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Aside from this the book deserves five stars. For me however these images are immensely distracting. Because I found these images so distracting however, I gave it three.I may search for the same translation in another printing. This is a good translation and a very good quality production.I have one question for the editor/author/designer/publisher: Why, in a book of intense mental focus, is nearly every page littered with pictures of flowers and sickles (and what appear at times to be snowflakes) behind the print. For some this apparently is no issue.
It is definitely worth a read, but I must say that it was short on both swordsmanship and Zen. I found the "Life-Giving Sword" much more interesting in terms of both swordsmanship guide and Zen thought and the combination of the two, although still not much help as a guide to Kendo without an instructor to help actually teach and guide a student through the material. So, this was one of the first books I thought about reading that might combine the two interests.
I am very interested in the seeming conflict in the Buddhist ideal of not killing and yet the practice of Zen was so attractive to many Samurai/warriors. I'm sure Miyamoto Musashi was an amazing person and would have been an impressive person to meet in real life, if we had time machines. In my humble opinion, The Life-Giving Sword: The Secret Teachings From the House of the Shogun by Yagyu Munenori, goes into that subject a little deeper and does make sense.
I am a student of Zen for over 10 years now, recently getting interested and involved with Kendo. His thoughts on Zen are a little interesting and he seemed to have obviously been steeped in Zen and its teachings, but there are much better books on Buddhist/Zen thought. ;) Still respectful of the man and his ideas, but too bad his book he left behind was more bones than flesh.
This is a very famous book from a very famous warrior/zen student/artist/eccentric. It was too broad to be taken as a helpful guide for Kendo, although I'm sure it would be a great manual to supplement a student training with Miyamoto Musashi or one of his disciples.
I'll leave the all the overly contemplative philosophical musings on this book to all the Zen Buddhists out there. While the ideas are obviously geared toward sword fighting some with a slight alteration could apply to other martial arts/fighting sports. There was also some good biographical stuff and artwork by him in this too. Written in the 1600s by one of the great Samurais in history Musashi puts forth his ideas on sword fighting combat and life. I found this interesting.
i enjoyed it very much and my boyfriend was very happy with it we plan on buying more books like this one. I thought it was a great book and very well written. I bought it for my boyfriend as a birthday gift. I ended up reading it too because he talk so great about it.
However, in later chapters Musashi goes into great detail on sword fighting techniques which are not very useful as there is no visual aide to assume the forms he describes. He did not write this book until he was in his fifties after countless battles, contemplation, and practice in becoming a true martial artist. It is interesting to note that Musashi also believes like many people do that the greatest enemy is in fact oneself. The Ninja originally adopted these ideas from an ancient Chinese scroll on warfare.
Miyamoto Musashi is a famous Japanese Samurai who was in at least 60 duels often to the death across Japan fighting various warriors from many styles of fighting. If you want to learn sword fighting techniques I suggest "Shinobi Gatana" (GHOST BLADE) by Steven Hayes - one of the only Americans ever trained by the last Grand Master of Ninjitsu (unfortunately it is hard to come by and only available on VHS). This is a very good book from the philosophical standpoint of following Zen and overcoming obstacles and opponents. Musashi supposedly never lost a duel which is not entirely true as at least on one occasion he fled a battle when the odds were against him.
The five elements or "rings" as Musashi calls them are Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Void. Musashi's book is a journey into the mind of a true martial artist, his ideals and techniques were just as relevant in his time as our own. Musashi lived until the ripe old age of 60 which was old back in the time of the samurai. Mushashi's belief system in the five rings or elements that must be mastered to defeat your enemy is the same belief system that the Ninja in ancient Japan had.
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