Paper short abstract:

Violence can be a vehicle for ethics and aesthetics. Kendo’s kakari-geiko sets behaviours and can both make kendo beautiful and traumatizing: differences between the Japanese and Chilean context will be explored, showing how the limits between beauty and aggression can be rather thin.

Paper long abstract:

Seemingly, some degree of physical aggression or “violence” is a fundamental part of contact-based martial arts: it helps their practitioners to act according to ethical boundaries, it provides a kinaesthetic framework from where movements and techniques can be performed and better understood, and it also establishes limits with the everyday-world. Nevertheless, violence, while it can be certainly rough, it can also be considered beautiful, but in what way and in what situations? Kendo or “the Way of the Sword”, a Japanese martial art intended to improve physically, mentally and socially its practitioners, is well known for the practice of Kakari-geiko: indications by the instructor for his or her student where to hit, while being able to hit him or her back with full intention if he or she is not striking properly. Such an act comprehends a methodology for teaching not only basic psycho-corporeal concepts, but also enables the student to embody deeper somaesthetic meanings (chance/kikai, pressure/seme, unconditional compromise/sutemi, etc.) and the limits of acceptable behaviour. This however, may be traumatic for some. Hence, drawing from in-depth interviews and auto-ethnography, the limits between beauty and trauma in kakari-geiko will be explored, by contrasting the meanings of this practice in its original context and in the Chilean scene. Hence, it will be shown that violence can be considered as a helpful tool for teaching aesthetics and ethics only if the aggression is set in and recognized within specific boundaries, so it manages to be framed as a measured and encouraging practice, and not mere destruction of the student’s spirit and motivation.