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[it's been a bit sparse on the videos around here recently - here is a classic]

I already knew a good deal about Musashi from Kenji Tokitsu’s book and Takehito Inoue’s stupendously amazing manga Vagabond (which is literally like the best comic ever – the art, the pacing, the characters, the action, etc.)

However, Lives of Master Swordsmen has a surprising amount of detail about his later life, much of it extremely illuminating.

LOVE
For example, when Musashi was around 50, he 50 began a long-term relationship with the courtesan Kumoi, which prompted the following poem:

When in love
Avoid love epistles and amorous letters
Avoid poems expressing love to your beloved
In their place, devote all your strength
To accumulating and saving money.

MONEY
In light of the above advice it should be no surprise that Musashi was very thrifty. However, when he finally accepted employment with a lord, as part of his hiring requirements, he demanded a small salary. How unusual.

MUNENORI
I had always assumed that Musashi and Yagyu Munenori never came into real contact and thus could not duel one another. In fact, plans for a match against Munenori were twice shelved seemingly due to Musashi. Perhaps he didn’t want to make enemies with the shogunate.

BATTLE
Musashi’s military record is clouded and the traditional recountings of his achievements in the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and the Battles of Winter and Summer in 1614/1615 are scant and vague. Although he was praised for his achievement, they aren’t listed out, but just described in hyperbolic, non-specific terms, unlike others. Perhaps this is due to fighting on the wrong side.
He also fought in the Shimabara rebellion, caused by tyrannical taxes on the peasants and a nascent Christian faith binding them together into 30,000 men, women and children, who were ultimately annihilated. Daimyo Matsukura, the lord over the district, was beheaded for causing the rebellion.

THE ROOT OF IT ALL
Late in life at 54, on a day when he was confined to bed, his lord Tadatoshi died. A friend paid him a visit. Staring at the sun, Musashi suddenly parted his hair and said, “Look at this. Look at the eczema scars that I still have from my infancy. I can’t shave my sakayaki (forehead to crown) the way all samurai did. I can’t wear a topknot.”

Is that the key to Musashi? Anti-authoritarian form childhood, spurred on by a ruthless single father towards strength, and predisposed against all strictures because superficial scars from a baby. & so Musashi dressed unclean and unkempt, as a way to say – I am fine as I am, able to cut down all you fancy samurai, so you proper people can go to hell.

Kamiizumi Nobutsuna was the founder of the Shinkage (New Shadow) Ryu (School/Style).

Yagyu Munenori inherieted it and became the sword instructor to the Shogunate, a position that was passed down with the Yagyu for some time. His major work is Heiho Kaden Sho.

Munenori’s son Yagyu “Jubei” Mitsuyoshi had an interesting enigmatic career and is a frequent hero in anime. He wrote Tsuki no Sho, and if anybody has a copy, please send one my way or let me know where I can get one.

From the Yagyu Ibun

“… In all martial arts, in all the performing arts and still more in all the forms of human behavior, a man’s postures or moves are based on the movement in his mind. In other words, the movement of the mind is expressed in the postures or moves he takes. Kage (shadow or yin-principle) of Kage-ryu indicates that one’s mind is invisible. The postures and moves are visible, and, therefore, are the yang principle. In the Kage style of swordsmanship, a swordsman reads his opponent’s minds through his postures or moves. More emphasis is, therefore, placed on penetrating the oppoents’ mind than on techniques.
What mind can penetrate his opponent’s mind? It is a mind that has beent rained and cultivated to the point of detachment with perfect freedom. It is as clear as a mirror that can reflect the motions within the human mind. Only with that kind of mind can a man respond accurately to the motions of his opponent’s mind and body.
In the art of fencing, a mind that moves aiming at victory is called kage while the motion on one’s body wielding the sword is called hi.
When one stands face to face with his opponents, his mind must not be revealed in the form of moves. Instead his mind should reflect his opponent’s mind like water reflecting the moon. Thus, he can win.”

I have some great stuff from David Lowry on the mikkyo aspects of Shinkage that’ll get up here someday.

Over 100 duels, 13 with steel swords. He served on the battlefield 37 times without receiving any injuries more serious than minor arrow wounds. The number of men he is recounted as defeating number 212.

Re his Technique, the Hitotsu-Tachi – One Stroke Then Death
“A sword can be divided into three spheres. The first is time of the heavens; the second is the advantage of the earth; the third is combination of the earth and the heaens. This is the secret of hitotsu-tachi.”

Re the Hitotsu-Tachi (this advice makes no sense to me except that one should mind the ma/distance and just avoid strokes like the “moon in the water” instead of blocking so that one can attack at that moment.
“…a swordsman must first position himself directly opposite his opponent’s sword. He can place his sword either aloft before him or at his side; the only essential point is that he must look unprotected, provoking the opponent to a conventional attack. If the opponent’s sword is more than one inch away from his body, the swordsman should not parry his attack. When the sword is only a half inch away, however, the swordsman should take one step forward and slay his opponent. The essential factor is the ability to distinguish the narrow margin which separates and inch from a half inch. Because man is my nature a coward, he will almost always try to dodge an attacking sword. He may be able to resist a space of an inch but half an inch indubitably causes a response. Since your opponent expects a defensive posture. A dodge at even one inch, your lightning fast attack takes him completely off guard. The attack at this final point entails that after deal the hitotsu-tachi the swordsman must touch his opponent’s body.” – Masaki Masahide (1727)

Here is a story about the preliminaries to a duel that is very interesting due to the psychological manipulation involved.

Bokuden was once challenged to a dul with steel swords by a swordsman who wielded two swords so skillfully that he had never lost a match. Before accepting the challenge Bokuden amassed every shred of informnation that was available about his opponent. He sent a letter objecting to his opponent’s style saying that wielding a swrod skillfully with the left hand as well as with the right was unfair. Since this thinking was totally illogical and unreasonable, the challenger become angry and sent back a letter saying, “If you think my using a sword with my left hand is unfair, renounce the match.” Before accepting the challenge, Bokuden sent another ten letters on the same subject to hisopponent. By the day of the duel, the challenger was firmly convinced that his left hand would strike the victorious blow. Assured that Bokuden would be paying strict attention to the second sword, the challenger stepped up to the famous swordsman. But in a flash, Bokuden slashed the opponent’s arm and the duel was over.

Two other googlable stories about Bokuden involve being saved by monkeys & Bokuden on the ferry.

He has a book of 98 poems called Bokuden Hyakushu and if anybody knows where to get it in English or even in Japanese, I’d like to know.

I’ve been reading Lives of Master Swordsmen by Makoto Sugawara, edited by Burritt Sabin.
It is a great book on a number of the great Japanese swordsmen, with great information and is very well written. I’ll be putting up some choice bits.

Resolve
Normally it is fundamental for people to focus exclusively on social norms, but when the time comes it is impossible to gain victory unless you abandon thoughts drawn by lords, parents, wives, and children, forgetting yourself with the attitude that there is no rival facing you and no public behind you.

Of course, the training of resolve must begin with not being afraid of powerful opponents. For example, when you’re surrounded by blazing fire, there’s no way out; to summon resolve at such a time, you think you can’t get out so you might as well die trying to cross the fire. When you leap over that blazing fire, there’s one chance in a thousand you’ll make it out. If you face a powerful opponent like this, you realize that even if you won’t be able to inflict the slightest cut, it would not be an act of courage to stretch out your neck to be beheaded. Even if he is a master, if you determine that you’ll at least cut off one of his arms even if you get your head cut off, in the spirit of leaping over a raging fire even if you die in the attempt, you will not easily be defeated no matter how powerful your enemy is.

Once when a servant of a certain master of the One Sword school was summoned by another distinguished personage, toward whom he’d committed a discourtesy, the sword master called his servant to him and said, “You were discourteous to so-and-so, and now he’s asked me to turn you over to him. I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to send you to him. No doubt my sword and you can go away if you kill me. Otherwise he’ll kill you.”

The servant said, “What can someone like me, with no skill at all, do to a famous person like you, master? Please excuse me.”

The master said, “I’ve never faced someone who’s gone berserk before. It’ll serve as a test. So since you’re a dead man anyway, I’m taking you on as an opponent for a test. Fight with all your might!”

The servant said, “Well, then, I’ll have to take you on.” Then when they dueled, the master unexpectedly retreated and was ultimately driven back to a wall. When he saw he was in danger, he shouted and cut his servant down in one fell swoop.

Turning to his disciples, who were watching, he said, “Well, now-going berserk is scary stuff! You shouldn’t do things like this for no good reason. If even a menial without skills is like this, how much the more so someone with first-class training-if he were to fight berserk, no one could stand up to him.”

The disciples asked, “When you were pressed, were you really pressed, or were you feigning retreat?”

The master said, “I was really pressed. His blade was sharp, and I backed up without planning to.”

The disciples also asked, “When you shouted and cut him down, did you kill him because there was an opening?”

The master said, ‘There was no opening whatsoever, but the kill was subtle.”
Read more…

Four Attacks
The four attacks are the direct attack, the counterattack, the changed attack, and the strategic attack.

In our school, a direct attack means when you face off with an opponent you strike him before he strikes you. A counterattack is when you deflect your opponent’s attack and follow up by striking. It’s called counterattack because you counter your opponent’s sword blow.

A changed attack is when you have attacked with a direct strike, your opponent counterattacks you, and you strike from a different angle. A strategic attack is a tactical strike at an opponent.

A direct attack may work even without expertise, but a counterattack won’t work without a considerable degree of skill and mental calm. Strategic attack is a maneuver of the resourceful.

The reason a direct attack may work even without expertise is that while victory and defeat depend on the level of training, the ease of using direct attack is that you strike first regardless of the opponent. Counterattack requires you to apply the technique on seeing the opponent’s striking sword, so you can’t do it if you’re inexperienced. As for a changed attack, since you launch it after you fail to land a blow and your opponent counterattacks, you can’t do it successfully until you’ve attained mastery.

Five Technicians
In our school the term five technicians means there are five types of martial artists, the aggressive, the clever, the technical, the calm, and the masterful.

The aggressive are those who come at opponents ferociously with overwhelming force, their minds so intent as to blast through rock.The clever mainly use their wits to strike opponents strategically. The technical are those who concentrate on winning by means of the techniques their teachers have passed on, plus the techniques they have worked out themselves. The calm concentrate on watching for an opening in an opponent’s defense to strike. The masterful overcome people with the subtlety of the imperturbable mind.

Being aggressive means excessive yang, facing opponents with stone-shattering force. Warfare focuses on yin. Yang is moving, yin is still. Stillness should be the focus in warfare. When yang, the mind moves; when your mind moves, you cannot win.

The clever figure out opponents strategically with their wits because they are ignorant of the principles of victory and the techniques of winning. There are these clever ones even among the inexperienced, and also among the highly skilled, but not among the masterful.

The technical are so called because they try to win with technique. The technical are better in a way than the aggressive and the clever, because the techniques taught in the various schools are all techniques for winning. To employ the techniques taught by your teacher is the basic idea of training; using techniques you’ve devised yourself on top of that is knowledge.

Of course, it is hard to win by virtue of technique while you’re still inexperienced. So to think the techniques transmitted by a teacher are useless is a sign of insufficient training. There are a lot of people who abandon techniques transmitted by teachers to rely on their wits, but as long as you are adequately trained, the techniques transmitted by a teacher are usable. These technicians can ultimately become highly skilled and even attain mastery.

Those who watch for opponents’ openings to strike are called calm because they are technicians who have arrived at the state where the mind is quiet. To gain victory on seeing an opening in an opponent is for the skilled, impossible when inexperienced. With experience, a technician can become calm.

People who win by the subtlety of the imperturbable mind are called masterful because they have reached the ultimate attainment. A master is a technician with an imperturbable mind.

One who attains calm can become a master. While the aggressive and the clever cannot reach the state of mastery, if they realize this principle, the aggressive reform their excess and the clever realize that wits don’t reach the principle of technique, so they shift their focus to technique and calmness. Then they can eventually reach the state of the supreme way.

As for the strategic attack of the clever, it’s all right to strike strategically on occasion while concentrating on technique and calmness, but when technique and calmness are in order, you realize you don’t need strategic attack and don’t rely on it.

The excess of the aggressive is the beginning of the loss of life. One should be wary of this. But even aggressiveness is a different matter if the aggressiveness is strategic while the inner mind is still and silent. This is something done by the highly skilled among the clever.
Read more…