I have recently read "Lone Samurai - The Life of Miyamoto Musashi" and got to thinking on several different things.*
Firstly, I have learned through my unfortunately brief experience in Buko ryu that full intent is what brings a kata to life so to speak, and it is that intent that forges ones mind to be ready for combat. Interestingly many of the great
bugeisha of the feudal period in Japan, such as Yagyu Munenori, Yamaoka Tesshu, and obviously Musashi believed that training of intent and the spirit was the highest goal in swordsmanship. Interestingly, Musashi criticises other
schools for having too much material in their syllabus', and from what I have read of HNIR its curriculum is surprisingly small (please feel free to correct me if I am wrong Mr Watkin). He obviously differs greatly from the Yagyu school, which to my understanding places a great deal of importance on the spirit but also has a very developed technical curriculum.
So why the difference? How did one such as Musashi attain such mastery by not relying on technique? Surely to become so
skilled one must have technical proficiency (and it is obvious Musashi did), but how to attain it in the manner Musashi did
without formal instruction? What reasonable ratio of intent and spiritual maturity balances out actual technical mastery?
To go onto another tangent, and to quote Mr Watkin's website, Musashi "realised that he had won up to that point by chance".
If we look at some of the great men of the time, such as Tsukahara Bokuden, the Yagyu clan, Itto Ittosai, and Musashi, all survived multiple battles without harm (as far as we know). How is this possible? War is incredibly chaotic, particularly a melee battlefield with arrows flying around, and blades going everywhere. The chance of getting hit by anything while fighting
someone would have been extremely high, yet these men came out unscathed. Even the most skilled man in combat can be taken down by an arrow not seen, and no doubt many were. So what is it that allows such men to stay alive and cheat death many times over? Is it the luck of surviving that first battle, which gives one enough experience that the next time around
staying alive is that much easier (and so on for each battle), or is it the hard training in the dojo beforehand that brings one to a keen point of awareness? It seems to me that perhaps it is a combination of the two. The only other theory I can come up with is that it is somehow tied to one's fate. In the same way that a man like Albert Einstein comes into the world and changes it
so radically, maybe these men were simply brought into this world and that time to do great things.
What are your thoughts on these matters?
*Just a note I am aware that a fair amount of the book is speculation, and that is really all we have on alot of his life.