Book of Five Rings : The Classic Guide to Strategy

Rating:
Summary: Riviting. It was like nothing Ive read before.
Review: This book is so thouroly filled with thought provoking information that it is difficult to absorb it fully on the first reading. Not a problem considering that you want to reread passages and meditate on them to get the full meaning of the contents.

Rating:
Summary: ISBN 0553351702 is for martial artists
Review: You can read this book for philosophy or for content. Cleary filters out the content and leaves the philosophy. Nihon Services tells you what an old swordsman was saying to a student. If you study Japanese martial arts, you'll want to read the Nihon Services translation.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding work of great relevance to many
Review: This book presents a useful paradigm for operating in the modern world, as well as an excellent mind set for martial arts. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who runs a business, is a martial artist or wants a clearer focus on how to deal with energy of all kinds.

Rating:
Summary: stunning book not easily understood by non technical readers
Review: Well, this is one of the greatest books ever written on strategy. But a great deal of it is highly technical and not easily understood by people without extensive background in the Japanese martial arts - I lived in Japan for 3 years, have studied over 10 year and make no claims to understand it. I used to ask my Sensei about it and he would just laugh - it was deliberately written to be obscure. I think you ought read it, enjoy it, know that most business managers (Japan or America) do not understand it and all the hype about it as a business text is BS.

Rating:
Summary: A feast for thought...
Review: A very deep little book, declared by many to be The classic guide to strategy. I first read it years ago, and still, to this day, I have moments of understanding of it.

Rating:
Summary: Master thy emotions and mind the way he masters the sword.
Review: He is a phenomonal writer. He has written an encrypted owners manual to the mind, body and spirit and put in a very eloquent but realistic way....He provides a way of evolving and mastering yourself and your actions. This is one of the best books of the millenium...No doubt about it...

Rating:
Summary: Like poetry it suggests more than it says
Review: Okay, so I really have no clue as to what compelled me to buy this book. I hate to admit it but it looked "pretty" and it looked "historical," so I got it. I also love the Japanese film classics starring Toshirô Mifune as the ultimate samurai warrior. Many of them illustrate a combination of charm, sophistication, humor, even comedy, with violence, ruthlessness, and arrogance. The comparative lack of graphic bloodiness tends to focus the viewer on the human dynamics and art of the situation, and while some of these classics have been translated by the Hollywood film industry for Western tastes, what transpires still has a "foreign" feel. One sees the action and senses that something going on here is different, uncomfortable. Upon reading a few paragraphs of the Book of Five Rings : The Classic Guide to Strategy, I understood why.

For one thing, I had not understood that the character in the samurai collection that Mifune had been portraying had actually been an historic individual living in a unique period of Japanese history. Why I should have been surprised, I don't know, since the exploits of the likes of Pat Garret, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holiday became the basis for a good deal of 19th and 20th Century pulp fiction, TV series, and movies in the United States. In fact, the period in Japanese history that the translator describes sounds not unlike the "Wild West." The sod busters and the ranchers have made their peace, leaving hundreds of gunmen unemployed. The lucky ones find work as lawmen while the unlucky wander the country looking to enhance their reputations by lethal confrontations to see who's "fastest on the draw." The winner may ultimately find a job as a peace keeper; the loser finds a spot on boot hill. In the case of the American western, the contestants use guns; in the case of the Japanese samurai, they use swords and other equipment. Still there seems something more to it. The something more, I think, is a philosophy, a school, an etiquette, even an art that leaves the Western mind a little uncomfortable.

With some of the techniques of sword work and battle strategy, I think that as Musashi himself informs the reader, it is very difficult to "write" how to do a mechanical task. One can only convey the "feeling" that performing such a task has for the expert writer on the subject. In modern times this facet of the learning process is overcome by photo illustrations, but even then only to a very limited extent. As the author points out, there is no substitute for experience with the process and practice, practice, practice. Even the very limited experience I acquired years ago when I took fencing lessons helped me picture more clearly some of the moves the author described.

Part of the difficulty in connecting with the author's experience as he performs the various actions of sword fighting may be that this book is a translation from the Japanese, was originally written in an older version of the language, and embodied an ancient version of the culture itself, one that is no longer available even to modern Japanese let alone a Western translator. A warrior of Musashi's time may well have connected far better with the similes he uses than a modern person. The unique benefit of this fact, however, is that a great deal can be read into the work. Part of this is the author's intention, but part of it is due to the very ambiguity of the work. Just as the author himself suggests, the reader who does not concentrate on the words but allows the mind to float over them makes all sorts of interesting discoveries. For instance a book on dealing with problem people suggested a technique much like Musashi's "To Know the Times," essentially to match the rhythm and intensity of the subject until one can gain control of that rhythm to de-escalate it. His "To Become the Enemy" immediately brought to my mind the individual characters of Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and his opponent George McClelland. As Musashi suggested, the enemy always feels he is outnumbered which means that a few may defeat many if they are trained in The Way. Or as Lee is reputed to have said before a battle, "The Army of the Potomac is a very good one, unfortunately General McClelland brought himself along." Lee understood The Way. He knew that McClelland's personality, or lack of The Way, produced vast armies of the enemy in his mind.

In all a very interesting and surprising book, one I expect to read again and again to mine for concepts. For a slender 95 pages, the author, like a good poet, has packed each word with a maximum of information because they encapsulate concepts and principles.

Rating:
Summary: Great Martial Arts--but that's it
Review: This is a wonderful book on swordsmanship. It's not about strategy. Strategy is very high level (there are three levels of warfare: strategic, operational, and tactical). This book is about tactics. Strategy is how to win a potential war from a national level; operational refers to how an area commander (e.g. General Schwartzkoff) fights a theater; tactics is how you take a hill or defend your ship. I've got tons of experience in program management, have published articles on management, have scientific degrees and an MBA, and I fail to see how this is a management book. It seems like a HUGE stretch to me. The rating, unfortunately, seems to depend on what one expects from the book. I expected something that would be strategically useful (or at least operationally) from a management perspective. Sun Tzu's "Art of War" (one of my favorite books and far better, I think, than von Clauswitz) certainly qualifies. This book does not.

Rating:
Summary: Not influential in his own time, but who cares?!
Review:
Musashi's now-famous 'Book of Five Rings' is simply not the most influential sword-fighting book written in Feudal Japan. The most important book on Japanese swordsmanship, and the text of the Shogunate's own selected shool of swordsmanship is 'The Sword and the Mind': available as a translation by Hiroaki Sato. Musashi had a very personal and unique style of fighting involving the long and short swords used together. Quite possibly his style developed through the influence of his father, who was an expert in the jitte: a parrying weapon held in the left hand. Even if wielding the long sword by itself, he recommends holding it only in one hand, and developing the strength to do so: he mentions how often you will have to grab enemy spears or other objects with your left hand while fighting, and how holding a sword in two hands limits your sword's movement. Musashi was fully devoted to swordsmanship, and it seems as if he spent all day every day of his life swinging his swords about: no wonder no one could match him! Musashi's main principles are: 1) Train as much as possible 2) Always be on the attack, and turn every defence into an attack 3) Do unexpected strange things to confuse the opponent 4) Attack while the opponent is in the middle of doing something else such as taking a step or breathing etc 5) keep yourself relaxed while fighting 6) Train to achieve complete control of movement. There are lots of little useful anecdotes he tells us about, such as how to keep the sun at your back and thus in the opponent's face. He also gives us a window into 17th Century battles concerning the benefits and detriments of the various weapons and so on. What clearly rings through the entire book is that this is the work of someone who is intimate to an incredible degree with the movements of the sword and the body. A great deal of his strategy involves timing and rhythms: catching the opponent at just the right moment. There is no doubt that these principles are of the utmost importance in winning any kind of sport; however, they are very simple principles and really depend on the swordsman having an incredible amount of skill and training which gives him enough freedom of movement and acute sense of timing to carry them out. One can sense the love Musashi has of fighting and the thrill he gets at his feeling of superiority at winning. However, Japan was not as impressed with his style as he was. It was the two-handed style outlined in 'The Sword and the Mind' that became the standard for samurai. I am not a duellist who's life is on the line, so I am not in a position to muse about why the preference remained for a two-handed grip, but certainly having more control of the blade, more speed, and a longer sword must have been factors. So, even though Musashi was undefeatable, he became so using apparently inferior weapons. While this is all the more impressive, it also means that his style is defective in its most basic element: its weapons! I should probably add here that Musashi clearly was acquainted with literature, and the fact that he was trying to immortalize himself through his book is obvious on every page. He was a great artist too, and his paintings and sculptures have been prized ever since he created them. He wanted to remain the best swordsman after his death, and this book was conceived as his means to that end. There is a great deal to be sure to be learned from this work - it is quite possibly the best book ever written on hand to hand combat, and it is very well organized. I should add too that where Musashi speaks of large-scale military manoeuvers he is speaking from experience, since he fought in and commanded in several battles. We however must remember that in his own time and later his style of two swords hardly had any students - and there are no fencers from his Nito school that ever became famous. While his very seemingly-practical 'hands-on' approach to swordsmanship appeals to us impatient moderns, the deeply introspective, psychological mind-games of Munenori's "The Sword and the Mind" appealed to the samurai of the Edo period. However, the samurai of that period took on the role of civil servants and their role as warriors became less and less important, so practical advice on winning battles such as Musashi gives seemed less relevant to them than spiritual cultivation. It is really a miracle that Japan's greatest samurai actually wrote a book telling us how to become as great a fighter as himself! This book is a guide to success in martial arts, and it will give your martial arts knowledge a touch of 'class', since this book is a true classic of the best kind: if you can quote Musashi in your teaching, it can only look good for you! I ought to note that Thomas Cleary's edition of the "Book of Five Rings" also contains the entire "Sword and the Mind" of Munenori, so Cleary's book would be ideal to buy!

Rating:
Summary: Like poetry it suggests more than it says
Review: Okay, so I really have no clue as to what compelled me to buy this book. I hate to admit it but it looked "pretty" and it looked "historical," so I got it. I also love the Japanese film classics starring Toshirô Mifune as the ultimate samurai warrior. Many of them illustrate a combination of charm, sophistication, humor, even comedy, with violence, ruthlessness, and arrogance. The comparative lack of graphic bloodiness tends to focus the viewer on the human dynamics and art of the situation, and while some of these classics have been translated by the Hollywood film industry for Western tastes, what transpires still has a "foreign" feel. One sees the action and senses that something going on here is different, uncomfortable. Upon reading a few paragraphs of the Book of Five Rings : The Classic Guide to Strategy, I understood why.

For one thing, I had not understood that the character in the samurai collection that Mifune had been portraying had actually been an historic individual living in a unique period of Japanese history. Why I should have been surprised, I don't know, since the exploits of the likes of Pat Garret, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holiday became the basis for a good deal of 19th and 20th Century pulp fiction, TV series, and movies in the United States. In fact, the period in Japanese history that the translator describes sounds not unlike the "Wild West." The sod busters and the ranchers have made their peace, leaving hundreds of gunmen unemployed. The lucky ones find work as lawmen while the unlucky wander the country looking to enhance their reputations by lethal confrontations to see who's "fastest on the draw." The winner may ultimately find a job as a peace keeper; the loser finds a spot on boot hill. In the case of the American western, the contestants use guns; in the case of the Japanese samurai, they use swords and other equipment. Still there seems something more to it. The something more, I think, is a philosophy, a school, an etiquette, even an art that leaves the Western mind a little uncomfortable.

With some of the techniques of sword work and battle strategy, I think that as Musashi himself informs the reader, it is very difficult to "write" how to do a mechanical task. One can only convey the "feeling" that performing such a task has for the expert writer on the subject. In modern times this facet of the learning process is overcome by photo illustrations, but even then only to a very limited extent. As the author points out, there is no substitute for experience with the process and practice, practice, practice. Even the very limited experience I acquired years ago when I took fencing lessons helped me picture more clearly some of the moves the author described.

Part of the difficulty in connecting with the author's experience as he performs the various actions of sword fighting may be that this book is a translation from the Japanese, was originally written in an older version of the language, and embodied an ancient version of the culture itself, one that is no longer available even to modern Japanese let alone a Western translator. A warrior of Musashi's time may well have connected far better with the similes he uses than a modern person. The unique benefit of this fact, however, is that a great deal can be read into the work. Part of this is the author's intention, but part of it is due to the very ambiguity of the work. Just as the author himself suggests, the reader who does not concentrate on the words but allows the mind to float over them makes all sorts of interesting discoveries. For instance a book on dealing with problem people suggested a technique much like Musashi's "To Know the Times," essentially to match the rhythm and intensity of the subject until one can gain control of that rhythm to de-escalate it. His "To Become the Enemy" immediately brought to my mind the individual characters of Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and his opponent George McClelland. As Musashi suggested, the enemy always feels he is outnumbered which means that a few may defeat many if they are trained in The Way. Or as Lee is reputed to have said before a battle, "The Army of the Potomac is a very good one, unfortunately General McClelland brought himself along." Lee understood The Way. He knew that McClelland's personality, or lack of The Way, produced vast armies of the enemy in his mind.

In all a very interesting and surprising book, one I expect to read again and again to mine for concepts. For a slender 95 pages, the author, like a good poet, has packed each word with a maximum of information because they encapsulate concepts and principles.