood each other.
For instance, will tens of thousands of people die on earth momentarily use? one of nuclear weapons of the United States now
Moreover, how many such nuclear weapons on earth do world's nuclear powers have?
At least, people in the country with the nuclear weapon should learn the knowledge of damage with a nuclear bomb more more.
Foolish nuclear Sanskrit = bomb.
It acts aiming at doing the balance of nature in the keep as people.
･････､Thank you,
Mr.J.Artajo
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