Thoughts on: Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of 5 Rings.

Today I have finished reading Miyamoto Musashi's Book of the Five Rings. I read Alexander Bennett's translation of the book because I was already familiar with him as a kendoka and I was interested in reading a translation of the book that was headed by someone familiar with kendo.

The book began with an introduction that was several dozen pages of historical background, fact checking, etc. For the most part it was quite dry, just reading about lineages and dates. However, getting a glimpse into what Japan was like back in the day was so incredibly interesting. It boggled my mind that these were real things that happened and not just creations of fiction. Tales of people posting up in front of a city challenging people to life or death duels simply to build up reputation in order to find a job. Musashi's adoptive father being given the title "Peerless Under the Sun" after impressing the shogun with his skills. Musashi dueling a man with the moniker "Demon of the West". These are things that sound straight out of a fantasy novel but it was legitimately how some people were living their lives back then.

In regards to Musashi's teachings, y'know maybe my mind is not refined enough to truly get the most out of what he said. Some of his takes on mindset and self improvement were cool to read and probably beneficial for me to put into practice, but I did not find anything super enlightening or anything. From a historical and swordgeek perspective, it was quite fun to read about his advice and techniques that I have never thought about from learning modern kendo. It was fun to read things like 'There are 3 types of parrying, parry type X, parry type Y, and parry type Z' And parry type Z ends up just being "punch him in the face" Then sometimes I read a section like 'You will want to stab their chest when your blade your blade has become dull or you have become too tired to swing effectively'.

Reading tidbits that make me think "whoah it is cool to read about these things I never have to think about from practicing a modernized sport-y version of swordsmanship", but it also made me go "Oh wait. This isn't just martial arts. This is advice for how to kill people." And it is a bit heavy to think about the fact that all the advice this man is giving out has literally been used to kill real human beings.

Overall, it was quite the enjoyable read. It was fun to learn the history and gain some insights into such a famous figure. I also enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences in what 'world famous samurai' Musashi thought about swordsmanship vs what I was taught.

One last note I'd like to make is I've seen a decent amount of reviews and articles for the book, saying how the advice is useful for leaders and businessmen and honestly that disturbs me a bit.. A lot of the advice in this book pertains to dominating others, destroying people's spirits, inciting fear, stomping people down without giving them a chance to retaliate, etc etc. And it does not give me much confidence in society that this is what political and financial leaders are trying to emulate... Yes there is advice that can help normal people improve their lives and mindsets, but there is also a LOT of advice like:

"On the surface he is defeated but deep down his spirit is still very much in the fight. When this occurs, replenish your mind and raze the enemy’s spirit by ripping it apart so that he is defeated beyond doubt. Take care to confirm this." I would hope they won't implement things like this into their philosophies, but I think that is wishful thinking haha...

anyways overall cool book i rate it 8/10