The History of Fighting

These nuclear bomb detonations, (known as the Able and Baker Tests respectively), took place in July 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads on the island of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. A fleet of decommissioned US and seized Japanese vessels were deployed in the area with the intention of simulating and documenting the effects of nuclear weapons in naval warfare. They were the precursors to a series of large thermonuclear tests that over the next decade or so would render Bikini unfit for human habitation, a situation that is only recently beginning to reverse itself.



The first experiment of Operation Crossroads, the Able Test, occurred on July 1 when a bomb was dropped from the B-29 Super-Fortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group; the same plane that was used as the photographic equipment aircraft on the Nagasaki mission in 1945. The 23-kiloton air-deployed nuclear weapon was detonated 520 feet (158 m) above the target fleet though the bomb missed its aim point by 710 yards (649 m) which led to less than spectacular results.



The bomb used for the Baker Test on July 25 was the same design as the one used on Nagasaki in the previous year and in this test was detonated ninety feet underwater amongst the target fleet. More successful than Able, it is most remembered for producing a series of unique photographs because the blinding flash of the explosion that normally obscures the target area was mostly unseen as it was underwater. The large Wilson cloud and the vertical water column are characteristic Baker shot features and the clear images of the surrounding ships give a good sense of the scale of the mushroom cloud.

Sources:

rarehistoricalphotos.com
wikipedia.org

"It's better to practice a little than talk a lot"

~ Muso Soseki (1275 – 1351) ~

Photographs of monks from the Shaolin Temple of Songshan, taken by Isabel Munoz in 1998 – 1999.

1. Two-handed sword
2. Headstand
3. The Frog Jump
4. Flying over the Roof
5. High Kick

Source: sayshanti.wordpress.com

A young Nelson Mandela doing some boxing training. He wrote in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom;

"I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.....Boxing is egalitarian. In the ring, rank, age, colour and wealth are irrelevant.....I never did any real fighting after I entered politics. My main interest was in training; I found the rigorous exercise to be an excellent outlet for tension and stress. After a strenuous workout, I felt both mentally and physically lighter,"

Image Source: motionfitness.co.za

Anette Busch (1882 – 1969) was an Estonian strong woman and wrestler who fled to Japan to escape the Russian Revolution in 1917. While there, she became the first female sumo wrestler from outside of Japan and saw huge success beating all opponents who stood before her, most of which were men.

fscclub.com

Goro Nyudo Masamune (c.1264–1343 AD) is widely regarded as the finest sword smith that Japan has ever seen. His samurai swords and daggers (tachi and tanto) were made in the Soshu tradition and he is believed to have worked in Sagami Province during the last part of the Kamakura Period (1288–1328).

The Fudo Masamune is one of the few surviving blades that is known for sure to have been made and signed by the legendary sword smith and from the early 1600s, it was in the possession of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa clan. It is a tanto, a dagger-like weapon made primarily for stabbing but with a sharp edge allowing it to be useful for slashing also.

The Fudo Masamune is approximately 25 cm long with a carving of roots on the Omote (Front, outer edge) side. It also has chopstick-like grooves (known as Gomabashi) on the back, a Dragon at the ura part of blade and features an engraving of Fudo Myo-o, the Buddhist deity (which gives the blade its name).

Source: wikipedia.org
Image: shibuiswords.com

"You'll never get a Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole…follow me!"

~ Marine Corps Col. Henry P. Crowe ~

In the scene above from the 1973 classic Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon, the main character, Mr Lee, encounters a bully while travelling on a boat. When ask of his style, Lee replies;

“You can call it the art of fighting without fighting”.

He agrees to show the bully his art but instead of violence, he uses his intelligence and traps the bully on a smaller boat. This segment of the film was adapted from a similar incident that is said to have happened to a 16th century samurai warrior by the name of Tsukahara Bokuden (1490 – 1571).

In his younger days, he was widely considered the best swordsman in the country who earned his reputation by fighting and defeating the best warriors Japan had to offer. However in later life, Bokuden grew tired of fighting and feeling he had nothing to prove, he came to believe in the merits of finding non-violent answers to any situation. One day like the character Mr Lee, he was confronted by a bully while travelling on a boat who after boasting about his fighting skills, challenged the old master to a duel. Bokuden told him;

“My art is different from yours. It consists not so much in defeating others but in not being defeated.”

He stated that his school was called the Mutekatsu Ryu meaning ‘to defeat an enemy without hands,’ however the young samurai was still determined to fight and told the boats-man to stop at a nearby island so they could battle it out there. Much to the bully’s bemusement, when he jumped into the shallow waters to make his way to the island, Bokuden got hold of the boats-man’s pole and pushed the boat back to deeper waters. As he did so, the wise old master laughed and shouted to his would be challenger;

“Here is my no sword school!”

More on Tsukahara Bokuden

Senior nurses demonstrating how to care for wounded soldiers, taken some time during World War One.

histomil.com

American boxer Joe Rivers sparring with the women's lightweight
world champion, Louise Adler in 1926 while helping her train for an
upcoming title defence.

fscclub.com