I am really liking my new book of Japanese stories, Legends of Japan, which is described in more detail in my post of last week. This week I will share a story which I believe can be seen to have application to our practice of martial arts, called “The Lost Chance.” Then I will share from the […]

This week I will finish writing about Miyamoto Musashi’s Wind Scroll, one of the five scrolls of the work known as the Book Of Five Rings; and share a story or two from my new book, “Legends of Japan,” which I was lucky to pick up at my local second- hand store. I am excited […]

Week number 50. It’s hard to believe- that’s almost a year of weekly blog posts. This week I am going to continue with Miyamoto Musashi’s Wind Scroll, one of the five scrolls from his 1643 classic The Book Of Five Rings. In this scroll Miyamoto Musashi explains and critiques the techniques of other martial art schools […]

Greetings. This week will be a return to The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. I’ve been posting from the Fire Scroll, and though there are many more useful pieces of practical information that I haven’t covered still from the Fire Scroll, I thought this week I’ll do something a little different and move […]

This week I will return to Miyamoto Musashi’s Fire Scroll from his work The Book of Five Rings. Here are some more pointers from the Fire Scroll, which discusses specific techniques which work as well for fighting one or more adversaries, an army, or applied more generally to everyday life (the copy I have is […]

This week I will share more wisdom from Miyamoto Musashi’s Fire Scroll, one of the five scrolls of his Book of Five Rings. “Holding Down the Pillow” “Holding down the pillow means not letting someone raise his head. In martial arts, in the course of dueling, it is bad to be maneuvered around by others. […]

This week I will start by sharing some of the wisdom from the Fire Scroll, part of the Book of Five Rings by Myamoto Musashi. I like the Fire Scroll- it has a lot of suggestions about the mental aspects of martial arts, as related to individual combat and military science, as well as to life […]

This week I will continue my summarizing of the classic text from 1643, The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Last week I wrote about the first scroll which was the Earth scroll, and this week I will move on the the next section, the Water Scroll. This scroll goes in to detail about […]

Good morning and Happy New Year! It feels good to be off to a new start for this year 2012. I feel like I just wrote my last post- because I did. My kids were here for their school vacation so my last Weekly Post was done just a couple days ago. In that post, […]

Today I found two new books at my local used book store, Autumn Leaves, that I am looking forward to sharing in this and future blog posts. One is an ancient classic that Master Shaffer recommended; The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. This Japanese script dates back to 1643, the year the undefeated […]