Why Does the Heihō Kadensho Reject Both Fast and Slow Footwork?

A fresh translation of today’s passage

Original text

Words and concepts

• Walking (歩)
  The section concerns movement on foot, but it does not provide a diagram, a measured stride, or a sequence of named steps.
• As one ordinarily does (常のごとく)
  An unforced condition resembling ordinary walking. It does not mean ignoring the opponent or wandering casually into danger.
• Smoothly and without affectation (するすると何となき)
  Movement without a visible catch or a self-conscious display. The printed witness uses an iteration mark in the adverb.
• Too far and not reaching (過／不及)
  Excess and insufficiency. These terms introduce distance as well as tempo.
• Take the middle (中を取る)
  A fitting point between two errors, not a permanently fixed medium speed.

The symmetry is the first surprise

Technical instruction often encourages speed. A faster action seems to leave an opponent less time to respond, while a slow action appears simply deficient. Munenori breaks that ranking at the beginning: fast is bad; slow is bad.

The parallel grammar matters. Each extreme receives the same judgment before the passage explains why. The reader is asked to examine the conditions that produced a visible pace, not to praise one end of a scale automatically.

Speed may still be required in a particular moment. The sentence does not prohibit rapid movement as such. It names “quickness” as a fault when the step has been driven by surprise and fluster. An action can look fast while arriving from disorder.

Distance interrupts a simple lesson about tempo

The next line turns from quick and slow to too far and not far enough. This prevents “take the middle” from becoming a command to select one comfortable pace and preserve it everywhere.

A step exists in relation to a destination. If it carries the body beyond the useful place, it is excessive. If it fails to arrive, it is insufficient. The appropriate movement therefore changes with the interval between the two people, the timing of their actions, and the ground beneath them.

The excerpt gives no unit of length and no standard duration. There is no numerical midpoint to calculate. “Middle” is a practical relation: enough to reach without carrying the body past what the moment requires.

Haste and hesitation begin in different disturbances

Munenori then assigns a mental cause to each extreme. The hurried step comes from being startled and thrown into confusion. The delayed step comes from timidity and fear of the opponent.

These are not identical emotions. One propels the body forward before judgment has settled; the other holds it back when movement is needed. Their outward directions oppose each other, but both take control away from ordinary responsiveness.

This also means that timing alone cannot diagnose the action. A fast step may answer distance correctly, or it may be panic. A slow step may be deliberate waiting, or it may be fear. The same clock time can belong to different states.

The practitioner must therefore remember more than where the foot landed. What was noticed? What caused the movement to begin? Was the pace chosen in relation to the opponent, or imposed by a sudden inward disturbance?

Ordinary walking is not casual walking

The phrase “as one ordinarily does” can sound relaxed to the point of carelessness. Yet the setting remains swordsmanship, and the opponent has not disappeared. Ordinary movement is valuable because it is not deformed by the exceptional appearance of danger.

In everyday walking, people usually do not issue conscious commands for every shift of weight. They move toward a place without displaying the mechanics to themselves. Munenori draws on that unforced quality.

He does not make ignorance the ideal. An untrained person’s accidental step is not certified as correct merely because it felt natural. The section belongs to a book of teaching, and its “ordinary” condition has to preserve distance, attention, and readiness.

The goal is demanding precisely because it should not look special. Necessary movement occurs, but alarm does not add an extra rush and fear does not subtract the needed reach.

Blinking explains movement without inner upheaval

After the quoted lines, “On Walking” turns to the eye. If something suddenly approaches the face, a blink occurs. Munenori treats that bodily response as ordinary, but distinguishes it from a mind that becomes agitated along with the eyelids.

The example clarifies what stillness cannot mean. The body is not ordered to become a statue. Eyes blink. Feet move. The point is that necessary motion need not pull the whole mind into surprise.

A waterwheel follows in the same discussion. It keeps moving, yet the text asks the reader to recognize a condition that is not inwardly overturned by that motion. The image joins continuity and composure rather than choosing physical immobility.

These later examples belong to the context, not to the four-line proof itself. They help explain why Munenori can praise ordinary walking in a dangerous encounter: movement continues while agitation is denied command.

Natural appearance can be the result of training

“Without affectation” does not make the step easy. A movement can appear plain because practice has removed unnecessary preparation, delay, and display. The visible simplicity may conceal disciplined attention.

This is different from acting without knowledge. The excerpt does not say that thought, form, or instruction are useless. It describes the quality of walking once movement is not being distorted by haste or fear.

Nor does it provide a shortcut to that quality. The four lines do not prescribe repetitions, name a teacher’s correction, or identify a set exercise. They state a criterion by which movement can be questioned.

Did the step pass the required place? Did it stop short? Did alarm accelerate it? Did fear delay it? Those questions can expose faults that the general command “move faster” would miss.

Visible pace and governing judgment must be separated

An observer can compare speeds, but speed does not report its own cause. A step that looks rapid may have followed a clear recognition of distance, or it may have burst out before recognition was complete. A step that looks slow may preserve timing, or it may disclose a refusal to enter the needed interval.

This is why the passage combines an external measure with inward language. “Too far” and “not reaching” concern where movement ends. Surprise, fluster, timidity, and fear concern what seized control when it began. Either half alone is incomplete. A composed step can still misjudge distance, while a step that lands correctly may have been carried there by panic.

The text gives the reader a double audit rather than a preferred speed. Examine the destination, then examine the source of motion. The ordinary condition belongs to their agreement: movement reaches what the situation calls for without being hurried or withheld by a mind that has lost its place.

What “the middle” cannot settle by itself

The phrase does not prove that moderation is always safer than decisive action. A fitting response may be very rapid or may involve waiting. The middle is defined by avoiding excess and insufficiency, not by avoiding commitment.

It does not give a complete footwork method. Stance, heel placement, direction, surface, and coordination with the sword are not specified in these lines.

It does not say that fear can simply be willed away. The passage identifies a relation between fear and delayed movement; it does not offer a complete account of emotion or a remedy for every person.

It also does not license unsafe modern practice. Historical interpretation of a sword text is separate from instruction under contemporary rules, equipment, and qualified supervision.

A step reveals more than speed

The compact opening of “On Walking” begins with an apparent contradiction. If both fast and slow are wrong, how can anyone move? The answer lies in the next contrasts.

A step is judged by whether it reaches appropriately and by the condition from which it begins. Going too far and failing to arrive are errors of relation. Being startled into haste and frightened into delay are errors in what governs the movement.

Ordinary walking names neither laziness nor a fixed speed. It names movement that remains available to the situation without advertising panic or retreat. The body can act quickly when quickness fits; it can wait when waiting fits.

Munenori’s four lines thus redirect attention from a stopwatch to the source and destination of a step. How fast did it look? That question is incomplete. Why did it begin, and where did it carry the body? Only together do those questions reveal whether the walking remained ordinary.

Source

Yagyū Munenori, Heihō Kadensho (兵法家伝書), Life-Giving Sword (活人剣), “On Walking” (歩之事). The Japanese was checked against Fukui Kyūzō’s Hiseki Daimyō Bunko, volume two (Kōseikaku, 1937), p. 34, National Diet Library bibliographic ID 000000731271. The page appears on image 26 of the NDL-derived scan on Wikimedia Commons. The iteration mark, punctuation, and editorial line breaks have been regularized.