Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/102

Rh back while pulling his fore-arm forward, is foul play, and any wrestler resorting to such tricks would be at once expelled from the ring and forbidden to practise his profession. At the same time, although the prime aim is to thrust an adversary from the ring, a throw also counts decisively; not a throw with complicated conditions, as in the French or Cornish style, but a fall constituted by touching the ground with any part of the body except the soles of the feet. To drop on one knee, or even to lay a finger on the sand of the arena, amounts to defeat. The skilled expert, however, never deliberately tries for a throw. His body bent slightly forward, his legs firmly braced, he carefully parries his opponent's attempts to get a favourable hold, and, on his own part, avoids with equal care any undue impetuosity of attack or extreme muscular effort such as might impair his power of resilience. It follows from the purpose to be achieved that the acme of skill consists in exerting a maximum of force with a minimum disturbance of position, just as a master of the rapier confines the area of his lunges and parries to a circle of minute radius. Hence the finest displays of Japanese wrestling seem less interesting to an uninitiated observer than the comparatively brisk and violent struggles of amateur combatants. Further, it is the umpire's care to interpose before the point of exhaustion has been