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“There is something in Zen called ‘beating the grass to scare the snakes.’ To startle or surprise people a little is a device, like hitting at snakes in the grass to scare them.

To do something unexpected as a ploy to startle an opponent is also an appearance concealing an ulterior intention, an art of war.

When an opponent is startled and the feeling of opposition is distracted, the opponent will experience a gap in reaction time.

Even simple, ordinary gestures like raising your hand are used to distract an opponent’s attention.”

– from The Killing Sword, by Yagyu Munenori

Also, a riddle:

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.

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.”
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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.
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Yin and Yang
Military training is yang, extremely active. The time of impending battle is extreme yin, still and quiet.

When you are extremely calm on the verge of battle, even your facial expression does not change. You don’t fixate on the opponent; you don’t stare the opponent in the face. You don’t advance like crossing a narrow bridge but like walking down an open road.

One whose state of mind appears normal is a yin opponent. This is a superior technique, hard to oppose.

As for yang opponents, one displays rock-crushing force in his facial expression, a second embodies rage, a third tries to stare his opponent down, a fourth storms in and strikes with a loud cry, a fifth moves in and out forcefully. These are called yang opponents. The minds of yang opponents are moving, which makes them vulnerable. Nonetheless, a yin opponent may strategically become yang, so you always have to watch out.
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The origins of warfare are of many types, but they do not go beyond three categories: just war, contest for prestige, or greed for profit.

When it is humane, just, loyal, and faithful, harboring no selfishness, an operation that is in accord with nature and humanity is called a just war.

There are seven kinds of just war in all. First is when the people all over the land are withering away under a brutal government, waiting for the time when it will some day perish, so Providence accedes to the people’s desire and borrows the services of a spiritual warrior with the character of a sage to execute the tyrant, so the people are revived in the midst of water and fire.
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Instructions to a Samurai
Even if wonderful things like sudden enlightenment or immediate illumination could happen by sitting as if dead in silent awareness, still the lords, grandees, knights, and common people have all sorts of public duties and family affairs to attend to where can they find even a little free time to sit? Even if you take time off from your job and leave household duties undone on the pretext of illness, then shut yourself in a room for three, five, or seven days with a pile of cushions and a stick of incense to sit, you’ll be so tired from your everyday worldly duties that for every inch you sit you’ll sleep ten feet, and in every three cups of sitting meditation you’ll collect ten million bushels of wandering thought. Now if you glare and grit your teeth, clench your fists and straighten your spine and sit, all sorts of hallucinations will crowd your head.
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