Issue 039

July 2008

A fist crashes down into an upturned face... Blood flies, frozen in the air at the moment of impact... A limb caught at an unnatural angle, stretched to breaking point and beyond, and still, the fighter doesn’t submit. The thought never even enters his head. Japan may be famous for sake, but there’s another kind of Japanese spirit that is just as worthy of mention: the fighting spirit. 

It’s a concept that permeates every aspect of Japanese daily life, not just the martial arts. In the land of the rising sun, ‘doing your best’, ‘persevering’, and ‘enduring’ are incredibly important. From staying at work until long after your boss has left, to kids enduring hours and hours of extra schooling to increase their chances of success in exams, Japan is a nation with almost no quit in it. 

The term yamato damashii existed long before Enson Inoue used it to crystallise his own fighting spirit, but it is through him that most fight fans know of the concept. Literally, yamato damashii means ‘spirit of old Japan’. Yamato is one of the oldest native names for the country, and damashii can be roughly translated as spirit or soul. It was originally used in a fiercely nationalistic way, to give a name to the qualities of bravery, valour and learning that many Japanese strived for. It is not a term thrown around too much nowadays because of its jingoistic overtones, but it can be used in sporting or competitive environments, or by ‘old school’ warriors like Enson Inoue. I’ve heard it used, rather amusingly and inappropriately, by some of my young students here in Japan during particularly heated classroom games. 

So what exactly is yamato damashii, and how does it relate to MMA? It is, simply, maintaining a ‘never give up’ attitude, no matter what the cost. You cannot call it a never say die attitude. Often, death is considered the inevitable and desirable conclusion to this mindset. Rather, the point is to look death in the face and not take a step back. 

Over the years, many fighters have possessed this quality. Of course, Enson Inoue is the most famous, and his tattoos proudly flash the kanji that symbolise this concept. Have a look at the unfilled tattoos on Yamamoto Kid’s arm: they also read ‘yamato damashii’. Inoue’s battles against Heath Herring, Igor Vovchanchyn and even Frank Shamrock are the kind of bouts that have you half-turning away from the screen, screwing up your face, sucking in air through your teeth and mumbling “now that has got to hurt”. In the Herring fight, you can clearly see Enson telling him to “go ahead and break it” while the American fighter cranks a particularly deep armlock. Against Vovchanchyn, Inoue kindly allowed the Ukrainian smashing machine to flatten his head with sledgehammer punches for a full ten minutes, and protested violently when the bout was called to a halt at the start of the second round. You can recreate the experience at home by hitting a sausage-filled balloon with a hammer, if you like.

A fighter who possesses yamato damashii will often endure a ridiculous amount of punishment that goes way beyond what many of us would consider rational. Like the many samurai that ran willingly into hails of bullets during the civil war (or was that only in the Tom Cruise movie?) it’s the kind of bravery that, personally, I think is super dumb but, paradoxically, I can’t help but respect. 

I have respect for fighters who know when to quit. I think they are intelligent - quit today, fight another day, and still be able to tie your shoelaces without assistance when you’re 60. But there’s something about a guy who can take shot after shot to the head, or watch as their arm gets twisted ten ways from Sunday and not quit, that stirs something frightfully manly in me and causes me to say words like “awesome” and “hardcore”. 

Kazushi Sakuraba is another fighter who I feel possesses yamato damashii, but who also makes me seriously worry for his health. He is a fighter who has never shied away from a challenge, no matter how large or be-muscled his opponent, always with his famous poker face firmly in place. The ‘IQ Wrestler’ has battled the likes of Quinton Jackson, Cro Cop, Kevin Randleman and Igor Vovchanchyn, often fighting above his weight class (I’m not even sure if Sakuraba has heard of the term) and displaying a remarkable appetite for punishment.

Of course, yamato damashii is really only a Japanese term for a warrior spirit that is found all over the world. You don’t need to be Japanese to possess yamato damashii, you just need to be a little crazy, and have skin made of leather. One fighter who immediately stands out in my mind is Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, who has taken the kind of beatings that would have turned lesser men into whimpering wrecks. Fedor Emelianenko laid on a very generous pounding, Cro Cop did his best, but nothing could crack that cranium, or his indomitable will to keep fighting. 

But while anyone from any country can possess yamato damashii if they are crazy enough, just like advanced electronics and questionable animated porn, nobody does it quite like the Japanese.