Jigen-ryu Manual (The Original Stick)

If a manual is too kind, people stop reading it.
If you trim it too much, people in the field will have trouble.
While searching for that middle ground,
I somehow ended up at the swordsmanship of Satsuma.

Today's Bento

- Satsuma-age (fried fish cake) with basil and oil sardine sandwich grill
- Boiled egg
- Red onion achaar
- Green beans and carrots with sesame dressing

A dish born from the faith that anything tastes good if you sandwich basil in it, thanks to a successful experience with basil that Nonno-san taught me before. Recently, my faith in gyoza wrappers has also begun.

And while Satsuma-age is a famous product of Kagoshima,
Kagoshima has another specialty passed down from long ago.

Jigen-ryu Manual

I am not good at making manuals for work.

Workflow, organizing parts, instruction manuals. There are various manuals in the company, and since I work in design, I am often on the side that creates them.

Design is the work of converting what is in your head into drawings and specifications and handing them over to others. Explain, get misunderstood, revise, and explain again. It is almost like a game of telephone.

Even though I have been doing this job for over ten years, my sense of inadequacy has not diminished. If there are too few rules, you get stuck with the unexpected. If there are too many, no one reads them. A manual that is not read becomes a fossil in the depths of a shared folder.

Is there no manual for making manuals? When I was thinking that and searching outside of work, I found something interesting.

It was Jigen-ryu.

Jigen-ryu Diary

Jigen-ryu is an old school of swordsmanship passed down in the Satsuma Domain that abandons defense and bets everything on the first strike. I have liked researching martial arts and combat sports since I was in junior high school, so I tend to gravitate toward things like this.

Speaking of Jigen-ryu, it is often depicted quite intensely in fiction. In 'Golden Kamuy,' a Jigen-ryu master named Second Lieutenant Koito appears, and in 'Efu no Shichinin,' it even spawned an internet meme called 'Mis-Chest'.

I had been thinking for a while.

Isn't Jigen-ryu usually depicted as a bit stupid in fiction?

I know it's rude.
But if you summarize the basic movements, it goes like this.

One, raise the sword high.
Two, approach at a trot while shouting 'Chest'.
Three, swing down just like that.

A three-line diary is complete.
It is pointlessly ahead of the trends on note.

And the battle cry is 'Chest'. Usually, in combat sports or martial arts, you think about how to hide your presence. However, in Jigen-ryu, you raise your sword and shout. It's like putting 'I'm going to cut you now' in your Google Calendar and sending an invitation email. It is quite polite violence.

There are theories that the etymology comes from aiming at the chest, or that it is a corruption of 'discard your wisdom,' but in the end, it is not well understood. But they shout.

When I was a student, I remembered a mysterious chant called 'Yozei!' that we were made to shout in the soccer club. No one knew what it meant. We didn't even know what it was an abbreviation for.
There are moments in this world where volume beats meaning.

I am also curious about the part where they approach at a trot. In martial arts, you close the distance with sliding steps. However, in Jigen-ryu, you go at a trot with your sword raised. When I first saw it on video, I thought:

This is not so much swordsmanship as it is...
The hammer state from the original Super Smash Bros., isn't it?

It's strong if it hits. However, during that time, you become a machine that just swings down, and you might fall off a cliff because you can't control yourself. It is close to that state where fun and danger coexist.

The practice is also simple. You treat a wooden stick as an enemy and strike from above while shouting 'Chest'. You just keep striking.
Chest yesterday, chest today. The stick probably starts wondering halfway through, 'What is being done to me?'

However, as I researched it, my perspective changed.

I had always imagined a duel in a period drama. A scene where two people face each other, measure the distance, and quietly strike. But swordsmanship is not used only in duels. It is war. It is group combat.

There is no time for detailed maneuvering on the battlefield. Then it is more efficient to defeat them with the first strike. If you are moving as a group, it is less likely to involve your allies if everyone has the same stance. If you are moving a long distance, a trot is better than sliding steps. And you shout. Humans are creatures that increase their horsepower with their vocal cords.

In other words, Jigen-ryu was just interesting to look at, but the content was quite rational. It limits the situation, reduces judgment, simplifies movements, and allows anyone to repeat them. This is already an excellent manual.

I was laughing because I was looking at it as a martial art. But when viewed like an industrial product, Jigen-ryu was a highly perfected design. If my own work procedure manual were laughed at hundreds of years later as 'the battle cry is weird,' I probably wouldn't be able to rest in peace.

However, no matter how rational a manual you make,
unexpected situations will occur.

The Original Stick

Just the other day, I was asked to create a manual for the maintenance and inspection of an inspection device used in the final process of a product. The people handling it are me, the designer, and Mr. A from production engineering.

Mr. A is rarely in the office. He is a veteran who is often remote or on the manufacturing floor, and in meetings, he sometimes says short, sharp things like, 'Development doesn't come to the floor, after all,' like a small knife.

I had thought for a while that Mr. A looked like someone. Recently, while watching the drama 'Golden Kamuy' to research Jigen-ryu, I realized. He is a character named Chogan Kumagishi, an escaped prisoner caught for making counterfeit money. Salt-and-pepper hair, round glasses, a grumpy-looking face. Close.

Of course, I can never tell him that.

'You look like a prisoner caught for making counterfeit money' cannot be processed into a compliment.

I went to see the actual device with such an Mr. A.

The device is as deep as a desk. You can repair it if you remove the front cover. The problem was that the LED indicating the operating state was on the back.

The back is right against the wall. You can't check it while working from the front. Moreover, the device weighs twenty kilograms, so if you move it every time you look at the LED, it becomes muscle training, not inspection. It is too detailed to make into a manual. But if you leave it alone, the person working will definitely be in trouble.

When I was groaning, Mr. A smiled just a little.

'I have something like this.'

Saying that, he brought out something with a scooter mirror attached to the end of a long stick.

For a moment, I thought it was a golf putter. It is a large version of the mirror a dentist uses to look inside a mouth. And it is definitely handmade.

Where did he get just one scooter mirror? Is Mr. A's scooter still running like a wild animal that lost one ear?

But it was well made.

If you just want to see the color and blinking of the LED, a mirror is enough. You can check the back while working from the front without moving the device. It is simple, but it fits the trouble in the field perfectly.

According to Mr. A, similar things often happen on the floor, and he has made tools like this to deal with them each time. However, since they are self-made, the information is not shared. The moment Mr. A is gone, only the folklore that 'for some reason there is a stick' will remain on the floor.

But Mr. A, who explains that tool,
was more lively than usual.

I was in trouble there.
Because I have been superimposing the image of a prisoner on Mr. A for a while, that stick looks like a tool for escaping from prison. A stick to probe for the guard's key on the other side of the cage, a secret weapon made from materials in prison.

The more seriously Mr. A explains, the more it looks like a scene of sharing a prison break plan. I held back my laughter and bit my lip.

If I burst out laughing here, it's over. Even if Mr. A raises that stick high and comes toward me at a trot while shouting 'Chest', I have no right to complain.

In the end, I think what is needed in a manual is the simplicity of Jigen-ryu. Being able to do it without hesitation. Being able to get anyone close to the same movement. But that alone is not enough.

In the actual field, there is an LED right against the wall. There is a twenty-kilogram device. There is the remaining stamina of the lower back. There is Mr. A holding a scooter mirror.

I think a manual is not for erasing people, but for moving the burden that people were secretly carrying every time to a place where it can be seen even a little.

Without a basic form, the field will be full of Mr. A's prison break items. But if you don't look at the field, the form will just be a three-line diary.

After the explanation was over, I got hung up on Mr. A's last remark.

'Then on the day, I will carry this tool to the site by hand.'

'Eh, Mr. A, you're carrying that by hand?'

It is certainly rational. It is bulky for delivery, and there is a possibility that it will be mistaken for trash at the destination. Hand-carrying is the most certain.

But I imagined it. A grumpy-looking middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and round glasses walking down the street with a long stick with a scooter mirror attached.

In my mind, Mr. A's criminal record changes,
from 'counterfeit money' to 'voyeurism'.

Reality catches up to the setting that was just a delusion,
and the possibility of becoming a real prisoner is born.

I prayed.
Mr. A, good luck.
Please, I hope you are not stopped for questioning.

There is a magazine called 'Bento Records' that collects bento and essays.
If you liked this article, I would be happy if you could take a look along with my self-introduction.

Self-introduction essay

Magazine | Bento Records