September 12, 2023 • 48 mins
There is a term in Japan: kensei. Sword Saints. The peerless warriors bestowed with this honorific title were such hardcore blade-swinging warriors that they were actually believed to have possessed otherworldly abilities with their weapon of choice. Fierce fighters, perfectly-tuned machines who had ascended to a plane where they had become one with the sword. Their movements were precise, their reactions instinctive, their form as flawless and graceful as it was deadly. At the forefront of this pantheon of warrior-gods stands one legendary man: Miyamoto Musashi.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. The samurai scowls, his eyes narrow, he
slowly draws his katana, the sacred weapon of Japan's elite warrior.
Cast forged through a delicate and complicated process of folding
(00:20):
a specialized steel to create a keen honed edge capable
of slicing through bone, flesh, and armor. The long sword
is the most treasured possession of Japan's elite. In the
hands of a master, few things on earth are deadlier
then Zichiro Yoshioka is such a master. His family has
(00:41):
taught the combat art to samurai for generations, including the
mighty Ashikaga showguns themselves. His style is flawless, his movements
honed from decades of training, His reputation that of one
of Japan's most elite swordsmen. Across from him in the
dueling circle is a wandering ronan, a lordless swordsman, a
(01:03):
rogue drifting across the land, brazenly challenging the leaders of
Japan's most illustrious fighting schools to single combat. The Ronan's
face is scarred, his beard scraggly, his eyes wild, his
hair loosely tied up at a top knot above his head,
he looks more animal than man. In his hand, the
(01:24):
Ronan carries not a katana but a wooden sword, a
practice weapon used to train children who would have had
the audacity to bring that here to a duel to
the death. Denzichiro can barely contain his rage. This insult
cannot be forgiven. His opponent, the Ronan, Miyamoto Musashi, smiles slightly.
(01:48):
He nods to begin the combat, and violently hurls himself
into the frame And Welcome back to Badass of the Week.
My name is Ben Thompson and I am here as
always with my co host, doctor Pat Larish. Pat, how
(02:10):
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I'm doing okay.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
How are you, Ben, I'm doing good. I'm doing good.
We are doing some samurai stuff today, some katana stuff.
So have you been brushing up on your bushido?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Not really. I've started to look into it. It's kind
of complex. I think it takes a lifetime to master.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's a great answer, yeah, as all great warrior ways. So, Pat,
what do you think of when we think about samurai?
So we haven't done a samurai before on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, we haven't. Yeah, so obviously I think of Japan,
which is where the Samurai are from, and I think
of these Japanese woodcuts of guys in maybe kind of
elaborate armor, with these beautiful, elegantly curved swords, and I
think of Kroslo.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Movies, Tom Cruise Last Samurai, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Maybe Tom Cruz Last Samurai. Yeah, yeah, Okay, we're joking
here a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So yeah, yeah, so Samurai. We're going to get into it.
But Samurai are basically the Nights of feudal Japan. And
it's kind of interesting because they operate several hundred years
after the Knights operated in Europe. But they are they're
nobles who have very elaborate armor, as you said, weapons,
weapons training, and they're they're trained more or less along
(03:34):
the ways that that Knights in Europe would have been trained. Right,
you are kind of born into this class. You learn
to fight from a very young age. You learn all
of the traditionally manly skills like calligraphy and writing poetry
and decapitating people. Yeah, that is kind of the world
that my mode Musashi is is born into. But he
(03:57):
is going to be a lot different from the traditional
samurai that you would see in a Kurosawa movie. He's
going to be his own guy, and he's going to
do some pretty cool stuff, and he's gonna actually end
up creating an entirely new archetype, that kind of Toshiro Mafuni,
like wandering dude with no armor and a sword who
goes into a town and gets into trouble and ends
(04:20):
up walking out of there with a bunch of dead
bodies in his way. Yeah, we're going to talk more
about him after this. Well, we are talking about probably
my favorite and we'll get into it later. Probably samurai
(04:40):
isn't the right term for him, but he is operating
in the Samurai time period. One of my favorite warriors
from Japanese history. We're going to talk about Mayamoto Musashi.
He is a very famous wandering swordsman from the Edo
period of Japanese history, and he killed his first man
and at age thirteen, and by the time he was thirty,
(05:02):
he had won over sixty life or death duels, taught
hundreds of students, He fought in somewhere around six big
you know, battles that defined the history of Japan. And
then when he got bored of that, he climbed a mountain,
lived in a cave, and wrote a book about swordsmanship
and philosophy.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so as badasses go, he makes me think a
little bit of Hercules, someone who's known for his braun
but also was able to think his way through situations too,
and especially Bruce Lee, because Bruce Lee had a whole
philosophy behind what he was doing. So you've got brains
(05:42):
along with our braun, we've got a little bit of violence,
actually a lot of violence, and a certain amount of
Zen broadly defined. He developed a philosophy.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, and you know, very very deep, very kind of
Zen Buddhist philosophy that he had. And we'll get into
it a little more when we start talking about his
writings and his works and his philosophy. But I just
want to quote from one of his most famous works,
the Book of Five Rings. It's kind of a definitive
treatise on sword fighting but also philosophy. The great philosopher
(06:16):
Miyamoto Musashi. He says, quote, when you are even with
an opponent, it is essential to keep thinking of stabbing
him in the face with the tip of your sword,
and the intervals between the opponent's sword blows, and your
own sword blows. When you have the intention of stabbing
your opponent in the face, he will try to get
both his face and body out of the way in
the midst of battle. As soon as an opponent tries
(06:37):
to get out of the way, you have already won.
End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So yeah, he kind of says, keep stabbing your opponent
in the face. But to my point, pun not intended.
It's also about thinking about stabbing your opponent's face. So
the intention that you go into this with matters.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
There is a term in Japanese. There's a word called
can say. It means a sword saint. If you've seen
any anime or red any manga, you've probably encountered this
term before, usually around some kind of guy who runs
on tree branches and slays giant monsters with a magic sword.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, someone you would expect in a comic book. Yeah exactly,
you know. Yeah, larger than life.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you know. And this is fairly common in anime,
but it's less common in real life, and there aren't
many people who attained this level of respect from the
rest of because you are talking about a society where
everybody can fight with the sword, so to be the best.
To have ascended to a plane where you were kind
(07:40):
of one with your weapon and unbeatable is extremely difficult,
you know, when you're talking about seventeenth century Japan.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah. Yeah, And you say then you said, this is
a world where everyone fights with a sword, Yes, including
the women. The women, especially of noble families, were rained
in some basic swords personship.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yes, they were expected to be able to fight and
whether that was or at least know how to use
the thing right, a sword or.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
A basic self defense right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And in some cases they would train with the naginata,
which is kind of a spear. It's basically a sword
on the end of like a five foot stick, which
just seems terrifying.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah. So this is the context in which we've got
this term, can say or swords saint.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, it's it's who gets this term. It's given to
people who are kind of they're considered to be one
with the weapon. They're finally two machines. They've ascended to
a new plane of swordsmanship. They waste no movements, they
have instinctive reactions on sword fighting. Their form is flawless,
it's graceful, it's deadly, and among these can say, there's
(08:54):
one name that stands out among all the others, and
that is my mode of Musashi. Musashi's life is something
kind of like out of an old cowboy movie or
a samurai movie, which makes sense because I only ever
picture him with Toashira Mafuni's face, because Toshira Mufuni, the
famous Japanese actor who had been in who's been in
hundreds of films, but he played Musashi on more than
(09:15):
one occasion, and that's always kind of for me the
canonical way I envisioned Mayumota Musashi. But he is, you know,
kind of the archetype of this lone warrior, this lone cowboy,
even like a John Wick or somebody who kind of
rolls into down, you know, get ends up getting into
some trouble or accidentally making somebody mad. And then cut
(09:37):
to the end of the movie, the final credits, he's
wandering off into the sunset, leaving behind beautiful widows and
many dead bodies. That's you know, high planes, drifter, yo jimbo,
all of that stuff. That's the life of Miyamoto Musashi.
So the story's going to start. Let's start in fifteen
ninety six, late sixteenth century Japan. We are in Harima Province,
(09:58):
which is kind of near present day Kobe in the southwest.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh, like Kobe Beef.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, like Kobe Beef. That's a good way of thinking
of it. But yeah, it's a close to Osaka. It's
kind of between Osaka and Kyoto. So we're talking like
southwest Japan.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Southwest of the main island of Main Island. Yeah, aren't
you Okay? So we've got a map, yeah, and we
zoom in.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And and there's a thirteen year old boy. His name
is Miamou Musashi. He's just kind of beginning his career.
And as most people who are starting their adventures, at
least if you're talking about Lincoln, the Legend of Zelda,
you get the wooden sword is your first weapon, and
that is what Musashi is fighting with in his town.
He's he's a just became a teenage boy. He's beating
(10:44):
up practice dummies. He's probably having battles against invisible pirates
and enemy samurai and stuff in his backyard. He doesn't
have a lot of formal fighting training, but his father
is a martial artist. His father is a swordsman, and
so we have to assume there was probably some you know,
if not formal training, at least some kind of basic
understanding of how the weapon works. One day, a samurai
(11:07):
comes to town and his name is Arima Kihey. He
is kind of a wandering adventurer who is good with
a sword and wants everybody to know it, wants to
hone his power and you know, build a name for himself.
And so he comes to town and he posts a
public challenge in the town square. I will duel any
idiot from this podunk, crappy town. You come here and
(11:31):
you fight me, and I'll beat you up, and I'll
show you how great I am. I'm the greatest swordsman
in the area. So young Musashi and you know, we're
going to learn more about him as we go. But
young Musashi, he doesn't like this. He reads this sign.
He's like, all right, you know, I've been fighting these
practice dummies. I've been practicing. I'm going to show this
guy what's up.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, bring it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah. So in the old days, it was kind of
like the Goblet of fire. Right, you write your name
on the thing and you stick it to the board,
like okay, I'll fight you. Yeah. So he does that
and So then the next day there's a knock on
the door and it's a messenger who's like, okay, well
Arima kihay wants has accepted your challenge and we'll fight you.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Uh oh.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And Musashi's uncle is there, and Musashi's uncle's like what, yeah,
why you're gonna do what? You're gonna sort fight this
wandering samurai swordsman. So the uncle is like, no, my
my nephew's not gonna fight. My nephew's thirteen. He's not
gonna fight this guy. You know, he don't worry about it.
He put his name on the board, but like it
was a joke. He was just passing around.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, oh yeah, thirteen year old. This is a thing
that thirteen year olds do sometimes.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, he doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So they go back to keih and Keihe is like, no,
it's dishonorable. This is bushido. This is the code of
the warrior. I posted a challenge and I was challenged.
You accepted the challenge by a thirteen year old. I
don't care if he's thirteen. It's more embarrassing if I
don't respond to this, right, he says. He so he
offers a deal. Okay, come there, come to the battlefield
(12:56):
where we're gonna duel. Come to the dueling arena. Usually
it was like the center of town or whatever. They'd
clear out I think for real, like high plains, drifter,
like gunfight, you know, on main street kind of thing.
This is what they were doing, right, and people would
come out and watch this.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
High noon at the Okay Corral whatever. Yeah, exactly exactly.
So it's a public place, there's definitely going to be
an audience. There's probably some buzz surrounding this.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yes, yes, and Key he says, Okay, well, my honor
will be satisfied. I won't kill your little nephew. But
he's got to come to the duel and he's got
to apologize to me, and that will like absolve my honor.
He's got to show up and say he's sorry, and
then I'll I won't kill him. So the next day
they go to the dueling area and Key Hay shows up.
He's wearing his best clothes, he's got his best swords,
(13:40):
and young thirteen year old Mimou Musashi who suffers from
pretty extreme exzema, so he's picture like he's got like
a red bumps and stuff on his face. He's kind
of a crazy looking kid, and.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
We have pictures and also doesn't he describe himself that
way in his writing room?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Anyway, so this is what we're picturing.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, and then the uncle comes the Mushashi's there with
his uncle, and the uncle's like, hey, Kei, hey, don't
worry about it, like you know, he's coming here to apologize,
and Musashi is like, no, I'm not here to apologize.
He takes the wooden sword that he's been practicing with.
I'm picturing it as a toy sword, but I don't
it probably wasn't. It was probably like when you see
(14:18):
like fencing, like kendo. I imagine it probably was a
sword like that. But in my head it's the wooden
sword from the Legend of Zelda.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Still it's a wooden sword, so it's a wooden sword.
It's got its limitations.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
He pulls the wooden sword. He charges kihy shouting challenges
to him to fight Kia. Okay, fine, I'm gonna do that.
He pulls his short sword the way he's Ashi, and
Masashi runs up and immediately flips this guy flips. Kiya
blocks his attack, flips him onto the ground, kicks the
sword out of kiy Hay's hand, and then pummels him
(14:50):
with the wooden sword and kills him. It's pretty humiliating
for Arima. Kihay, Yeah, you flipped and then we try
to get up. He got mash between the eyes of
a wooden sword and he died.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, that's where the legend of Musashi begins. He kills
his first man at thirteen.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And it's not just any man. It's an experienced swordsman.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
An experienced wandering swordsman.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And so from there that's kind of the beginning of it.
By the time he's sixteen, Musashi has decided, I'm going
to go out. I am going to become a Ronan
and I'm going to wander and I'm going to have adventures.
I'm going to walk the earth. I'm going to give
all of my worldly possessions to my sister except for
my wooden sword, and I am going to walk the
(15:32):
earth as a Ronan.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, and what does it mean for him to be
a Ronan? So a ronan is a drifting, freelance kind
of warrior. He's maybe got a similar skill set to
samurai good with swords, et cetera. But unlike a samurai
doesn't have a master in the sense of a liege lord.
Samurai pledged their loyalty to a daim yo, a local
(15:55):
lord I don't know, like a duke, account and earl,
that kind of thing. I don't know, a lord. Yeah, yeah,
And the name Ronan comes from two words that mean
wave is in a wave of water and person. So
it's like a person who's fluid has a connotation of
a drifter and for a samurai, for an actual samurai,
(16:16):
their honor and reputation are tied to their allegiance to
their master, Ronan doesn't have that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So we had been talking a little bit before the
show about knights errants, which is kind of a similar
analog in the West, where you had kind of these
mercenary knights who didn't have a lord, and they would
wander the countryside having adventures and looking for a lord
in some cases, right, this arima kiey guy, if he had,
you know, one enough battles and proven a name for himself,
(16:43):
maybe a daimio would have wanted him to come work
for him. And yeah, maybe that's what he was looking for.
I don't know, maybe it was a job interview. And
how did people kind of become a ronan.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
There were two main ways. Either you were an actual
samurai whose master had died or was dishonored or lost
his legal privileges and no longer had the authority to
I guess claim the liege loyalty of people. In theory,
a samurai was supposed to ritually kill himself when his
master died, so you can really kill yeah. Yeah, So
(17:17):
there's a stigma or prejudice in the eyes of a
lot of samurai and the daimyo, the feudal lords attached
to a ronan or a samurai an ex samurai, I
guess who outlived your master?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh, because he didn't have the honor to kill himself,
Like he's kind of dishonored in that he's still wandering around.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah. But actually reality is a lot more complicated as
it often is. And in the Ato period, which is
actually the period that we're talking about here, you have
a combination of two factors. There were a lot of
restrictions placed on samurai's job mobility. You used to be
able to change masters if your current lord said it
(18:00):
was okay. Yeah, Okay, yeah, you can leave me and
go work for so and so. And it also seems
that there were restrictions on ex samurai taking on other jobs,
other professions. And was this really codified codified or was
it more sort of the samurai restricting themselves maybe being
reluctant to take a less clamorous job.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You know, you couldn't change masters either, which is interesting
because it's like, yeah, that kind of sucks because then
it's like, if your master's not doing so good, he's
kind of on his deathbed, and you're like, I'm going
to change before I have to kill myself. Yeah, you're
not allowed to do anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, if your master's kind of on the decline.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
He's wounded in battle and he's like dying out, you're like, quick, quick,
I'm going to work for you now. Is that yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Or he's kind of like, you know, sneak like check
out LinkedIn or whatever you know or whatever you know.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Seventeenth century equivalent was hashtag looking for work. Yeah, yeah,
happened to work.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, But I also want to say that, you know,
we're kind of joking and talking about job hopping and whatever,
but this doesn't really do justice to the experience of
being a samurai. You know, there is a pretty serious
code of honor. We've referred to it before. It's called
wushi do, the way of the warrior, and it was
(19:14):
really formalized in this period. And for a lot of
these guys, it's more an identity than a day job.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, it's like it's their lives, right, it's their Yeah,
their whole existence is dedicated to this.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah. And another factor is that also in this period,
a lot of these daimyo lost their fiefdoms, so you
had a lot of unemployed samurai wandering around. So some
of these samurai they become ronan. They go freelance basically,
and then some other people become ronan from the start.
(19:50):
That's the other way to do it. You just go
your own way from the start. You often sever connections
with your family. You make do with the skills that
you acquire. One way or another. You walk the earth.
And that's what our guy, Musashi Miyamoto did.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, he was Samuel L. Jackson from pulp fiction or
David Carridine from kung Fu something like that, wandering the earth,
having adventures, and that's kind of what his life reads
like after this right, So he leaves home at fifteen,
He leaves all of his possessions with his sister, and
you know, like I said, he didn't have a lot
(20:25):
of formal fighting training, but he wanted to get some
real world experience fighting people. So he started doing what
arina kihe did and traveling around to different places and
challenging people to duels. Whether they were lethal or non
lethal depends on how angry they were at being challenged
(20:46):
or wanting to fight or spa or whatever. But Musashi
starts traveling the world and having adventures and getting into
duels and getting into fights and learning from masters when
he can, or dueling, you know, other one ronin to
try to you know, show who's the greatest warrior in Japan,
that kind of thing. So this is kind of when
we start getting into this Clint Eastwood john Wick kind
(21:08):
of and then at some point, you know, during the
Edo period has been generally pretty peaceful. So that's kind
of one interesting thing when you talk about samurai is that,
like for long periods of the Samurai time, most of
Japan was at peace, and so you have all of
these great warriors who don't have anybody to kill, and
that kind of changes once we start breaking into what
(21:30):
we're talking about now, the Warring States period.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I'm guessing that there's war involved in this period.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
There's war involved in the Warring States period as advertised. Yes, yes,
we aren't sure exactly, Like sixteenth century Japanese armies didn't
take like the same care in making unit rosters that
we have today, so we don't exactly know what Musashi
was up to during these big you know, like you
(21:59):
mentioned Kurosa, but one of these big kind of Kurosawa
era battles, Fushimi Gifu Sekigahara, which is like the big one,
happens in sixteen hundred, where you know, basically the fate
of Japan is decided and the Tokugawa Shogunate takes over.
But you're kind of Musashi's at fighting age while this
(22:19):
is all happening, and there are various stories of him
being present at some of these battles, and we don't
know for sure about it, but it seems likely that
if he is kind of this young, up and coming
warrior who wants to fight and train his skills, there's opportunity. Yes,
there is an opportunity. There are people that need to
(22:40):
be killed with the Samurai sword, and you are a
guy that excels at killing people with the Samurai sword.
So would seem really it would be really weird if
he didn't participate in at least some of these battles.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, yeah, and with a metal sword, a metal sword,
I'm guessing maybe not so much a wooden sword. If
he's actually in battle.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There are stories we know for sure he participates in
a battle later on, and in that battle he's riding
a horse and he's got a lance and a sword.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And we assume, like most of the information I've come across,
suggests that he was on the side of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
at the Battle of Sakikihara and that campaign, and that
is that's the losing side, I assume, through no fault
of Musashi. But they battle on the Western side, which
(23:29):
would make sense because that's where he's from. They battle
with the West against the East in the big civil
war in Japan amongst the Samurai. And after that war
is over, Like I said, we don't have a lot
of great details what he's up to during the war,
but after the war he kind of goes back to
what he was doing, like what you said, the unemployed samurai.
(23:50):
We fought our war and now it's over, and now
the Tokugawa Shogunate is here, and unbeknownst to the people
at the time, we're gonna have like three to four
hundred years of peace in jip hand. Now, so what
do you do? He goes back to having adventures and
trying to fight people and trying to hone his art
and doing the ronin thing you were just talking about.
(24:11):
But let's stop right there and hear a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So we've got this badass fighter, and we can picture
a lot of how he moves. And you mentioned earlier
Ben that you know he has ezema, so his face
is kind of red. Let's paint a picture for him.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So he had a lot of egema when he was
a child, So picture like extreme acne kind of where
like we don't know a lot of the details, so
kind of like probably congenital, like was born with it.
Later in life it manifests as scarring, like facial scarring,
and so he's pretty considerably scarred. He also he hated
(24:59):
cutting his hair, changing his clothes, and taking baths because
he thought those were all opportunities for someone to catch
him off guard and kill him. It's kind of like
a you know, maybe he watched Psycho too many times
or something, but like he didn't like to bathe didn't
like to shower, and didn't think that stuff was important anyway,
and so he's just kind of like kind of kind
(25:19):
of grunge, kind of grungey wondering dude.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, and our listeners with small children might find this familiar.
When your toddler says, no, I don't want to take
a bath.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, honestly, that's what my son does.
He's like, I don't want to take a bath, Eddy.
This is when they sneak up on you and assassinate
you in the bath.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yep, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Don't want to get assassinated. I saw Maverick. So you know,
he's traveling around. He looks kind of like what, honestly,
what you would picture in some of these kind of
more traditional anime style things or a Yo Jimbo or
a Toshir Maffuni movie. He doesn't wear armor. He just
kind of wears the traditional clothes of the time.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah. Does he say why in any writing or.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
No? He doesn't really touch on it. Yeah, but I
mean it's it's big and heavy, and it's not really like,
you know, practical to be wearing it around all the time. Plus, like,
you know, I don't think it was kind of common
for the samurai to wear that stuff around when they
weren't on a battlefield.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And you know, more, even more interesting than the armor
is that, like sometimes he didn't even like he continued
using the wooden swords because he liked them.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So yeah, so he's forgoing real swords, which was unusual, counterintuitive.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
He didn't wear armor, and he rarely fought with real swords,
and for many samurai this is unthinkable. The katana, the
long sword, was one of the Warrior cast's most prized possessions.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah. It's almost the symbol of samurai, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You couldn't where you can carry it if you weren't
a samurai. It's very central to their bushido, to their identity,
to all of this, and Musashi he's perfectly condented to
just bludgeon his foe into submission with the katana shaped
hunk of wood that he carved himself from the remains
of a tree that was looking at him. Funny and
(27:08):
for him. It was fine. It worked when he was thirteen. Yeah,
why not now? But for a traditional samurai, this is heresy.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
One other thing he did is, you know, when he
was carrying swords or even if he had the sword
shaped sticks, he fought with both of them at the
same time, which was very weird for samurai in this
time period. Most samurai carried the dai show, which is
the two swords, the long sword, the katana, and then
the short sword the wakizashi. Yeah, there was a third
There was a dagger called a tanto that they would
(27:38):
sometimes carry as well.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So how did they use these two swords.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Well, the katana was the main fighting sword. It was longer,
it was heavier, and you fought with it using two
hands because it made it easier to control. And if
you watch any kind of you know, even modern day
Japanese fencing, the kendo stuff, that's how they hold its
two It's a wide grip, so one hand up kind
of by the guard and one hand down at the bottom,
(28:04):
and it gives you much better control because a katana
is heavy, it's a big heavy oh yeah, and it's
not easy to swing that thing around with one hand.
Generally use two hands for it. Yeah, the wakizashi, the
shorter sword, you would use in a closer area. If
you're fighting indoors, you wanted the wakizashi. It was a
little easier to maneuver, a little quicker. You could use
it with one hand. Also, you would traditionally, like when
(28:27):
your master got sick and died, you killed yourself with
the wakizashi generally.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
So you're carrying around this short sword that you tend
not to use.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, normal combat exactly. I mean you would use it
for different just different things, right, different. The modern equivalent
would be like you'd have your assault rifle and your pistol,
and they're useful for different things, and use them for
different stuff. Musashi wasn't interested in committing seppuku and severing
his own abdominal a or to Yeah, just because his
boss was dumb or died and he decided he was
(28:58):
going to use both swords. And this is in testament
to how strong he is, because he's he wasn't the
first guy that thought like, oh, why don't we just
use them both at the same time.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
You have to be and then you lift the katan
with one hand and you're like, oh, yeah, that's why
we use two hands for the katana.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Exactly because it's heavy. And this guy, I mean, he
just kind of was able to wield them both together
and started fighting like that. And this pissed off a
lot of samurai, not just because you know, they couldn't
do it or whatever, but because this is not how
it's done. This is not rashido, This is not the
way we do things around here. You know, you've pledge
(29:33):
yourself to a lord and you kill yourself when he dies,
and you fight with the sword at this grip using
this style, and yeah, he annoyed some people with it.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, who is this upstart?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Exactly. One of the other interesting things that I came
across when I was looking at this stuff was one
of the advantages. You know, the advantages of two swords
is many, right, You can you can block an attack
at the same time, which is hugely beneficial. He used
to say that you could use the two swords to
kind of funnel your enemy. He's in front of you,
so you didn't get surrounded. Oh like, if he was
backed up towards a corner or wall, you could hold
(30:06):
the swords out to either side. And kind of try
to use it to like funnel your adversaries into an
arc in front of you so that they couldn't get
around you and attack you from the flank or the back.
The other thing he was really good at, apparently, was
that he could just throw that wakizashi and kill people
with it.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
He could throw his sword.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
He could throw the short sword with like deadly accuracy,
like a harpoon. So I'll tell a story about this. Yeah,
there was one time that Musashi is challenged by the
master of a weapon called the Kusarigama. Kusarigama is a
big long chain with a razor sharp sickle on one end.
(30:47):
It's kind of like the Grim Reaper's nunchucks.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, that's a good way of describing it.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, So it's a big chain with a sickle on
the end of it. Picture The Bride fighting the Japanese
Schoolgirl and the first Kill Bill movie. The weapon is
similar to that. Instead of being a ball on the end,
it's a hook. This guy's swinging it around and he's
got huge reach with it. He's swinging it over his head,
swinging in front of him doing probably some cool like
(31:13):
showy you know, nunchucky kind of stuff with it, and
Musashi has his two swords. I'm reminded of Raiders of
the Lost Arc here. Musashi's just like, okay, fine, and
he throws the wakisashi and he goes right through this
guy's toys out and the guy stops and he looks
at it.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Zero fuss, zero distraction. It's just like, yeah, we're done.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, it doesn't kill him immediately, but it distracts him
long enough for Musashi to run up and cut him
in half. Right. But one thing that we we'll see,
and this is kind of the the action movie you know,
twist on this is that like the master of the
Kusaragama is doing all of this cool stuff and then
Musashi just throws the sword at him, wounds him, runs
up and kills him. But it's like you said, these
(31:53):
duels take place in public, and he's in this guy's hometown,
surrounded by disciples of this guy, and so these other
kusari Gama guys are like, well that was bullshit, man,
and so they pull out their weapons and they all
attack him, and he's going to kind of fight his
way out from these guys. I think he wounds and
kills a couple and wounds a few more, and then
(32:14):
he has to run away because there's like the whole
town's trying to kill it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Okay, yeah, so he knows when to call it quits too.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean killed everybody, right, and so,
but he likes doing this kind of stuff. He likes
doing battle against people who have weird weapons and stuff.
So he takes on the master of the lance and
the staff and you know whatever. Lots of sword fighters,
but whatever weird weapon or weird fighting style you had,
(32:42):
he wanted, he wanted to face you. He wanted to
try his homemade, homebrew two weapon fighting style out against
whatever you got.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah. And something he says in his writings is basically,
don't get attached to any one particular fighting style because
your opponent could figure it out and kind of, you know,
figure out the weaknesses and what sort of strategy to
use against you. So his interest in fighting all of
these users of different weapons is part of his attitude
(33:11):
of being.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Fluid, yes personally right, beewater Yeah, personally. Jie Kundo was
also don't get attached to one style, learn all the
different stuff, try whatever you can see what works, to
find find a style that works for you very similar setup,
but that was one thing in nineteen seventies Seattle. It's
a very different thing to try to bring that philosophy
(33:32):
into sixteen oh five Japan, right where things are pretty
rigid here and people are annoyed when he comes up
here with his new fighting style. And one of the
guys that get particularly upset with him is a group
of warriors. They are from the Yoshioka clan Yoshioka Ryu.
(33:54):
The Yoshioka clan was very famous and renowned in the
area of Kyoto. Its founder was the sword and instructor
to the Ashikaga Shogunate. In the old times, they were
the ruling family of Japan, the shogun's family. So this
isn't some chump school or just some random guy Musashi
is challenging. It's one of the more prominent schools in
(34:15):
Japan for fighting okay So, Yoshioka Clan. They have two brothers.
The eldest Sejuro. He's the current master of the school,
and he accepts Musashi's challenge. So they pick a day
and a time for the duel. It'll be fought with
wooden swords and the winner would be decided by a
single blow. Whoever gets hit first wins, kind of like
(34:36):
Karate Kid.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
So how does it go?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Well? On the chosen day of Sadjiro arrives on time.
There are members of his clan and his school there,
as well as other random people who have come out
to see these two famous masters fight. These kinds of
duels were usually done in public places so that it
would be known that they were honorably accepted and that
there was no cheating. The results were you know, verified
(35:01):
by the crowd of people. Plus, I think it was
just like a really fun show to go see. Right,
It's kind of like, oh yeah, yeah, they didn't have TV, right,
You couldn't just turn on UFC. You had to go
into the sound square and watch two guys fight fight
it out, Yeah, with all your best friends, right exactly.
Brings some popcorn. Yeah, So okay, everyone shows up, including Sajiu,
and they have to wait because Musashi he doesn't arrive
(35:24):
on time. In fact, he's super late. Now this isn't
an accident, and we're going to see this again as
we go through Musashi's story. He has chosen to come
late because he knows it pisses off his opponents. And
what's like one of the worst things martial artists can
be pat do you know, you do not.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Want to be angry. Being angry for a fight is
just a bad idea. And if you're angry, it gets
in the way, It cloud your mind, it distracts you,
it makes you act rashly, it makes you do stupid things.
You know, to the very famous Chinese philosopher said, the
best fighter is never angry, And I'm guessing pissed off
(36:07):
is you know, we're on the train towards being angry.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, he's falling to the dark side. I guess Darth
Vader always fought angry, but I guess he also lost.
So maybe there's something to Lausu's philosophy.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah, so the other guy, Sajuro is angry, he's pissed off.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Saziro is the head of this Yoshiokariu. He's one of
the top swordsmen in Japan. Like, this guy is not
used to being disrespected, especially not publicly in front of
all of his people. Is Klan all of these things
like this is extremely disrespectful. And that's one of the
things that I personally kind of like about Musashi's He's
(36:45):
a very disrespectful guy and he likes to win in
the most disrespectful way possible, as we have seen it
will continue to see.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, and here it seems like it's strategic or at
least tactical disrespect. Yes, exactly, tactical disrespect.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I like that. I want that to be the name
of my band. There you go. Okay, So Musashi arrives
and he shows up with his wooden sword, you picture,
like the bokutur or the whatever the swords are. They
fight when they do kendo and the two of them
face off, there's a little movement. They size each other
up and crack. In a single move, Musashi hits Segio's shoulder,
(37:24):
knocking him off his feet and breaking his arm with
one blow. Duel over Musashi's one.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Oh damn, just like that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, stand around for three hours and get your arm
broken with one swing and that's it game over.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I would have sucked to have like paid admission for that.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
It reminds me of like the early Mike Tyson fights.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, and you know those spectators, the townspeople, they have
side bets going on.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Oh, I'm sure somebody made some money on Musashi breaking
that guy's out in one swing. Yet I think most
people in the crowd lost money on this one.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And so you know, he's the elder brother, he's the
patriarch of the Oshioka clan. And he loses, and he's beaten,
and he's so humiliated by this entire thing that he
decides he's going to step down as master of the school.
He's going to die of shame because he just lost
so easily and was so dishonored and got so angry
and he literally quits and becomes a monk.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well that's something to do. You know. He loses the match,
he loses face. Okay, go lead the contemplative life.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, think about what you've done forever.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
So he's the or he was the head of the school.
So does this mean that his younger brother steps into
his role as head of the school now and takes
over it?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Does so? The younger brother's name is Denzichiro. He's the
younger Yoshioka brother. What do you think his primary objective
is upon assuming command of the Oshioka clan.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I'm guessing it's not organizing a family picnic.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
It is.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I think it's something like like avenging his brother's honors,
reclaiming face for the Yoshioka clan. Something like that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, if there's something that is kind of a central
tenet to samurai philosophy, it's like avenging honor of your family.
And yeah, Musashi was extremely disrespectful to them, and now
now he has to avenge his brother, so did Zichiro.
He takes over and he issues a challenge to Musashi,
except this time, forget the wooden swords. This is a
(39:25):
duel to the death, very high stakes, very high stakes,
and Musashi agrees because Musashi loves a challenge and he
hates people challenging him. Okay, so he's going to duel
the younger brother. He's going to duel din Zichiro, the
new master of the Oshioka clan, to the death. They
agree on a date and a time. Again. Again, it's
(39:45):
going to be in a public place with plenty of
witnesses so that everyone knows the duel was fair. And again,
do you want to guess what happened?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Also, again, are we going to have a replay of
tactical disrespect?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Tactical disrespect Part two? Musashi shows up late and in
the process totally pisses off Dan Zihiro, who is not
zen and hasn't learned from the mistakes of his older
brother and is extremely mad at this lack of respect.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
They, I mean they are literally like the sword trainers
to the shoguns. So this is really bad publicity for
their school, if not just like personal dishonor, which is
very important at this time amongst the samurais.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh yeah, very much a thing. Yeah yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
What do you think, Pat, do you think this guy's
going to control his emotions and feel the light side
flowing through him and let go of his hate and
his anger.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Well, if I were his teacher or mentor or whatever,
I would hope that he does learn by reflecting on
his brother's experience. Give them the tone of your voice, Bend.
I'm guessed that maybe he does not fully reflect and
learn from history.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
No, I hate flow through you, Yeah flows through him.
Hate flows through him. He's super pissed when Musashi finally
likes saunters in in his bathrobe a couple hours late.
He doesn't have the calm mind that he needs. So
when they stand across for their duel, one's calm and
one is like red with rage. Okay, So, din Ziechiro,
(41:20):
you know this is a martial arts school and they
train all different types of weapons, and Ziechiro is a
master of a very strange weapon. It is a big
iron rod with steel rings on it. Huh, like a
war club with rings. It's a weapon made for killing
your opponents by bludgeoning them to death with this thing.
(41:41):
It cracks skulls, break bones.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's not subtle and elegant.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
It is not a subtle, elegant weapon. It is a big,
literal bludgeon. It's a war club. And you know, he's
probably thinking he's going to repay Musashi for breaking his
brother's army by breaking Musashi's face. So Musashi, on the
other hand, he shows up with to his duel to
the death. Musashi brings his wooden sword, probably the same
(42:07):
one he used to disrespect Denzi Chruroh's older brother, because
that's just how Musashi works.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
So from Musashi's point of view, I'm wondering, Okay, how
is this wooden sword going to hold up against an
iron rod with steel rings that's made for cracking skulls?
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, and exactly like what's it going to do to
a wooden sword? I don't know. But also like it's
extremely if it wasn't already disrespectful that he's there two
hours late. Now he's there with a freakin wooden sword
for a duel to the death, which we've seen Musashi
has killed this seriously. He's not taking this seriously. But
also we have seen Musashi kill people with wooden swords before,
(42:43):
so it is a deadly weapon in this guy's hands,
but it is also just humiliating its tactical disrespect yet again,
which is kind of Musashi's mo so apparently, yeah, yeah,
So the crowd's there. They all are surrounding this fighting circle.
The master of the martial arts, the master of the
(43:04):
Yoshioka clan, din Zichiro Yoshioka, he's there with his iron
rod with the rings on it. Musashi's across from him
with his wooden sword. There's a cheer. They size each
other up, They take some feints and some steps, and
then bang. Musashi's strike is the first and only strike
of the duel. His wooden sword hits Dinziechiro directly in
(43:26):
the forehead, killing him instantly. Whoa so deadly weapon in
his hands?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I told you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean this guy
could probably impale you with a plastic sport if he
set his mind to it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah. Really, it's like John Wick.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah. And so Yoshioka brother number two is
now deceased, and it's not just about him. It's also
about the Yoshioka clan and their school. They must be
an utter mess right now. They must be an utter dismay.
They've lost not just one of their masters, but then
the next guy who replaced him in just a short
(44:03):
amount of time, and they've both lost the same unruly,
disrespectful agent of chaos who is Musashi. He's a ronan,
so he doesn't have organizational backing, he doesn't have the authority,
he doesn't have the gravitas that comes with being a
member of a clan like the Yoshioka clan, and he
(44:25):
single handedly basically demolished their reputation.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
With two swings two swings of a wooden sword.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
He completely humiliated the entire school and clan, and by extension,
like the Yashikaga Shogunate. Right yeah, and they're all.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
There are no Domino, Domino, Domino.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah, and all of those people are there. He's in
their town. They didn't like he doesn't have a home
to go to or anything like he's in their hometown,
he's at their school, disrespecting their leadership in front of
like their clan and stuff and so and so. Now,
like these guys are a wreg The senior brother said, Hiro,
he's off being a monk. You can't come back from that.
(45:08):
And din Zichiro is dead. So now leadership of the
klan passes to Sayzuro's oldest son, who is twelve years
old at the time. His name is Matashichiro. He's the
you know, the elder brother's oldest son by like you know,
right of inheritance. The school is his now. And we
(45:28):
were just talking about death and dishonor and family loyalty
and the school and all of this, and Musashi's got
to die. These guys have got to get him. He
can't walk away from treating this school like this, right,
wandering ronan challenging people to duels is not you know,
inherently disrespectful in Japan in this time period, but completely
(45:52):
humiliating them in the way that he has. Yeah, they
cannot allow this to go unpunished. So what are they
gonna do. The twelve year old is not gonna duel Musashi.
This guy just beat up. This kid's dead and killed
his uncle. So what are they gonna do here?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Will are they all gonna? Is there strength in numbers?
And is the Yoshioka Klan gonna come after him?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Perhaps there is strengthened numbers. Perhaps rather than selecting a
day in time and then letting Musashi sumter up whenever
he wants and hit you with a sword. And when
that's not working, how about we go find this guy
and kick his ass and pummel him to death and
avenge our family. So that's what they decide they're gonna do.
They're gonna jump him, and we're gonna talk about it.
(46:39):
We're gonna get into that whole story on Thursday. This week,
we're gonna do two episodes in the same week. This
is gonna be a two parter, and when we get
into it on Thursday, we will get into what happens
when the Yoshioka Klan attempts to ambush Mimoto Musashi, and
we'll talk about the rest of his story as well.
(46:59):
So please stay tuned to that, and thank you so
much for listening to this episode. We really appreciate it.
Please try to like and subscribe to us and leave
us some good reviews and stuff. Tell your friends. It
really really helps the show out if we can get
some of you to generate some interest for us through
word of mouth and through your own personal charisma, So
(47:20):
that would really be awesome for us. Pat, thanks so
much for talking with me about this, and I will
talk to you a little more on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Okay, Yes see you Thursday. Badasses Badass of the Week
is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by High five Content. Executive
producers are Andrew Jacobs, Me, Pat Larish, and my co
host Ben Thompson. Writing is by me and Ben. Story
(47:47):
editing is by Ian Jacobs Brandon Phibbs. Mixing and music
and sound design is by Jude Brewer. Special thanks to
Noel Brown at iHeart. Bad As of the Week is
based on the website badassoftheweek dot com, where you can
read all sorts of stories about other badasses. If you
want to reach out with questions ideas, you can email
(48:11):
us at Badass Podcast at badassoftheweek dot com. If you
like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen, and tell your friends
and your enemies if you want as. We'll be back
next week with another one. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. The samurai scowls, his eyes narrow, he
slowly draws his katana, the sacred weapon of Japan's elite warrior.
Cast forged through a delicate and complicated process of folding
(00:20):
a specialized steel to create a keen honed edge capable
of slicing through bone, flesh, and armor. The long sword
is the most treasured possession of Japan's elite. In the
hands of a master, few things on earth are deadlier
then Zichiro Yoshioka is such a master. His family has
(00:41):
taught the combat art to samurai for generations, including the
mighty Ashikaga showguns themselves. His style is flawless, his movements
honed from decades of training, His reputation that of one
of Japan's most elite swordsmen. Across from him in the
dueling circle is a wandering ronan, a lordless swordsman, a
(01:03):
rogue drifting across the land, brazenly challenging the leaders of
Japan's most illustrious fighting schools to single combat. The Ronan's
face is scarred, his beard scraggly, his eyes wild, his
hair loosely tied up at a top knot above his head,
he looks more animal than man. In his hand, the
(01:24):
Ronan carries not a katana but a wooden sword, a
practice weapon used to train children who would have had
the audacity to bring that here to a duel to
the death. Denzichiro can barely contain his rage. This insult
cannot be forgiven. His opponent, the Ronan, Miyamoto Musashi, smiles slightly.
(01:48):
He nods to begin the combat, and violently hurls himself
into the frame And Welcome back to Badass of the Week.
My name is Ben Thompson and I am here as
always with my co host, doctor Pat Larish. Pat, how
(02:10):
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I'm doing okay.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
How are you, Ben, I'm doing good. I'm doing good.
We are doing some samurai stuff today, some katana stuff.
So have you been brushing up on your bushido?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Not really. I've started to look into it. It's kind
of complex. I think it takes a lifetime to master.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's a great answer, yeah, as all great warrior ways. So, Pat,
what do you think of when we think about samurai?
So we haven't done a samurai before on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, we haven't. Yeah, so obviously I think of Japan,
which is where the Samurai are from, and I think
of these Japanese woodcuts of guys in maybe kind of
elaborate armor, with these beautiful, elegantly curved swords, and I
think of Kroslo.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Movies, Tom Cruise Last Samurai, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Maybe Tom Cruz Last Samurai. Yeah, yeah, Okay, we're joking
here a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So yeah, yeah, so Samurai. We're going to get into it.
But Samurai are basically the Nights of feudal Japan. And
it's kind of interesting because they operate several hundred years
after the Knights operated in Europe. But they are they're
nobles who have very elaborate armor, as you said, weapons,
weapons training, and they're they're trained more or less along
(03:34):
the ways that that Knights in Europe would have been trained. Right,
you are kind of born into this class. You learn
to fight from a very young age. You learn all
of the traditionally manly skills like calligraphy and writing poetry
and decapitating people. Yeah, that is kind of the world
that my mode Musashi is is born into. But he
(03:57):
is going to be a lot different from the traditional
samurai that you would see in a Kurosawa movie. He's
going to be his own guy, and he's going to
do some pretty cool stuff, and he's gonna actually end
up creating an entirely new archetype, that kind of Toshiro Mafuni,
like wandering dude with no armor and a sword who
goes into a town and gets into trouble and ends
(04:20):
up walking out of there with a bunch of dead
bodies in his way. Yeah, we're going to talk more
about him after this. Well, we are talking about probably
my favorite and we'll get into it later. Probably samurai
(04:40):
isn't the right term for him, but he is operating
in the Samurai time period. One of my favorite warriors
from Japanese history. We're going to talk about Mayamoto Musashi.
He is a very famous wandering swordsman from the Edo
period of Japanese history, and he killed his first man
and at age thirteen, and by the time he was thirty,
(05:02):
he had won over sixty life or death duels, taught
hundreds of students, He fought in somewhere around six big
you know, battles that defined the history of Japan. And
then when he got bored of that, he climbed a mountain,
lived in a cave, and wrote a book about swordsmanship
and philosophy.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so as badasses go, he makes me think a
little bit of Hercules, someone who's known for his braun
but also was able to think his way through situations too,
and especially Bruce Lee, because Bruce Lee had a whole
philosophy behind what he was doing. So you've got brains
(05:42):
along with our braun, we've got a little bit of violence,
actually a lot of violence, and a certain amount of
Zen broadly defined. He developed a philosophy.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, and you know, very very deep, very kind of
Zen Buddhist philosophy that he had. And we'll get into
it a little more when we start talking about his
writings and his works and his philosophy. But I just
want to quote from one of his most famous works,
the Book of Five Rings. It's kind of a definitive
treatise on sword fighting but also philosophy. The great philosopher
(06:16):
Miyamoto Musashi. He says, quote, when you are even with
an opponent, it is essential to keep thinking of stabbing
him in the face with the tip of your sword,
and the intervals between the opponent's sword blows, and your
own sword blows. When you have the intention of stabbing
your opponent in the face, he will try to get
both his face and body out of the way in
the midst of battle. As soon as an opponent tries
(06:37):
to get out of the way, you have already won.
End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So yeah, he kind of says, keep stabbing your opponent
in the face. But to my point, pun not intended.
It's also about thinking about stabbing your opponent's face. So
the intention that you go into this with matters.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
There is a term in Japanese. There's a word called
can say. It means a sword saint. If you've seen
any anime or red any manga, you've probably encountered this
term before, usually around some kind of guy who runs
on tree branches and slays giant monsters with a magic sword.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, someone you would expect in a comic book. Yeah exactly,
you know. Yeah, larger than life.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you know. And this is fairly common in anime,
but it's less common in real life, and there aren't
many people who attained this level of respect from the
rest of because you are talking about a society where
everybody can fight with the sword, so to be the best.
To have ascended to a plane where you were kind
(07:40):
of one with your weapon and unbeatable is extremely difficult,
you know, when you're talking about seventeenth century Japan.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah. Yeah, And you say then you said, this is
a world where everyone fights with a sword, Yes, including
the women. The women, especially of noble families, were rained
in some basic swords personship.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yes, they were expected to be able to fight and
whether that was or at least know how to use
the thing right, a sword or.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
A basic self defense right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And in some cases they would train with the naginata,
which is kind of a spear. It's basically a sword
on the end of like a five foot stick, which
just seems terrifying.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah. So this is the context in which we've got
this term, can say or swords saint.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, it's it's who gets this term. It's given to
people who are kind of they're considered to be one
with the weapon. They're finally two machines. They've ascended to
a new plane of swordsmanship. They waste no movements, they
have instinctive reactions on sword fighting. Their form is flawless,
it's graceful, it's deadly, and among these can say, there's
(08:54):
one name that stands out among all the others, and
that is my mode of Musashi. Musashi's life is something
kind of like out of an old cowboy movie or
a samurai movie, which makes sense because I only ever
picture him with Toashira Mafuni's face, because Toshira Mufuni, the
famous Japanese actor who had been in who's been in
hundreds of films, but he played Musashi on more than
(09:15):
one occasion, and that's always kind of for me the
canonical way I envisioned Mayumota Musashi. But he is, you know,
kind of the archetype of this lone warrior, this lone cowboy,
even like a John Wick or somebody who kind of
rolls into down, you know, get ends up getting into
some trouble or accidentally making somebody mad. And then cut
(09:37):
to the end of the movie, the final credits, he's
wandering off into the sunset, leaving behind beautiful widows and
many dead bodies. That's you know, high planes, drifter, yo jimbo,
all of that stuff. That's the life of Miyamoto Musashi.
So the story's going to start. Let's start in fifteen
ninety six, late sixteenth century Japan. We are in Harima Province,
(09:58):
which is kind of near present day Kobe in the southwest.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh, like Kobe Beef.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, like Kobe Beef. That's a good way of thinking
of it. But yeah, it's a close to Osaka. It's
kind of between Osaka and Kyoto. So we're talking like
southwest Japan.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Southwest of the main island of Main Island. Yeah, aren't
you Okay? So we've got a map, yeah, and we
zoom in.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And and there's a thirteen year old boy. His name
is Miamou Musashi. He's just kind of beginning his career.
And as most people who are starting their adventures, at
least if you're talking about Lincoln, the Legend of Zelda,
you get the wooden sword is your first weapon, and
that is what Musashi is fighting with in his town.
He's he's a just became a teenage boy. He's beating
(10:44):
up practice dummies. He's probably having battles against invisible pirates
and enemy samurai and stuff in his backyard. He doesn't
have a lot of formal fighting training, but his father
is a martial artist. His father is a swordsman, and
so we have to assume there was probably some you know,
if not formal training, at least some kind of basic
understanding of how the weapon works. One day, a samurai
(11:07):
comes to town and his name is Arima Kihey. He
is kind of a wandering adventurer who is good with
a sword and wants everybody to know it, wants to
hone his power and you know, build a name for himself.
And so he comes to town and he posts a
public challenge in the town square. I will duel any
idiot from this podunk, crappy town. You come here and
(11:31):
you fight me, and I'll beat you up, and I'll
show you how great I am. I'm the greatest swordsman
in the area. So young Musashi and you know, we're
going to learn more about him as we go. But
young Musashi, he doesn't like this. He reads this sign.
He's like, all right, you know, I've been fighting these
practice dummies. I've been practicing. I'm going to show this
guy what's up.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, bring it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah. So in the old days, it was kind of
like the Goblet of fire. Right, you write your name
on the thing and you stick it to the board,
like okay, I'll fight you. Yeah. So he does that
and So then the next day there's a knock on
the door and it's a messenger who's like, okay, well
Arima kihay wants has accepted your challenge and we'll fight you.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Uh oh.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And Musashi's uncle is there, and Musashi's uncle's like what, yeah,
why you're gonna do what? You're gonna sort fight this
wandering samurai swordsman. So the uncle is like, no, my
my nephew's not gonna fight. My nephew's thirteen. He's not
gonna fight this guy. You know, he don't worry about it.
He put his name on the board, but like it
was a joke. He was just passing around.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, oh yeah, thirteen year old. This is a thing
that thirteen year olds do sometimes.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, he doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So they go back to keih and Keihe is like, no,
it's dishonorable. This is bushido. This is the code of
the warrior. I posted a challenge and I was challenged.
You accepted the challenge by a thirteen year old. I
don't care if he's thirteen. It's more embarrassing if I
don't respond to this, right, he says. He so he
offers a deal. Okay, come there, come to the battlefield
(12:56):
where we're gonna duel. Come to the dueling arena. Usually
it was like the center of town or whatever. They'd
clear out I think for real, like high plains, drifter,
like gunfight, you know, on main street kind of thing.
This is what they were doing, right, and people would
come out and watch this.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
High noon at the Okay Corral whatever. Yeah, exactly exactly.
So it's a public place, there's definitely going to be
an audience. There's probably some buzz surrounding this.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yes, yes, and Key he says, Okay, well, my honor
will be satisfied. I won't kill your little nephew. But
he's got to come to the duel and he's got
to apologize to me, and that will like absolve my honor.
He's got to show up and say he's sorry, and
then I'll I won't kill him. So the next day
they go to the dueling area and Key Hay shows up.
He's wearing his best clothes, he's got his best swords,
(13:40):
and young thirteen year old Mimou Musashi who suffers from
pretty extreme exzema, so he's picture like he's got like
a red bumps and stuff on his face. He's kind
of a crazy looking kid, and.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
We have pictures and also doesn't he describe himself that
way in his writing room?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Anyway, so this is what we're picturing.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, and then the uncle comes the Mushashi's there with
his uncle, and the uncle's like, hey, Kei, hey, don't
worry about it, like you know, he's coming here to apologize,
and Musashi is like, no, I'm not here to apologize.
He takes the wooden sword that he's been practicing with.
I'm picturing it as a toy sword, but I don't
it probably wasn't. It was probably like when you see
(14:18):
like fencing, like kendo. I imagine it probably was a
sword like that. But in my head it's the wooden
sword from the Legend of Zelda.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Still it's a wooden sword, so it's a wooden sword.
It's got its limitations.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
He pulls the wooden sword. He charges kihy shouting challenges
to him to fight Kia. Okay, fine, I'm gonna do that.
He pulls his short sword the way he's Ashi, and
Masashi runs up and immediately flips this guy flips. Kiya
blocks his attack, flips him onto the ground, kicks the
sword out of kiy Hay's hand, and then pummels him
(14:50):
with the wooden sword and kills him. It's pretty humiliating
for Arima. Kihay, Yeah, you flipped and then we try
to get up. He got mash between the eyes of
a wooden sword and he died.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, that's where the legend of Musashi begins. He kills
his first man at thirteen.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And it's not just any man. It's an experienced swordsman.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
An experienced wandering swordsman.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And so from there that's kind of the beginning of it.
By the time he's sixteen, Musashi has decided, I'm going
to go out. I am going to become a Ronan
and I'm going to wander and I'm going to have adventures.
I'm going to walk the earth. I'm going to give
all of my worldly possessions to my sister except for
my wooden sword, and I am going to walk the
(15:32):
earth as a Ronan.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, and what does it mean for him to be
a Ronan? So a ronan is a drifting, freelance kind
of warrior. He's maybe got a similar skill set to
samurai good with swords, et cetera. But unlike a samurai
doesn't have a master in the sense of a liege lord.
Samurai pledged their loyalty to a daim yo, a local
(15:55):
lord I don't know, like a duke, account and earl,
that kind of thing. I don't know, a lord. Yeah, yeah,
And the name Ronan comes from two words that mean
wave is in a wave of water and person. So
it's like a person who's fluid has a connotation of
a drifter and for a samurai, for an actual samurai,
(16:16):
their honor and reputation are tied to their allegiance to
their master, Ronan doesn't have that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So we had been talking a little bit before the
show about knights errants, which is kind of a similar
analog in the West, where you had kind of these
mercenary knights who didn't have a lord, and they would
wander the countryside having adventures and looking for a lord
in some cases, right, this arima kiey guy, if he had,
you know, one enough battles and proven a name for himself,
(16:43):
maybe a daimio would have wanted him to come work
for him. And yeah, maybe that's what he was looking for.
I don't know, maybe it was a job interview. And
how did people kind of become a ronan.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
There were two main ways. Either you were an actual
samurai whose master had died or was dishonored or lost
his legal privileges and no longer had the authority to
I guess claim the liege loyalty of people. In theory,
a samurai was supposed to ritually kill himself when his
master died, so you can really kill yeah. Yeah, So
(17:17):
there's a stigma or prejudice in the eyes of a
lot of samurai and the daimyo, the feudal lords attached
to a ronan or a samurai an ex samurai, I
guess who outlived your master?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh, because he didn't have the honor to kill himself,
Like he's kind of dishonored in that he's still wandering around.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah. But actually reality is a lot more complicated as
it often is. And in the Ato period, which is
actually the period that we're talking about here, you have
a combination of two factors. There were a lot of
restrictions placed on samurai's job mobility. You used to be
able to change masters if your current lord said it
(18:00):
was okay. Yeah, Okay, yeah, you can leave me and
go work for so and so. And it also seems
that there were restrictions on ex samurai taking on other jobs,
other professions. And was this really codified codified or was
it more sort of the samurai restricting themselves maybe being
reluctant to take a less clamorous job.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You know, you couldn't change masters either, which is interesting
because it's like, yeah, that kind of sucks because then
it's like, if your master's not doing so good, he's
kind of on his deathbed, and you're like, I'm going
to change before I have to kill myself. Yeah, you're
not allowed to do anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, if your master's kind of on the decline.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
He's wounded in battle and he's like dying out, you're like, quick, quick,
I'm going to work for you now. Is that yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Or he's kind of like, you know, sneak like check
out LinkedIn or whatever you know or whatever you know.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Seventeenth century equivalent was hashtag looking for work. Yeah, yeah,
happened to work.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, But I also want to say that, you know,
we're kind of joking and talking about job hopping and whatever,
but this doesn't really do justice to the experience of
being a samurai. You know, there is a pretty serious
code of honor. We've referred to it before. It's called
wushi do, the way of the warrior, and it was
(19:14):
really formalized in this period. And for a lot of
these guys, it's more an identity than a day job.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, it's like it's their lives, right, it's their Yeah,
their whole existence is dedicated to this.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah. And another factor is that also in this period,
a lot of these daimyo lost their fiefdoms, so you
had a lot of unemployed samurai wandering around. So some
of these samurai they become ronan. They go freelance basically,
and then some other people become ronan from the start.
(19:50):
That's the other way to do it. You just go
your own way from the start. You often sever connections
with your family. You make do with the skills that
you acquire. One way or another. You walk the earth.
And that's what our guy, Musashi Miyamoto did.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, he was Samuel L. Jackson from pulp fiction or
David Carridine from kung Fu something like that, wandering the earth,
having adventures, and that's kind of what his life reads
like after this right, So he leaves home at fifteen,
He leaves all of his possessions with his sister, and
you know, like I said, he didn't have a lot
(20:25):
of formal fighting training, but he wanted to get some
real world experience fighting people. So he started doing what
arina kihe did and traveling around to different places and
challenging people to duels. Whether they were lethal or non
lethal depends on how angry they were at being challenged
(20:46):
or wanting to fight or spa or whatever. But Musashi
starts traveling the world and having adventures and getting into
duels and getting into fights and learning from masters when
he can, or dueling, you know, other one ronin to
try to you know, show who's the greatest warrior in Japan,
that kind of thing. So this is kind of when
we start getting into this Clint Eastwood john Wick kind
(21:08):
of and then at some point, you know, during the
Edo period has been generally pretty peaceful. So that's kind
of one interesting thing when you talk about samurai is that,
like for long periods of the Samurai time, most of
Japan was at peace, and so you have all of
these great warriors who don't have anybody to kill, and
that kind of changes once we start breaking into what
(21:30):
we're talking about now, the Warring States period.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I'm guessing that there's war involved in this period.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
There's war involved in the Warring States period as advertised. Yes, yes,
we aren't sure exactly, Like sixteenth century Japanese armies didn't
take like the same care in making unit rosters that
we have today, so we don't exactly know what Musashi
was up to during these big you know, like you
(21:59):
mentioned Kurosa, but one of these big kind of Kurosawa
era battles, Fushimi Gifu Sekigahara, which is like the big one,
happens in sixteen hundred, where you know, basically the fate
of Japan is decided and the Tokugawa Shogunate takes over.
But you're kind of Musashi's at fighting age while this
(22:19):
is all happening, and there are various stories of him
being present at some of these battles, and we don't
know for sure about it, but it seems likely that
if he is kind of this young, up and coming
warrior who wants to fight and train his skills, there's opportunity. Yes,
there is an opportunity. There are people that need to
(22:40):
be killed with the Samurai sword, and you are a
guy that excels at killing people with the Samurai sword.
So would seem really it would be really weird if
he didn't participate in at least some of these battles.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, yeah, and with a metal sword, a metal sword,
I'm guessing maybe not so much a wooden sword. If
he's actually in battle.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There are stories we know for sure he participates in
a battle later on, and in that battle he's riding
a horse and he's got a lance and a sword.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And we assume, like most of the information I've come across,
suggests that he was on the side of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
at the Battle of Sakikihara and that campaign, and that
is that's the losing side, I assume, through no fault
of Musashi. But they battle on the Western side, which
(23:29):
would make sense because that's where he's from. They battle
with the West against the East in the big civil
war in Japan amongst the Samurai. And after that war
is over, Like I said, we don't have a lot
of great details what he's up to during the war,
but after the war he kind of goes back to
what he was doing, like what you said, the unemployed samurai.
(23:50):
We fought our war and now it's over, and now
the Tokugawa Shogunate is here, and unbeknownst to the people
at the time, we're gonna have like three to four
hundred years of peace in jip hand. Now, so what
do you do? He goes back to having adventures and
trying to fight people and trying to hone his art
and doing the ronin thing you were just talking about.
(24:11):
But let's stop right there and hear a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So we've got this badass fighter, and we can picture
a lot of how he moves. And you mentioned earlier
Ben that you know he has ezema, so his face
is kind of red. Let's paint a picture for him.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So he had a lot of egema when he was
a child, So picture like extreme acne kind of where
like we don't know a lot of the details, so
kind of like probably congenital, like was born with it.
Later in life it manifests as scarring, like facial scarring,
and so he's pretty considerably scarred. He also he hated
(24:59):
cutting his hair, changing his clothes, and taking baths because
he thought those were all opportunities for someone to catch
him off guard and kill him. It's kind of like
a you know, maybe he watched Psycho too many times
or something, but like he didn't like to bathe didn't
like to shower, and didn't think that stuff was important anyway,
and so he's just kind of like kind of kind
(25:19):
of grunge, kind of grungey wondering dude.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, and our listeners with small children might find this familiar.
When your toddler says, no, I don't want to take
a bath.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, honestly, that's what my son does.
He's like, I don't want to take a bath, Eddy.
This is when they sneak up on you and assassinate
you in the bath.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yep, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Don't want to get assassinated. I saw Maverick. So you know,
he's traveling around. He looks kind of like what, honestly,
what you would picture in some of these kind of
more traditional anime style things or a Yo Jimbo or
a Toshir Maffuni movie. He doesn't wear armor. He just
kind of wears the traditional clothes of the time.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah. Does he say why in any writing or.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
No? He doesn't really touch on it. Yeah, but I
mean it's it's big and heavy, and it's not really like,
you know, practical to be wearing it around all the time. Plus, like,
you know, I don't think it was kind of common
for the samurai to wear that stuff around when they
weren't on a battlefield.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And you know, more, even more interesting than the armor
is that, like sometimes he didn't even like he continued
using the wooden swords because he liked them.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So yeah, so he's forgoing real swords, which was unusual, counterintuitive.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
He didn't wear armor, and he rarely fought with real swords,
and for many samurai this is unthinkable. The katana, the
long sword, was one of the Warrior cast's most prized possessions.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah. It's almost the symbol of samurai, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You couldn't where you can carry it if you weren't
a samurai. It's very central to their bushido, to their identity,
to all of this, and Musashi he's perfectly condented to
just bludgeon his foe into submission with the katana shaped
hunk of wood that he carved himself from the remains
of a tree that was looking at him. Funny and
(27:08):
for him. It was fine. It worked when he was thirteen. Yeah,
why not now? But for a traditional samurai, this is heresy.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
One other thing he did is, you know, when he
was carrying swords or even if he had the sword
shaped sticks, he fought with both of them at the
same time, which was very weird for samurai in this
time period. Most samurai carried the dai show, which is
the two swords, the long sword, the katana, and then
the short sword the wakizashi. Yeah, there was a third
There was a dagger called a tanto that they would
(27:38):
sometimes carry as well.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So how did they use these two swords.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Well, the katana was the main fighting sword. It was longer,
it was heavier, and you fought with it using two
hands because it made it easier to control. And if
you watch any kind of you know, even modern day
Japanese fencing, the kendo stuff, that's how they hold its
two It's a wide grip, so one hand up kind
of by the guard and one hand down at the bottom,
(28:04):
and it gives you much better control because a katana
is heavy, it's a big heavy oh yeah, and it's
not easy to swing that thing around with one hand.
Generally use two hands for it. Yeah, the wakizashi, the
shorter sword, you would use in a closer area. If
you're fighting indoors, you wanted the wakizashi. It was a
little easier to maneuver, a little quicker. You could use
it with one hand. Also, you would traditionally, like when
(28:27):
your master got sick and died, you killed yourself with
the wakizashi generally.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
So you're carrying around this short sword that you tend
not to use.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, normal combat exactly. I mean you would use it
for different just different things, right, different. The modern equivalent
would be like you'd have your assault rifle and your pistol,
and they're useful for different things, and use them for
different stuff. Musashi wasn't interested in committing seppuku and severing
his own abdominal a or to Yeah, just because his
boss was dumb or died and he decided he was
(28:58):
going to use both swords. And this is in testament
to how strong he is, because he's he wasn't the
first guy that thought like, oh, why don't we just
use them both at the same time.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
You have to be and then you lift the katan
with one hand and you're like, oh, yeah, that's why
we use two hands for the katana.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Exactly because it's heavy. And this guy, I mean, he
just kind of was able to wield them both together
and started fighting like that. And this pissed off a
lot of samurai, not just because you know, they couldn't
do it or whatever, but because this is not how
it's done. This is not rashido, This is not the
way we do things around here. You know, you've pledge
(29:33):
yourself to a lord and you kill yourself when he dies,
and you fight with the sword at this grip using
this style, and yeah, he annoyed some people with it.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, who is this upstart?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Exactly. One of the other interesting things that I came
across when I was looking at this stuff was one
of the advantages. You know, the advantages of two swords
is many, right, You can you can block an attack
at the same time, which is hugely beneficial. He used
to say that you could use the two swords to
kind of funnel your enemy. He's in front of you,
so you didn't get surrounded. Oh like, if he was
backed up towards a corner or wall, you could hold
(30:06):
the swords out to either side. And kind of try
to use it to like funnel your adversaries into an
arc in front of you so that they couldn't get
around you and attack you from the flank or the back.
The other thing he was really good at, apparently, was
that he could just throw that wakizashi and kill people
with it.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
He could throw his sword.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
He could throw the short sword with like deadly accuracy,
like a harpoon. So I'll tell a story about this. Yeah,
there was one time that Musashi is challenged by the
master of a weapon called the Kusarigama. Kusarigama is a
big long chain with a razor sharp sickle on one end.
(30:47):
It's kind of like the Grim Reaper's nunchucks.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, that's a good way of describing it.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, So it's a big chain with a sickle on
the end of it. Picture The Bride fighting the Japanese
Schoolgirl and the first Kill Bill movie. The weapon is
similar to that. Instead of being a ball on the end,
it's a hook. This guy's swinging it around and he's
got huge reach with it. He's swinging it over his head,
swinging in front of him doing probably some cool like
(31:13):
showy you know, nunchucky kind of stuff with it, and
Musashi has his two swords. I'm reminded of Raiders of
the Lost Arc here. Musashi's just like, okay, fine, and
he throws the wakisashi and he goes right through this
guy's toys out and the guy stops and he looks
at it.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Zero fuss, zero distraction. It's just like, yeah, we're done.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, it doesn't kill him immediately, but it distracts him
long enough for Musashi to run up and cut him
in half. Right. But one thing that we we'll see,
and this is kind of the the action movie you know,
twist on this is that like the master of the
Kusaragama is doing all of this cool stuff and then
Musashi just throws the sword at him, wounds him, runs
up and kills him. But it's like you said, these
(31:53):
duels take place in public, and he's in this guy's hometown,
surrounded by disciples of this guy, and so these other
kusari Gama guys are like, well that was bullshit, man,
and so they pull out their weapons and they all
attack him, and he's going to kind of fight his
way out from these guys. I think he wounds and
kills a couple and wounds a few more, and then
(32:14):
he has to run away because there's like the whole
town's trying to kill it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Okay, yeah, so he knows when to call it quits too.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean killed everybody, right, and so,
but he likes doing this kind of stuff. He likes
doing battle against people who have weird weapons and stuff.
So he takes on the master of the lance and
the staff and you know whatever. Lots of sword fighters,
but whatever weird weapon or weird fighting style you had,
(32:42):
he wanted, he wanted to face you. He wanted to
try his homemade, homebrew two weapon fighting style out against
whatever you got.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah. And something he says in his writings is basically,
don't get attached to any one particular fighting style because
your opponent could figure it out and kind of, you know,
figure out the weaknesses and what sort of strategy to
use against you. So his interest in fighting all of
these users of different weapons is part of his attitude
(33:11):
of being.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Fluid, yes personally right, beewater Yeah, personally. Jie Kundo was
also don't get attached to one style, learn all the
different stuff, try whatever you can see what works, to
find find a style that works for you very similar setup,
but that was one thing in nineteen seventies Seattle. It's
a very different thing to try to bring that philosophy
(33:32):
into sixteen oh five Japan, right where things are pretty
rigid here and people are annoyed when he comes up
here with his new fighting style. And one of the
guys that get particularly upset with him is a group
of warriors. They are from the Yoshioka clan Yoshioka Ryu.
(33:54):
The Yoshioka clan was very famous and renowned in the
area of Kyoto. Its founder was the sword and instructor
to the Ashikaga Shogunate. In the old times, they were
the ruling family of Japan, the shogun's family. So this
isn't some chump school or just some random guy Musashi
is challenging. It's one of the more prominent schools in
(34:15):
Japan for fighting okay So, Yoshioka Clan. They have two brothers.
The eldest Sejuro. He's the current master of the school,
and he accepts Musashi's challenge. So they pick a day
and a time for the duel. It'll be fought with
wooden swords and the winner would be decided by a
single blow. Whoever gets hit first wins, kind of like
(34:36):
Karate Kid.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
So how does it go?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Well? On the chosen day of Sadjiro arrives on time.
There are members of his clan and his school there,
as well as other random people who have come out
to see these two famous masters fight. These kinds of
duels were usually done in public places so that it
would be known that they were honorably accepted and that
there was no cheating. The results were you know, verified
(35:01):
by the crowd of people. Plus, I think it was
just like a really fun show to go see. Right,
It's kind of like, oh yeah, yeah, they didn't have TV, right,
You couldn't just turn on UFC. You had to go
into the sound square and watch two guys fight fight
it out, Yeah, with all your best friends, right exactly.
Brings some popcorn. Yeah, So okay, everyone shows up, including Sajiu,
and they have to wait because Musashi he doesn't arrive
(35:24):
on time. In fact, he's super late. Now this isn't
an accident, and we're going to see this again as
we go through Musashi's story. He has chosen to come
late because he knows it pisses off his opponents. And
what's like one of the worst things martial artists can
be pat do you know, you do not.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Want to be angry. Being angry for a fight is
just a bad idea. And if you're angry, it gets
in the way, It cloud your mind, it distracts you,
it makes you act rashly, it makes you do stupid things.
You know, to the very famous Chinese philosopher said, the
best fighter is never angry, And I'm guessing pissed off
(36:07):
is you know, we're on the train towards being angry.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, he's falling to the dark side. I guess Darth
Vader always fought angry, but I guess he also lost.
So maybe there's something to Lausu's philosophy.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah, so the other guy, Sajuro is angry, he's pissed off.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Saziro is the head of this Yoshiokariu. He's one of
the top swordsmen in Japan. Like, this guy is not
used to being disrespected, especially not publicly in front of
all of his people. Is Klan all of these things
like this is extremely disrespectful. And that's one of the
things that I personally kind of like about Musashi's He's
(36:45):
a very disrespectful guy and he likes to win in
the most disrespectful way possible, as we have seen it
will continue to see.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, and here it seems like it's strategic or at
least tactical disrespect. Yes, exactly, tactical disrespect.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I like that. I want that to be the name
of my band. There you go. Okay, So Musashi arrives
and he shows up with his wooden sword, you picture,
like the bokutur or the whatever the swords are. They
fight when they do kendo and the two of them
face off, there's a little movement. They size each other
up and crack. In a single move, Musashi hits Segio's shoulder,
(37:24):
knocking him off his feet and breaking his arm with
one blow. Duel over Musashi's one.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Oh damn, just like that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, stand around for three hours and get your arm
broken with one swing and that's it game over.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I would have sucked to have like paid admission for that.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
It reminds me of like the early Mike Tyson fights.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, and you know those spectators, the townspeople, they have
side bets going on.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Oh, I'm sure somebody made some money on Musashi breaking
that guy's out in one swing. Yet I think most
people in the crowd lost money on this one.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And so you know, he's the elder brother, he's the
patriarch of the Oshioka clan. And he loses, and he's beaten,
and he's so humiliated by this entire thing that he
decides he's going to step down as master of the school.
He's going to die of shame because he just lost
so easily and was so dishonored and got so angry
and he literally quits and becomes a monk.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well that's something to do. You know. He loses the match,
he loses face. Okay, go lead the contemplative life.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, think about what you've done forever.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
So he's the or he was the head of the school.
So does this mean that his younger brother steps into
his role as head of the school now and takes
over it?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Does so? The younger brother's name is Denzichiro. He's the
younger Yoshioka brother. What do you think his primary objective
is upon assuming command of the Oshioka clan.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I'm guessing it's not organizing a family picnic.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
It is.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I think it's something like like avenging his brother's honors,
reclaiming face for the Yoshioka clan. Something like that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, if there's something that is kind of a central
tenet to samurai philosophy, it's like avenging honor of your family.
And yeah, Musashi was extremely disrespectful to them, and now
now he has to avenge his brother, so did Zichiro.
He takes over and he issues a challenge to Musashi,
except this time, forget the wooden swords. This is a
(39:25):
duel to the death, very high stakes, very high stakes,
and Musashi agrees because Musashi loves a challenge and he
hates people challenging him. Okay, so he's going to duel
the younger brother. He's going to duel din Zichiro, the
new master of the Oshioka clan, to the death. They
agree on a date and a time. Again. Again, it's
(39:45):
going to be in a public place with plenty of
witnesses so that everyone knows the duel was fair. And again,
do you want to guess what happened?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Also, again, are we going to have a replay of
tactical disrespect?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Tactical disrespect Part two? Musashi shows up late and in
the process totally pisses off Dan Zihiro, who is not
zen and hasn't learned from the mistakes of his older
brother and is extremely mad at this lack of respect.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
They, I mean they are literally like the sword trainers
to the shoguns. So this is really bad publicity for
their school, if not just like personal dishonor, which is
very important at this time amongst the samurais.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh yeah, very much a thing. Yeah yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
What do you think, Pat, do you think this guy's
going to control his emotions and feel the light side
flowing through him and let go of his hate and
his anger.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Well, if I were his teacher or mentor or whatever,
I would hope that he does learn by reflecting on
his brother's experience. Give them the tone of your voice, Bend.
I'm guessed that maybe he does not fully reflect and
learn from history.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
No, I hate flow through you, Yeah flows through him.
Hate flows through him. He's super pissed when Musashi finally
likes saunters in in his bathrobe a couple hours late.
He doesn't have the calm mind that he needs. So
when they stand across for their duel, one's calm and
one is like red with rage. Okay, So, din Ziechiro,
(41:20):
you know this is a martial arts school and they
train all different types of weapons, and Ziechiro is a
master of a very strange weapon. It is a big
iron rod with steel rings on it. Huh, like a
war club with rings. It's a weapon made for killing
your opponents by bludgeoning them to death with this thing.
(41:41):
It cracks skulls, break bones.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's not subtle and elegant.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
It is not a subtle, elegant weapon. It is a big,
literal bludgeon. It's a war club. And you know, he's
probably thinking he's going to repay Musashi for breaking his
brother's army by breaking Musashi's face. So Musashi, on the
other hand, he shows up with to his duel to
the death. Musashi brings his wooden sword, probably the same
(42:07):
one he used to disrespect Denzi Chruroh's older brother, because
that's just how Musashi works.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
So from Musashi's point of view, I'm wondering, Okay, how
is this wooden sword going to hold up against an
iron rod with steel rings that's made for cracking skulls?
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, and exactly like what's it going to do to
a wooden sword? I don't know. But also like it's
extremely if it wasn't already disrespectful that he's there two
hours late. Now he's there with a freakin wooden sword
for a duel to the death, which we've seen Musashi
has killed this seriously. He's not taking this seriously. But
also we have seen Musashi kill people with wooden swords before,
(42:43):
so it is a deadly weapon in this guy's hands,
but it is also just humiliating its tactical disrespect yet again,
which is kind of Musashi's mo so apparently, yeah, yeah,
So the crowd's there. They all are surrounding this fighting circle.
The master of the martial arts, the master of the
(43:04):
Yoshioka clan, din Zichiro Yoshioka, he's there with his iron
rod with the rings on it. Musashi's across from him
with his wooden sword. There's a cheer. They size each
other up, They take some feints and some steps, and
then bang. Musashi's strike is the first and only strike
of the duel. His wooden sword hits Dinziechiro directly in
(43:26):
the forehead, killing him instantly. Whoa so deadly weapon in
his hands?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I told you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean this guy
could probably impale you with a plastic sport if he
set his mind to it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah. Really, it's like John Wick.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah. And so Yoshioka brother number two is
now deceased, and it's not just about him. It's also
about the Yoshioka clan and their school. They must be
an utter mess right now. They must be an utter dismay.
They've lost not just one of their masters, but then
the next guy who replaced him in just a short
(44:03):
amount of time, and they've both lost the same unruly,
disrespectful agent of chaos who is Musashi. He's a ronan,
so he doesn't have organizational backing, he doesn't have the authority,
he doesn't have the gravitas that comes with being a
member of a clan like the Yoshioka clan, and he
(44:25):
single handedly basically demolished their reputation.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
With two swings two swings of a wooden sword.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
He completely humiliated the entire school and clan, and by extension,
like the Yashikaga Shogunate. Right yeah, and they're all.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
There are no Domino, Domino, Domino.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah, and all of those people are there. He's in
their town. They didn't like he doesn't have a home
to go to or anything like he's in their hometown,
he's at their school, disrespecting their leadership in front of
like their clan and stuff and so and so. Now,
like these guys are a wreg The senior brother said, Hiro,
he's off being a monk. You can't come back from that.
(45:08):
And din Zichiro is dead. So now leadership of the
klan passes to Sayzuro's oldest son, who is twelve years
old at the time. His name is Matashichiro. He's the
you know, the elder brother's oldest son by like you know,
right of inheritance. The school is his now. And we
(45:28):
were just talking about death and dishonor and family loyalty
and the school and all of this, and Musashi's got
to die. These guys have got to get him. He
can't walk away from treating this school like this, right,
wandering ronan challenging people to duels is not you know,
inherently disrespectful in Japan in this time period, but completely
(45:52):
humiliating them in the way that he has. Yeah, they
cannot allow this to go unpunished. So what are they
gonna do. The twelve year old is not gonna duel Musashi.
This guy just beat up. This kid's dead and killed
his uncle. So what are they gonna do here?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Will are they all gonna? Is there strength in numbers?
And is the Yoshioka Klan gonna come after him?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Perhaps there is strengthened numbers. Perhaps rather than selecting a
day in time and then letting Musashi sumter up whenever
he wants and hit you with a sword. And when
that's not working, how about we go find this guy
and kick his ass and pummel him to death and
avenge our family. So that's what they decide they're gonna do.
They're gonna jump him, and we're gonna talk about it.
(46:39):
We're gonna get into that whole story on Thursday. This week,
we're gonna do two episodes in the same week. This
is gonna be a two parter, and when we get
into it on Thursday, we will get into what happens
when the Yoshioka Klan attempts to ambush Mimoto Musashi, and
we'll talk about the rest of his story as well.
(46:59):
So please stay tuned to that, and thank you so
much for listening to this episode. We really appreciate it.
Please try to like and subscribe to us and leave
us some good reviews and stuff. Tell your friends. It
really really helps the show out if we can get
some of you to generate some interest for us through
word of mouth and through your own personal charisma, So
(47:20):
that would really be awesome for us. Pat, thanks so
much for talking with me about this, and I will
talk to you a little more on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Okay, Yes see you Thursday. Badasses Badass of the Week
is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by High five Content. Executive
producers are Andrew Jacobs, Me, Pat Larish, and my co
host Ben Thompson. Writing is by me and Ben. Story
(47:47):
editing is by Ian Jacobs Brandon Phibbs. Mixing and music
and sound design is by Jude Brewer. Special thanks to
Noel Brown at iHeart. Bad As of the Week is
based on the website badassoftheweek dot com, where you can
read all sorts of stories about other badasses. If you
want to reach out with questions ideas, you can email
(48:11):
us at Badass Podcast at badassoftheweek dot com. If you
like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen, and tell your friends
and your enemies if you want as. We'll be back
next week with another one. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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