Susanoo kills the Yamata no Orochi (Utagawa Kuniteru)

Susanoo (スサノオ, ), often referred to by the honorific title Susanoo-no-Mikoto ([sɯ̥.sa.noꜜː no mʲi.ko.to]), is a kami in Japanese mythology. The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory characteristics (both good and bad), being portrayed in various stories either as a wild, impetuous god associated with the sea and storms, as a heroic figure who killed a monstrous serpent, or as a local deity linked with the harvest and agriculture. Syncretic beliefs of the Gion cult that arose after the introduction of Buddhism to Japan also saw Susanoo becoming conflated with deities of pestilence and disease.

Susanoo, alongside Amaterasu and the earthly kami Ōkuninushi (also Ōnamuchi) – depicted as either Susanoo’s son or scion depending on the source – is one of the central deities of the imperial Japanese mythological cycle recorded in the Kojiki (c. 712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (720 CE). One of the gazetteer reports (Fudoki) commissioned by the imperial court during the same period these texts were written, that of Izumo Province (modern Shimane Prefecture) in western Japan, also contains a number of short legends concerning Susanoo or his children, suggesting a connection between the god and this region.

In addition, a few other myths also hint at a connection between Susanoo and the Korean Peninsula.

Attributes

Susanoo is a tumultuous deity at heart, and his chaotic moods and disheveled appearance are direct reflections of his status as the god of storms. The seas surrounding South Japan—where many of his shrines are located—reflect these attributes. Like many storm, wind, and sea kami who serve under him, Susanoo can be both benevolent and malevolent. Despite this seeming moral ambivalence, he remains one of Japanese mythology’s most celebrated heroes. In what is now his most famous feat, he fought and slew the fearsome eight-headed dragon, Yamata-no-Orochi, killing it with his famed ten-span sword, a Totsuka-no-Tsurugi.

As the son of Izanagi, he holds dominion over spirits of thunder, lighting, storms, winds, and the sea.

Imperial Regalia and Shrines

Susanoo wielded the famed sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutter, also known as Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds. After drawing it from the corpse of Orochi, he gave it to his sister as a sign of penance. This blade eventually found its way to the Japanese Imperial Family and is now kept at Amaterasu’s shrine at Ise.

Birth and Banishment

Izanagi fled from Yomi, where he had gone to retrieve his wife. After blocking the entrance to prevent her escape, Izanagi went to a nearby hot spring and cleansed himself of Yomi’s impurities. It was during this cleansing ritual that Izanagi inadvertently gave birth to three new and powerful kami: Amaterasu, the sun goddess, and Tsukuyomi, the moon god, were born from his eyes, and Susanoo, the god of storms and seas, was born from his nose. Izanagi set these three gods at the head of the heavenly bureaucracy and selected Susanoo as its guardian.

It soon became apparent that Susanoo was too stormy to remain in the highly-ordered Heavens. Following this realization, Izanagi proceeded to banish his son, a sentence that Susanoo accepted. Before he left, however, Susanoo went to say goodbye to his sister Amaterasu, with whom he regularly quarreled.

Amaterasu was suspicious of his sincerity, and Susanoo challenged her to a contest to prove it. They would take the other’s object and see who could create the best kami. Amaterasu took his sword and created three women; from her necklace, Susanoo created five men. This proved a trick on her part: she claimed that because the necklace was hers, the men were hers. Meanwhile, the women she had produced from his sword were his. Thanks to her clever interpretation of the rules, Amaterasu won the contest.

Enraged by this result, Susanoo went on a destructive rampage. He destroyed his sister’s rice field before flaying one of her horses and hurling its body at her sacred loom. This thrown horse killed one of her handmaidens and caused Amaterasu to flee in grief. Susanoo was banished following his rampage, but without Amaterasu, the world remained dark and stormy.

Orochi and Penance

Then Susanoo no Mikoto descended from Heaven and proceeded to the head-waters of the River Hi, in the province of Idzumo [sic]. At this time he heard a sound of weeping at the head-waters of the river, and he went in search of the sound. -Kojiki, translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain

Following his fall from the Heavens, Susanoo landed in Izumo and was taken in by an elderly couple. He soon learned of their troubles - of their eight daughters, seven had been devoured by a terrible eight-headed dragon of the sea, Yamata-no-Orochi. Their eighth daughter, Kushinada-hime would soon be sacrificed as well. Susanoo would not stand for this, however, and sought to end the couple’s despair. As they prepared for Orochi’s coming, Susanoo turned Kushinada-hime into a comb and put her in his hair. Meanwhile, the elderly couple placed a tub of sake outside for the dragon to drink. When Orochi drank the sake and fell asleep, Susanoo cut him into pieces. As he split the dragon’s tail, he saw a sword, the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, emerge.

Following these events, the grateful couple married Kushinada-hime to Susanoo. Now seeking to make amends with Amaterasu, the storm god presented her with Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi as a sign of his penance.

Once amends were made, Susanoo’s father Izanagi presented him with one final task: he must take Izanagi’s place as guardian of Yomi. Susanoo accepted the position, and to this day serves as the guardian of the gateway to the Land of the Dead. It is for this reason, in addition to their inherently violent nature, that storms are often associated with death in Japanese culture.

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  • BigWeed [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    13 days ago

    Been doing pushups every day as a substitute for drinking alcohol and after just a handful of weeks I exceed the police and ice pushup requirements. I’m pushing 40 but progress was insanely fast, I could add 2-5 extra pushups a week, and I’m noticeably stronger. When I started I could barely do 10 reps and I just spammed reps all day long, shooting for 100 reps a day (with plenty of rest days). Now I can do 100 reps in less than 4 sets so I’ve been moving on to harder variations and getting more into calisthenics. Any tips are welcome.

    • Kefla [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      6·
      13 days ago

      The general rule is, many reps = big muscles, few reps = strong muscles. If you want to build strength efficiently, then you should find a harder exercise to do as soon as you can do around 8-10 reps at a time. The other thing to consider is that many reps can be detrimental to your joints and tendons and whatnot, so another reason to go for harder exercises rather than more reps.

      My main advice is to work out all your muscles. Find somewhere to do pullups, find somewhere to do dips, find somewhere to do rows, and that rounds out your upper body.

    • notmyoldaccount [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      13 days ago

      If you’re progressing that fast you’ve probably got a lot of easy gains to make with the other muscle groups too. If you’d like to keep increasing muscle mass you should start hitting actual weights, bodyweight simply won’t give you the resistance you need to efficiently grow strength and mass. If you’re set on sticking with bodyweight though, I’d recommend getting into circuit exercises. We use them for wrestling to condition for working under exhaustion. Try setting 5-8 exercises and hitting them in 45s/15s or 1m/30s on/off intervals. I either set ours to do 1-2 exercises per major muscle group or just go all in on one major body movement (the explosive hip hinge motion is a huge part of our sport so there’s lots of burpees, long jumps, reverse lunges/paratroopers, buddy pulls, etc)

      Muscle growth is most effectively triggered by getting the muscle group to the point of ‘the burn’ and then hitting a few reps more. There’s a hard fall off here of diminishing returns, so it’s best to prime the muscles with an ignition set and then work in smaller sets on short time intervals so you never rest enough to leave ‘the burn’ zone. I like to start with an ignition set of 8-12 to form failure (up the weight if you’re hitting 12 easy) and then work to hitting 24 more reps, working to failure each time but then only resting 15 seconds between sets. So typically I’ll hit my ignition set, start the timer, and then work down by hitting 8 reps, 6, 6, and then 4. You can apply this principle to bodyweight routines, but the set up might change as you can’t adjust weight to progressively overload the muscle group. Instead work on getting the muscle group to that burning point when you can feel the lactic acid start to build up and then try to stay there hitting extra sets of reps as long as you can.