Miyamoto Musashi: The Japanese Swordsman Who Changed Dueling Forever

Musashi is thought to have been born around 1584, though the exact date is still up for debate. But we know that he was from a samurai family, and his father was a stern sword master who was hard on him. It is said that one day his father threw a knife at him in anger, and young Musashi avoided it by simply turning his head.

When Musashi was only 13, he took on a traveling samurai called Arima Kihei. The boy ran at the man, beating him down with a stick. A fight that was rough and bloody and had none of the elegance he’d be known for in years to come. He killed him.

After killing his first opponent, Musashi stayed in the custody of his uncle, Dorinbo, for several more years until he left his home village for good when he was about fifteen or sixteen years old. He started a nomadic lifestyle as a ronin, traveling throughout Japan in search of duels and battles. He lived in the wilderness, sleeping in the open air and hunting for food.

Musashi was about 17 when he experienced the chaos of battle in a famous war called the Battle of Sekigahara. He joined the losing army of the daimyo Ukita Hideie. He then had to flee for his life as the victorious soldiers looked for wounded survivors to execute. Some researchers do not believe that Musashi actually participated in the battle. This doubt is hard to confirm, and the story of his participation, like many of Musashi’s tales, probably remains part legend. If he did fight there, however, he survived long enough to fight again another day.

In the coming years, Musashi was essentially a training machine. He wandered with very little money, got up at dawn every day, and practiced with his sword until it was dark. From this he developed what would become his most famous technique, a system known as Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu, which involved using two swords at the same time: a long sword and a short sword, or a katana and a wakizashi.

In 1604, aged about 21, Musashi entered Kyoto determined to make a name for himself. He decided to challenge the Yoshioka school, one of the most prestigious swordsmanship schools in Japan. His reasoning was logical: defeat the best, and you become famous instantly. Unfortunately, the Yoshioka brothers didn’t regard the little-known outsider as a worthy opponent.

Musashi’s first fight with Yoshioka displayed his most cunning weapon: patience. For his bout with the formidable Seijuro, the head of the Yoshioka school, Musashi arrived hours late, intentionally. This threw Seijuro’s intense focus off. He received one hit from Musashi that crippled his arm for life, ending his career as a swordsman. To win by being fashionably late is surely diabolical, yet I admire the cleverness and audacity of it. It’s clear from the outset: Musashi was no fool!

Seijuro’s younger brother, Denshichiro, was determined to seek vengeance. He challenged Musashi to a duel to the death. Musashi did the exact same thing (since what works, right?): showed up late until the impulsive young man was nearly bubbling with fury. And when the battle finally commenced, it was over in an instant. One blow from Musashi’s bokken was enough to kill Denshichiro right there. The great Yoshioka name had been shattered.

A vengeful Yoshioka clan decided to kill Musashi by putting forth a 12-year-old boy as their next champion, and then turning up with a small band of archers and swordsmen. But he didn’t play the arrive-late trick that time, instead turning up early and lying in wait. He was able to cut his way out with a sword in each hand, and emerged from the encounter unscathed.

Musashi stopped at a shrine along the way to a Yoshioka ambush, and was about to begin praying for aid, in anticipation of meeting what was likely to be a swift and bloody death, when he paused in a moment that has haunted me throughout my research on him. He had never relied on the gods before, so why start now? Instead of praying for victory, he chose gratitude and thanked the gods. He held respect for the deities of both Shinto and Buddhism, but he later wrote that self-reliance, not the gods, was the true source of victory: “Respect the gods and Buddhas, but do not depend on them.”

For the next decade or so following Kyoto, Musashi traveled across Japan looking for every samurai with a reputation, and engaged in over 60 duels alone (this doesn’t count any of the people he killed on larger battlefields).

In 1607, Musashi sought out another famous swordsman called Shishido who wielded a kusarigama, a fearsome sickle on a weighted chain. Musashi watched Shishido twirl his chain, and then threw his short sword right at the guy’s chest and moved in.

At this point, Musashi’s fighting ethos was that you won however you could, whether it was beautiful or horrifying. He would throw sand in his opponent’s face or angle the fight so the sun blinded them. He loved to unnerve his foe with words before they ever drew their weapons. He learned the rules of each school he encountered, then ignored them. The vast majority of his foes fell in bewilderment, wondering how they were defeated.

Musashi’s most famous fight occurred in 1612, when he battled another legendary samurai, Sasaki Kojiro (known as the Demon of the Western Provinces), on a small island. On the way across the water, Musashi calmly chipped a wooden sword out of a spare oar, leaving it slightly longer than Kojiro’s steel blade. He arrived late to the battle, as always, and slew Kojiro with a single blow.

Some historians think there’s also the possibility that Sasaki Kojiro never existed in the first place, and may be entirely a fictional character created to provide Musashi with a legitimate opponent.

In addition to those one-on-one encounters, Musashi participated in some six wars. One of those was the infamous siege of Osaka, one of the bloodiest campaigns in Japanese history. Experiencing that much carnage must have had quite an impact on him.

Musashi fought in six wars altogether, including the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637. Tradition holds that after his 1612 duel with Sasaki Kojiro, he never again killed an opponent in single combat. Within a few years, Japan was settling into a period of peace that would last around 250 years.

Off the battlefield, Musashi was an accomplished ink painter (particularly of birds) and a skilled calligrapher. An artist, no doubt!

At last in old age, Musashi found the peace he’d long lacked. He became a guest of the influential Hosokawa family and secluded himself in a mountain cave, where he meditated and wrote. Even as his health slowly failed him, Musashi completed his magnum opus, The Book of Five Rings, about strategy and the art of living. He died in 1645 at approximately the age of 62, and he was buried in full armor.

Musashi’s tale might well have died with him, but luckily, The Book of Five Rings (which he wrote between 1643 and 1645) rescued it from oblivion, and revived it centuries later when it was studied by Western businessmen as a business textbook in the 1970s and 1980s. His legacy inspired numerous novels, movies, manga, and video games, many of which included his martial art as their premise.

This content was created with the help of AI.