Aikido      Judo      Jujitsu     

Home

Class Schedule

Events

Instructors

Photos

Newsletter

Martial Arts Links

Map to Dojo

Contact Us

Voice of the Fox
The Newsletter of the Martial Arts Training Service

Book Review
Angry White Pyjamas:
An Oxford Poet Trains with the Tokyo Riot Police
by Robert Twigger
Indigo Press, 1997
Reviewed by Bill Young

Ohayo Gozaimasu! Welcome to my first book review column for Voice of the Fox, in fact my first book review column anywhere! I hope these book columns dealing with martial arts in particular and Asian philosophy and history in general will provide you with new avenues to explore.

I bought this book while in Kingston Upon the Thames, England. I know this brings to mind a old cobblestone building with a kindly couple showing you dust-covered books, each one a special treat. No such luck. It was a mall, like any other mall, in fact a lot like Fox Valley Mall.

The author, Robert Twigger, is a graduate of Oxford University and the winner of the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1985. He also has been a hearse driver, film reviewer, construction worker, rap artist, high school teacher in Japan, unarmed combat instructor to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, bodyguard, and personal secretary to a Russian princess.

I was drawn to this book because it was a nineties version of the adventurous trips to Japan that others had made to study the martial arts. While at Oxford, Twigger had found the works of Basho, the Japanese haiku master, and had become deeply interested in the writings and life of Tesshu, the last of the great Japanese sword-saints. Twigger traveled to Japan to work and to live his vision of the Japanese lifestyle.

He decided the only way to save himself in today's modern society was to become a student of a Japanese martial art. He chose Yoshinkan aikido and became one of the few foreign students in the special course training the Kidotai, the Japanese riot police.

Anyone who has ever hit the mat will recognize the sublime pain as Twigger learns to fall. What you will not recognize is the stern, almost brutal training methods that are used by the Japanese and foreign instructors alike. But by the end of the book, you realize that the training methods are not what they seem. The interplay between Twigger's teaching job, life in Japan and in the dojo are very interesting and each is completely different. He and his friends all lose and find more than one job while in Japan. He meets a Japanese girl and they date often but she hides him from her parents because he is a gaijin (foreigner). The Japanese riot police turn out not to be what you would expect either.

Three sections of the book are particularly interesting. One is the description of the Tokyo nightclub scene in the less reputable part of town. The second is the night the American aikido instructors get into a bar fight and how they choose to defend themselves. The third is the students agonizing over whether to wear knee pads.

While anyone studying a Japanese martial art will enjoy this book, aikido students will find the descriptions of O-Sensei and other famous instructors of particular interest. The book is an interesting blend of the traditional and modern in Japan. Scenes of everyday life in Tokyo played against the ritual of the dojo provide a picture of Japan unlike what we may assume it to be.

Because this book was published in the UK, it would probably have to be special ordered or found on one of the Internet bookstores.

Well that's it, my first review. Thanks again to MATS for this opportunity. Let me leave you with a line from the book taken from a seventeenth century Samurai manual:
Tether even a roasted chicken.

Home | Schedule | Events | Instructors | Photos | Newsletter | Links | Map