September 14, 2023 • 39 mins
In part 2, Pat and Ben continue the story of Miyamoto Musashi, who has now drawn the rage of the Yoshioka Clan of sword instructors. They swear vengeance upon the strange wandering ronin, set a trap for him, and hope to ensnare Feudal Japan's greatest swordsman in a massive ambush. Musashi may be a peerless fighter, without equal, but with the enemy outnumbering him so heavily, it will be a struggle for even the greatest warriors to survive.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. Another swordsman cries out as Miyamoto Musashi's
katana strikes home, slashing his enemy viciously across the chests.
Two more leap out at him. Ah Musashi worlds a
sword in each hand, lashing out at his assailants in
(00:21):
a tornado of razors sharp steel. More surround him lungeon
with a variety of deadly weapons spears, clubs, and blades,
but Musashi faces each of them in turn, parrying their attacks,
countering with slashes and stabs, his eyes filled with fury,
his fierce visage more demon than man, his fighting style
(00:43):
that of a cornered beast. The Yoshioka clan believed they
could avenge the honor of their fallen master by ambushing
him while he was off guard. But Miyamoto Musashi is
never off guard, and now he is going to make
them pay for their treachery. Hello and welcome back to
(01:10):
Badass of the Week. My name is Ben Thompson and
I am here as always with my cos doctor Pat Larish.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We are We're back for part two of Musashi A
quick turnaround as quick as a samurai strike.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So, as we were talking about earlier this week, Musashi
has come across the Yoshioka clan, which was a very
well known school for sword instruction. They have their own style,
they have their own weapons that they're masters of, and
they actually were the trainers for the Ashikaga Shogunate, which
was the shogunate just before the one that is currently
(01:43):
installed in Japan in the year we are talking about,
which is early sixteen hundreds. So Miamoto Musashi is this
very eccentric samurai, and as we talked about in part one,
he is trying to kind of walk the earth to
fight all of the great masters of sword fighting. At
this time, Japan has just kind of ended the Warring
(02:06):
States period, so they are in this period of peace.
Musashi is a fighter, He's a ronan, but he has
no wars to fight, so he wants to train himself
to become the greatest swordsman who ever lived. He's also
kind of an eccentric, weirdo and like kind of a
dick sometimes, so we're going to talk about that a
little bit too. But he's a ronan and he's wandering
(02:28):
around challenging famous sword fighters to duels. To test his
skill as the greatest warrior, and he hasn't lost any
of them yet. He's killed several of Japan's greatest warriors
and he has not lost a duel yet. Well. Two
of those most recent duels were against the leaders of
this Yoshioka klan, the trainers of the Ashikaga Shogunate. Musashi
(02:52):
was going to fight the older brother, the patriarch of
the clan, and they had this very public duel in
front of the fighting school where they trained their martial
arts students, and pat do you remember what happened with
that one?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
He totally humiliated him. It was a wooden sword duel
and whoever hits the other guy first wins. So he
hit him and utterly humiliated him. So he went off,
and you know that sword master went off to a
monastery where he could be embarrassed in private.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yes, that's right. So he fought the guy's name was Sijuru,
and there was a fight and Musashi with one swing
broke the guy's arm, and he was so embarrassed that
he went off to become a monk.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then the younger brother steps up.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, the younger brother, his name was ding Zi Chiro,
and do you remember what happened with that duel?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It went even worse for him because instead of wooden swords,
they were using actual weapons. Well okay, instead of wooden swords.
They agreed that it was going to be a fight
to the death, and Dengji Chiro used to this iron
pummeling device. Musashi used a wooden sword. Even so, he
(04:07):
still showed up late and killed him with one blow,
which sucked for Denshi Chiro and also made the Yoshioka
clan very, very embarrassed. They lost a lot of face.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, so over the course of I'm not sure how
much time passes between these two duels, but I imagine
it's probably pretty quickly. Musashi disrespects the leader of the clan.
He shows up two hours late to the duel, breaks
the guy's arm with one swing. The younger brother takes
over the klan wants to fight to the death. Musashi
(04:42):
shows up late again, hits him once with a wooden sword,
and kills him. Now, leadership of the Yoshioka clan has
passed to a twelve year old boy. His name is Matsashichiro.
He is you know, he's the head of the Oshioka
clan because he inherited. But he's he's twelve years old. Yeah,
me and mood and Musashi killed his first person at eight.
(05:02):
But this twelve year old boy has no experience with
killing anybody yet, and he's more of like a figurehead
of this klan than an actual master who will like
lead them forward. So instead of Matsaschichio personally dueling Musashi,
he still has to avenge his clans honors. So he
goes to Musashi and he says, you know, we will
have a duel. We're going to fight it at nearby temple,
(05:23):
and we're going to fight at night, and you will
fight a champion of my choosing. Musashi says, okay, yeah,
of course, I'm always up for a fight, and you know,
show me your best guy. I've already, you know, kind
of stopped the top two guys, so let's see what
number three looks like.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Okay, So I have two questions. One is I'm sure
you'll answer this. Who is the guy that they put
up as this third champion he's going to go against?
And also did you say nighttime?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yes? Nighttime? Yeah, yes, So they're going to fight at
night at a temple that's unusual, right, It's extremely unusual.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah, because aren't they duels usually during the daytime time,
so all the towns people can gather around and you
have an audience.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, and you know, like they can you know, having
these duels during the day and the town square solves
a lot of things. Number One, you can make sure
that like nobody's cheating and the fight was fair and square,
so whoever won or lost, like at least there was
an honorable victory. And the other thing is that people
like to watch this stuff. The warriors are doing this
because they like to show off. They're kind of like
you know, the ultimate fighting champions or the boxers of
(06:28):
the time period as sports heroes. They go out and
they have these duels and they you know, are movie
stars basically. And also like the crowd likes to come
watch these things. So saying like hey, meet me at
this temple at night to fight my champion who is
a TBD, that's a you know, that's some red flags.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But yeah, yeah, it's got some red flags. And you
want ideally, in theory, you'd want a lot of witnesses
to make sure that everything's fair or everything happens the
way people said it did. And also especially since this
supposed to be like revenge to restore the Oshio Kaklan's reputation,
you think they'd want it. Thinks they'd want it to
(07:08):
be public instead of like maybe spreading a rumor that,
oh yeah, our guy nicked Musashi's elbow and now our
honor is restored. Like, I don't this does not compute
what's going on. You're right, Ben, I have questions. There
are red.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Flags, yes, but you know, if we go back to
the analogy of Mimo and Musashi is being kind of
one of these great wandering samurais that you see in
these old like you know, Kurosawa movies, that kind of thing.
He suspects some stuff too, but he's in. He's not
going to say no. That's that's a that's a blight
on his honor to say no. So he's in. So
Musashi goes to the duel. He shows up that night
(07:42):
at the temple and there is a lone figure standing
underneath a tree there, and it is this twelve year
old boy, this new master. He's there with a sword
in his hand, and it seems like maybe Musashi's going
to fight this guy. The kid fight the kid. Yeah,
and so Musashi to these first two duels, he arrived late. Well,
(08:05):
one thing that's interesting about this night duels, Musashi arrived
on time because I think because of what you were saying,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They're red flags, and people are expecting him to arrive
late because they think that that's his mo. But actually
his mo is to think things through and think, Okay,
what's going to work best for me in this situation,
because he he's shown time and time again in the
past that he's thinking ahead and he always seems to
have a plan an idea of how he's going to
(08:37):
take on whatever the challenge is. And here the challenge is, okay,
a duel at night time with a lot of red
flags against people he's fought, or like a clan that
he's fought twice before with a particular style. So he's
going to maybe assume that he's going to psych them out.
He's going to be like two or three steps ahead
(08:58):
of them, you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Know, yeah, exactly. So he figures it out and he
outthinks to them and instead of showing up two hours late,
which is how he showed up to every other duel
that we've seen him fight with this Yoshioka clan. He
shows up to this one two hours early and he hides.
And as he's there hiding, he sees a bunch of
(09:19):
Yoshioka guys walking around and starting to hide in the
bushes and behind rocks and behind pieces of the temple,
and he gets the drop on him. He sees like
this is an ambush. They're going to just all come
out and jump me. These guys are armed with all
manner of weapons katanas, spears, bow and arrows, even a
rifle or two, probably, like we don't know for sure
exactly what they are with, but rifles existed, and I
(09:41):
think that they wouldn't be above just trying to shoot
him if they could get away with it.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
He knows that something's out right, and so when he
gets there, he watches these guys set up. So what
do you think he does here because he's kind of
hiding and he's seeing that the twelve year old boy
is going to stand under the thing call me out
to the duel. As soon as I come out out there,
all these guys are going to rush me from every
direction and just execute me.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, one of the best ways to defeat an ambush
is not walk into the ambush in the first place.
And he's kind of not doing that because he's hiding
behind a bush and they don't know that he's there.
And this is Musashi, so I'm guessing that he might
ambush the ambush.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, and that's what he does. And so the numbers
of this encounter range. Some versions of it, there's five
or six guys from the Oshioka school. The numbers go
up to like sixty or seventy people. Right, it's somewhere
between five and fifty Yoshioka klansmen, all set up with
these weapons, hiding in the bushes. You know, a lot
(10:44):
of the legends are the higher numbers because that's a
more you know, like the Serrano story, it's a little
bit more flashy to talk about. What we know is
the Musashi's out numbered, and you know, five fighting five
guys at the same time with the Samurai sword is
still extremely difficult. No matter what you see in the movies.
This is a big ambush and you are heavily outnumbered.
(11:06):
So he sees that these guys are are are hiding,
they're in the grass, they're getting their weapons ready, they're
talking about where to stand. Some of them are going
to hide over here, and he's kind of watching this happen.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, so they're just puttering around. Maybe they're just kind
of still figuring out the details, like, Okay, what should
a signal to attack be. Maybe they you know, need
to take a leak whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, And while they're all kind of planning the ambush
New Moota Musashi ambushes them. He does what no Samurai
or ronan ever do. He takes the katana in one
hand and the wakizashi in the other, and he charges
out and attacks into the ambush with one sword in
each hand. It's oh, it's yeah, yeah, it's not hew
(11:48):
swordsmen usually fight, so Samurai in these days rarely ever
fight with the katana in one hand. It's really heavy.
We've talked about it before. On the first part of
this episode, they fight with the katana in two hands.
It's a two handed weapon. Yeah, they're heavy, and it's
not easy to maneuver that thing with one hand. But
Musashi's extremely strong. So he's got the samurai sword in
one hand and he's got the wakizashi in the other,
(12:10):
and he is fighting with both hands. It's really it's
really rare. But when you're outnumbered by as badly as
he is, even if you get to drop on the ambushers,
that drop doesn't last for very long, and before long
everybody's kind of aware of what's happening, and he's in
there fighting them.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But on the other hand, Musashi has caught them off guard.
So what does he do in the window of time
while they are off guard. He's not supposed to be there.
He's always late. They're like, what does not compute? He's
way earlier than he's expected. They're still setting up.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, so like, try to put yourself in their position
to picture this for a second. We talked about it before.
He suffers from heavy egzima, so his face is all
scarred up, and at this point he's probably got some
cuts and scars from his previous sword fights. His hair
is all unkempt and unwashed because he doesn't because he's
worried about being ambushed in the shower or the bath,
and so you know, he's totally just this ragged mess
(13:07):
dressed in these these kind of loose clothes. They're not
the cleanest, and he is probably looks like a demon
or some kind of wild animal out there, and he's
extremely mad that they were about to dishonorably ambush him.
So and this is at night too, at night in
like the you know, the the torchlight of this temple probably,
and he is just charging into this crowd, cutting a
(13:29):
swath towards the master of the Oshioka Klan. He is
killing anybody that gets close to him. And then and
then the important thing is, like, once he starts getting
closer to Marashichiro, you realize that, like, you know, Musashi
has won his first two duels with wooden swords, but
to this one, he brought real swords with real blades,
(13:50):
and he's using one in each hand, and these guys
are falling with every swing of his weapon.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, okay, so he gets to twelve year old Mattisichiro.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
What happens, Well, first he slashes the kid, right, he
kills all these guys that are along the way to him,
and he hits this kid with the sword and puts
him down. Oh yeah, And then and then he fights
his way out and escapes into a nearby field and
runs away from whoever's like, you know, say what you want,
like killing a preteen boy is maybe not extremely badass,
(14:24):
but this kid challenged him to a duel and was
about to ambush him and murder him. And you know,
we have to put this in perspective in that way, right, Yeah,
from Musashi's point of view, Yes, she was eight when
he killed his first person, so different world. Yeah, and
that was it. You can't that's the end of the
Oshioka Klan. It's it's done. After this, the entire school,
(14:47):
the entire school of sword fighting disappears because there's no
one left to teach the fighting scut style.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Now, I assume there are members of the extended Yoshioka
Klan doing other things like not teaching swords, Miss.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Shim Yeah, they're actually extremely famous for dyeing clothes and
kimonos and you know, like applying colored dyes to clothing
like traditional Japanese clothing. Nice. But so they pivoted, they pivoted. Yeah. Yeah,
the sword fighting arm of the Yoshioka Clan was done. Uh,
and it had been basically single handedly ended by Miamota Musashi.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, single handedly, although for that third challenge, double handedly
very fair.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, I like that, Yeah, double handedly removed by Musashi.
This is like something out of like a cowboy movie, right,
or like a John Wick. We talked about John Wick
before too, like just I mean, it's it's pretty crazy.
And this is also like I think I have talked
before about how he fought with the sword in each hand,
but this is the first time that he is recorded
doing this, so it was even more amazing at the time,
like especially expecting it. Yeah, especially if you are at
(15:52):
like a school that teaches sword fighting. You've never seen
this technique. You're like, what is happening with this?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, and that's it. That's what's actually does. He has
this multiple styles, multiple techniques, multiple strategies. He can sometimes
have a wooden sword, sometimes have a weapon in each hand,
a spear, whatever. Like he he doesn't just know how
to use only one weapon. He can use all kinds
of different stuff. So he's like a master of not
(16:18):
only all these different sword fighting styles but or fighting styles.
But he also can out think his opponents and you know,
be better than them and faster than them and smarter
than them. That's an advantage of having multiple different fighting styles, right,
Like oh, non shocks, I don't know how to use these,
you know, like in a D and D adventure when
(16:40):
like your hero, your character is like very well versed
in one weapon, and then you find an awesome magic
weapon that your guy doesn't know how to use, and
you're like, well, got to decide.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, And swords are so important to samurai, and yet
our guy Musashi doesn't really use one. But swords for
samurai are held in such reverence. Swords have names, they
have identities, they have histories, they have genealogies, they have
origin stories either passed.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Down from families that family member to family member.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah. Yeah, and some of these swords that you now
see museums, they've been around for centuries, and you know
there's the story of like which clan possessed it and
then which you know, et cetera. And the sword makers
are also badass in their own right. The swordsmiths. There's
a story and which I think illustrates how important swords
(17:33):
were and the craft of making the sword in addition
to the craft of wielding the sword. There are these
two master sword makers, Masamune who is the master sword maker,
and then there's his student Moramasa, another truly excellent sword maker.
Now here's the thing. These two guys chronologically historically probably
(17:57):
never actually met in real life, but the reputations are.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Such that don't let that get in the way of
a good story.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Though, Yeah, we're not gonna let that get in the
way of a good story, which is in a way
kind of what's going on with Musashi also, like did
he fight five guys? Did he fight sixty guys? It's
the vibe, right. So Maramasa, he's the younger one, he's
the student. He's feeling really full of himself, and he
(18:25):
challenges his teacher Masamune to a sword making contest. And
so each sword master crafts a sword. Each swordsmith goes
into their forge and you know, pours the metals and
makes the alloys and tempers the steel and do this
that and the other thing, and there's all sorts of
very important metallurgical things going on. And then when the
(18:49):
swords are done, when the swords are tempered, the two
of them come out and they place the swords into
a river, standing up with the blades facing against the current.
So anything that floats down the river might bump up
against the blade of the sword. And then what happens
(19:10):
well on the one side of the river, Murramasa the challenger.
His sword beautifully slices everything that drifts down the current.
Leaves that are drifting down the current, sliced in half. Fish,
even the story goes, the very air itself is sliced
(19:32):
by the blade of this sword. Can we top that?
Can Mora Masa's teacher Massamune do this? Can the established
swordsmith beat this? Or is this time for the you know,
the new guy to win? Well, Massamune puts his blade
in the river, you know, same setup. It's in a
position to bisect anything that floats past it. So leaves
(19:56):
float down the river and whoop, they're cut in half,
beautifully perfectly. But nothing else gets cut, No fish, no air,
no nothing. Who wins the contest? Who do you think
is deemed the winner of the contest?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Man, You'd think it'd be the guy that cut everything, right,
You'd think sword cut through the fish.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, seems better. He cut through the fish, he cuts
through the leaves, he cuts through the very air itself.
But this is a sword making contest, not a sushi restaurant.
And Masamune was deemed the winner of the contest because
both of these swords are very, very fine blades. But
(20:40):
Masamune's sword knows how to cut exactly the right thing
and doesn't try to cut anything else.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Right, and then these guys have kind of this reputation
you know that follows them. Oh yeah, where I think
like Massamune is kind of the more zen one. He's
like the good sword maker, where his weapons are only
used for honorable things, and you know, he's the lawful,
good sword, whereas Morimasa is hot headed and his swords
(21:10):
are bad in the sense that they're they're evil weapons.
They crave blood, and when they're drawn, you have to, uh,
you have to spill blood before you can return it
to the scabbard kind of.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Thing, even if it might be your own blood. Yeah,
circumstances warrant.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And that's that's like a true thing that that happened
in Samurai times sometimes because there was an idea of
you know, if you drew the katana, you were expected
to draw blood. And sometimes that was like you kind
of nick your finger before you put it back in,
just to like appease the spirits, because like you said,
they believed there were spirits and things involved here. Right,
(21:46):
we talked I mentioned dungeons and dragons earlier, but like
these were magic weapons as far as some of these
people were concerned. And the way they talk about them
and the way they think about them. The spirits of
your ancestors are in this blade and literally right and
uh and that's really interesting, right. It puts a lot
of value on the weapon and the people who make
the weapons, and that kind of ties us back to Musashi.
(22:08):
He's kind of the living embodiment of the Second Sword,
the Evil Sword to the people in Japan right now,
and that's how they consider him. He's cutting through everybody
and anyone in his way. He's just kind of owning everybody,
but not just you know, not just beating them, but
doing it in the most disrespectful way possible that in
their minds they can be defeated. Right, So this gets
(22:30):
attention of some pretty big name guys, and this is
when we're going to get into Musashi's most famous duel.
He fights against a guy named Sasaki Kojiro, who is
known as the Demon of the Western Provinces.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Oh, what's he like?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Well, he's big and strong, and he is very committed
to the traditional ways of fighting. He is a master
of the ganriu style of fighting. It's a strength first school.
It's called the School of Rock, which is is that's
what it's called.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Not to be confused with the Jack Black movie of
the same name, which is about a different type of front.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Right, or the or the chain of businesses now where
you can go and learn how to play drums or guitar. Okay,
I'm getting carried away, and I really want to get
into this, but let's take a break real quick. We're
going to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Okay,
(23:30):
welcome back, and let's get right back into it. Sasaki Kujiro,
he is a he's an expert in the no dachi,
which is like a two handed samurai sword. So you know,
the katana was big, but the no dacchi is stands
somewhere in the order of like six feet tall at
a time when the average samurai was probably five to five, right,
(23:53):
And it is a two handed sword. It requires big
guy a lot of strength to wield this thing. But
it is a massive weapon and it is extremely dangerous
in the hands of a person who knows how to
use it. Is saying slices through armor and people and
anything else. Do you want to swing it at and
Sosake starts hearing these stories of Musashi. Musashi's the grand
(24:15):
master of sword fighting. Musashi is winning enough duels and
making a big enough name for himself that now people
are coming to train with him. They are starting to
look at him as a master. But anyway, one thing
to Sake is Sake is kind of this more traditional
samurai guy, and he people start thinking that Musashi might
be onto something right because he's getting results. You know,
(24:37):
he's unorthodox, but he is getting the results, and people
are starting to flock to him, and they're starting to
want to learn from him. And Musashi's talking about opening
a school and he's training people, and he's gaining this
prestige that all of these ronan have been seeking ever
since they leave home with their sword to try to
like make a name for themselves. Musashi is becoming famous.
(24:57):
He's becoming a famous swordsman. He's becoming a Cansey. People
are interested in him. They want to talk to him,
they want to see him, they want to learn from him.
Sasaki doesn't want to hear any of that, Saki Guguiro,
he doesn't want to hear any of that. He is
the demon of the Western Provinces. He is the world
heavyweight champion, and he decides he's heard enough about this
(25:18):
Musashi guy. And I mean, what do you do in
feudal Japan when you got two swordsmen who have beef.
There's really only one answer, right.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I'm assuming it involves a duel.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yes, you can not have a spelling bee. They have
a duel. Then they are going to duel, and they
are going to do it in a dramatic fashion. They
are going to there's an island off the coast of
you know, one of these towns, and they are both
going to row out to this island and have this
duel on this island and they are going to fight
(25:51):
to the death as you do.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, is there do we know if there is an
audience for this or is it really just go off?
Take it outside, settle it between the two of yourselves,
settle it amongst yourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So the best comparison here would be the Aaron Burr
Alexander Hamilton duel, where there are people know this is
happening and it's but it's not. It's not the Chevalier
de Saint George having the big con. It's not like
you know, it's not an exhibition, right, it's not an exhibition.
They're not going to meet at like Caesar's Palace and
have a duel. People are gathered on the shore to
(26:29):
watch the fight as best they can see it on
this island. But on the island itself, there's a there's
a select group of a small group of people like
you know that are all kind of there to adjudicate
the thing, right the refs, Yeah, yeah, exactly, make sure
somebody doesn't show up with a gun or something, I guess,
you know.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, And the general public is at a safe distance.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yes, got to stay back. Who knows what's going to
happen in this duel here has potential like geography altering
ramifications from this battle between these great sword saints of
feudal Japan.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, so what does happen?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So the battles supposed to take place at eight o'clock
in the morning, at kind of sunrisey time period. Sake
goes out there, he's got his sword, he's sharpening his weapon.
He makes a big show of pulling it from the
scabbard and throwing the scabbard into the ocean, which at
the time was very symbolic that I do not intend
to resheet his weapon. I am going to fight to
the death. I'm not going to show you any mercy.
(27:28):
But the problem is that Musashi's not there. Eight o'clock comes,
it goes nine o'clock, there's no Musashi. He starts rowing
up like they can see him, rowing towards the island.
About nine point thirty, he's rowing out there. He claims
that he overslept, but as we know he's done this before.
This isn't something Musashi is just doing for the first time.
(27:50):
He's pulling the same move he used on both Yoshioka brothers. Yeah,
trying to ice him or intimidate him, or be disrespectful
to him in a way that would make him Yes. Yeah,
So Musashi also claims not only that he overslipt, but
do you remember the story of Masamune you were just telling,
(28:11):
and the importance of like sword, swords and weaponry, and
how that said so much about you, and how how
Sasaki Kushiro is sharpening his famous no Dachi the Demon
of the Western Provinces. Musashi also claimed he forgot his swords,
so he shows up and he's like, oh, I forgot it, sorry,
(28:32):
quote unquote forgot right, so he's kind of rowing out
there on this on this canoe and he gets there
and he gets off the canoe and he just takes
the oar of the canoe and he's like, I'll just
use this. I guess I'll fight with this. What do
you think? And Sakes go about to have a freaking
aneurysm right like, who is this guy? I'm going to
(28:54):
I'm going to kill you so hard. I'm gonna kill
you so bad that nobody will ever fight I do again.
And Musashi and him they kind of face off. Musashi
they circle a little bit, and Musashi circles so that
he has the sun at his back. They were supposed
to fight at sunrise. Now it's like nine thirty suns
at the perfect height where it's just shining right behind
(29:15):
Musashi's head directly into Sasaki's eyes. Can't see anything. Yeah,
Musashi charges, Sasaki charges. They jump. I think about the
beginning of the beginning cinematic of the original Ninja Gaiden
on the Nintendo where the two warriors jump at each other.
That's how I envision this. They jump, they swing at
the same time, and sasak hits the ground and drops
(29:38):
and is dead. Wow. And some versions of the story,
Musashi's headband is cut by the not dachi, but the
rest of him is untouched. I don't know the significance
of that, that myth, but it makes me think of
the story you just told of, like only the thing
that was supposed to get got cut.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah there's precision, yes, yeah, not a wasted motion.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And that's the end of Sakimo. Musashi crushes his head
with one swing of a boat oar, and that's how
he dismisses the greatest swordsman in Japan. And nowadays, if
you go to that island, there's a big bronze statue
of Musashi standing there holding a rowing ore, which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So he's a sword saint, but the statue is of
him holding an oar.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, he's an or saint.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Ye, he's an r saint.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Probably the greatest, greatest, greatest wielder of an ore in
the history of feudal Japan. Yeah, yeah, probably ever, probably
world history. I can't think of too many. I did
enjoy the story of John Elfred Wilson hitting crocodiles with
the boat or during the Great Locomotive Chase, but not
really the same Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Not the same, but ores can be formidable if they're
wielded by someone who knows what they're doing with them.
So what does Musashi do? Does he do a little
happy dance, a little boo yeah, victory dance? Does he
retire peacefully?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
What does he know? He's kind of done? At this point,
He's thirty. All of this has happened in his twenties,
which probably explained, God his start at age thirteen, right,
And this probably explains some of the arrogance that we
see associated with him, right, is like he was kind
of a young dude through most of this, Right, And
so at this point he decides, you know, he's He's
fought in a lot of duels. He's defeated the great
(31:26):
masters of Japan and all of their at their own game.
He's beaten them when they get their weapon, and he's
fighting with a wooden stick or something else that he's
not you know, hasn't been training on his entire life spork. Yeah,
he doesn't need to prove how tough he is anymore.
He doesn't need to prove himself. So he opens a school,
he teaches his fighting style, and he starts getting into
(31:48):
other things. As well. He branches out, he diversifies his portfolio.
He becomes an artist, poet, He writes poetry, he does calligraphy,
he sculpts, he writes, and he gets into Zen Buddhism
and Zen philosophy, and he starts writing about that, and
he does that for a while, and when that gets boring,
(32:08):
he climbs the mountain and goes lives in a cave.
And that's when he starts writing his books. And that's
when he writes the Book of Five Rings, which is
a book that now functions as a technical manual on
being a badass in feudal Japan. And that's it. At
the last half of his life, he teaches and he
writes these books, and he finishes his last book, hands
(32:31):
it off to a disciple, and then just dies a
week later. He passes away in sixteen forty five at
the age of sixty two. First, his first dual victory
was at age thirteen, and we have him documented as
winning fighting and winning sixty one duels over the course
of his career, which is which is basically double the
(32:54):
score of the second guy that we have any info on.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, what lasts is not only his reputation as a warrior,
but his writings and the Book of Five Rings Ben
you described it as a technical manual in the art
of badassory. It's divided into five parts. The rings are
named after The rings are basically chapters named after different elements.
(33:21):
So you've got the Book of Earth, where he lays
down the foundations of his strategy and well of his
strategy his technique, and in a way, the technique is
not one specific technique, but more a general way of being.
He says stuff like, do not think dishonestly, know the
(33:43):
ways of all professions, do nothing which is of no use, etc. Etc.
And he also talks about things specific to swordsmanship and
ways to think about approaching your opponent's body. He also
ends with the Book of Void, and he says stuff
like by knowing things that exist, you can know that
(34:05):
which does not exist, which on the face of it,
doesn't have anything to do specifically with martial arts or
sword skill. But this is maybe his generative spirituality or
his way of being in the world that informs all
(34:27):
of his other stuff. I'm right, that's I'm getting really
abstract for a Badass podcast, aren't I.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Well, it's interesting though, Yeah, because like the thing I
love about the Book of Five Rings is that in
some ways he's doing the like if you want to
do this, you have to do this. But it's also like, also,
if you're fighting these guys, here's how you hold the
sort up. If you're fighting a guy who uses the
down technique, and if you're fighting a guy who's holding
the sword to the left, you got to use the right.
You got to stab him in the face in between
the things. Also, you should probably take a calligraphy class
(34:53):
at some point.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Also I do love to do nothing, do nothing which
is of no use, which is just like, don't waste
your time doing stupid stuff. Yeah, but he's also like
so yeah, so there's philosophy, but there's also like very detailed,
like step by step instructions on how to win a
sword fight against your enemies. It's just like, here's everything
that I'm thinking about right now, here's here's all, here's
(35:15):
all my stuff. And the Book of Five Rings has
kind of got this art of war vibe where you
can get like, you know, you can buy people sell
like a Book of Five Rings for business, which I
don't really know how you would translate this for business,
But I guess that's also why I'm not a successful
business person.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Well, I guess in business you want to everything you do,
you want to be of use somehow.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's fair, that's fair, and you do kind of however
you define that. Yeah, and so there's a lot of
there's a lot of this, like understand how everything works,
understand like know your enemy kind of thing. There's a
lot of that in there. Yeah. The Book of Five
Rings is kind of the samurai version of the Art
of War. It's kind of held in that same category.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, some of the priests from his Dukko do which
is the path of a loneness or the way of
walking alone, or any of the other ways of translating this.
This is the last thing he wrote. It's really short.
It's just twenty one principles, just short aphorisms, short precepts.
And this is something he wrote about a week before
(36:21):
he died, and very little of it has to do
with swords or being a warrior, at least on the surface.
It's stuff like never be jealous, except everything the way
it is, do not fear death. Okay, I can see
what that has to do with being a warrior, but
also with being a non warrior also, and we talked
(36:43):
about how he's Buddhist. He says, respect Buddha and the
gods without counting on their help.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
This path of aloneness is really interesting because it's like
some of them are like, be indifferent where you live,
do not pursue good food, and all things have no preferences.
And I'm like, and this is what makes us not
good Buddhists.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Though, Pat yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
He kind of does, like he kind of finds he
finds religion later in life, and he does kind of
me he lives in a cave and he has nothing right.
This is but his entire life has always been he
had nothing right. He gave up everything because he wanted
to travel the world and have adventures and that worked
out well for him. And then at the end, like
he just you know, this wasn't important to him to
have like a nice house and no good food and
(37:25):
be distracted by worldly possessions, which is probably great in principle.
I don't know if I could live like that, but
I think I'm a little too materialistic.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I think it's a journey that we all walk in
our own way. I like it which is.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
My way of saying I don't know, yeah exactly. That's
a very diplomatic way of putting that.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, but yeah, but this is Musashi. He's a philosopher,
he's a thinker, he's a calligrapher, he's a poet. He's
a guy who lives in a cave. And he's also
a badass fighter with a sword or wooden stick or
or whatever he happens to be picking up.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Could kill you with whatever he's holding in his hands
right now.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Well, that is the story of Miyamoto Musashi. We hope
you guys liked it, and we wanted to say thank
you as always for listening. Please do subscribe to our
podcast if you liked it, and be sure to share
it with other people. It really helps the show out.
So thank you guys so much.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And remember, badasses, it's okay to think of stabbing, so
maybe don't actually do it. 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 editing
(38:47):
is by Ian Jacobs, Brandon Phibbs, Mixing and music and
sound design is by Jude Brewer. Special thanks to Noel
Brown at iHeart Badass of the Week is based on
the website Badass of Week 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
(39:10):
us at Badass Podcast at badassftheweek 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. Another swordsman cries out as Miyamoto Musashi's
katana strikes home, slashing his enemy viciously across the chests.
Two more leap out at him. Ah Musashi worlds a
sword in each hand, lashing out at his assailants in
(00:21):
a tornado of razors sharp steel. More surround him lungeon
with a variety of deadly weapons spears, clubs, and blades,
but Musashi faces each of them in turn, parrying their attacks,
countering with slashes and stabs, his eyes filled with fury,
his fierce visage more demon than man, his fighting style
(00:43):
that of a cornered beast. The Yoshioka clan believed they
could avenge the honor of their fallen master by ambushing
him while he was off guard. But Miyamoto Musashi is
never off guard, and now he is going to make
them pay for their treachery. Hello and welcome back to
(01:10):
Badass of the Week. My name is Ben Thompson and
I am here as always with my cos doctor Pat Larish.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We are We're back for part two of Musashi A
quick turnaround as quick as a samurai strike.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So, as we were talking about earlier this week, Musashi
has come across the Yoshioka clan, which was a very
well known school for sword instruction. They have their own style,
they have their own weapons that they're masters of, and
they actually were the trainers for the Ashikaga Shogunate, which
was the shogunate just before the one that is currently
(01:43):
installed in Japan in the year we are talking about,
which is early sixteen hundreds. So Miamoto Musashi is this
very eccentric samurai, and as we talked about in part one,
he is trying to kind of walk the earth to
fight all of the great masters of sword fighting. At
this time, Japan has just kind of ended the Warring
(02:06):
States period, so they are in this period of peace.
Musashi is a fighter, He's a ronan, but he has
no wars to fight, so he wants to train himself
to become the greatest swordsman who ever lived. He's also
kind of an eccentric, weirdo and like kind of a
dick sometimes, so we're going to talk about that a
little bit too. But he's a ronan and he's wandering
(02:28):
around challenging famous sword fighters to duels. To test his
skill as the greatest warrior, and he hasn't lost any
of them yet. He's killed several of Japan's greatest warriors
and he has not lost a duel yet. Well. Two
of those most recent duels were against the leaders of
this Yoshioka klan, the trainers of the Ashikaga Shogunate. Musashi
(02:52):
was going to fight the older brother, the patriarch of
the clan, and they had this very public duel in
front of the fighting school where they trained their martial
arts students, and pat do you remember what happened with
that one?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
He totally humiliated him. It was a wooden sword duel
and whoever hits the other guy first wins. So he
hit him and utterly humiliated him. So he went off,
and you know that sword master went off to a
monastery where he could be embarrassed in private.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yes, that's right. So he fought the guy's name was Sijuru,
and there was a fight and Musashi with one swing
broke the guy's arm, and he was so embarrassed that
he went off to become a monk.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then the younger brother steps up.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, the younger brother, his name was ding Zi Chiro,
and do you remember what happened with that duel?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It went even worse for him because instead of wooden swords,
they were using actual weapons. Well okay, instead of wooden swords.
They agreed that it was going to be a fight
to the death, and Dengji Chiro used to this iron
pummeling device. Musashi used a wooden sword. Even so, he
(04:07):
still showed up late and killed him with one blow,
which sucked for Denshi Chiro and also made the Yoshioka
clan very, very embarrassed. They lost a lot of face.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yes, so over the course of I'm not sure how
much time passes between these two duels, but I imagine
it's probably pretty quickly. Musashi disrespects the leader of the clan.
He shows up two hours late to the duel, breaks
the guy's arm with one swing. The younger brother takes
over the klan wants to fight to the death. Musashi
(04:42):
shows up late again, hits him once with a wooden sword,
and kills him. Now, leadership of the Yoshioka clan has
passed to a twelve year old boy. His name is Matsashichiro.
He is you know, he's the head of the Oshioka
clan because he inherited. But he's he's twelve years old. Yeah,
me and mood and Musashi killed his first person at eight.
(05:02):
But this twelve year old boy has no experience with
killing anybody yet, and he's more of like a figurehead
of this klan than an actual master who will like
lead them forward. So instead of Matsaschichio personally dueling Musashi,
he still has to avenge his clans honors. So he
goes to Musashi and he says, you know, we will
have a duel. We're going to fight it at nearby temple,
(05:23):
and we're going to fight at night, and you will
fight a champion of my choosing. Musashi says, okay, yeah,
of course, I'm always up for a fight, and you know,
show me your best guy. I've already, you know, kind
of stopped the top two guys, so let's see what
number three looks like.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Okay, So I have two questions. One is I'm sure
you'll answer this. Who is the guy that they put
up as this third champion he's going to go against?
And also did you say nighttime?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yes? Nighttime? Yeah, yes, So they're going to fight at
night at a temple that's unusual, right, It's extremely unusual.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah, because aren't they duels usually during the daytime time,
so all the towns people can gather around and you
have an audience.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, and you know, like they can you know, having
these duels during the day and the town square solves
a lot of things. Number One, you can make sure
that like nobody's cheating and the fight was fair and square,
so whoever won or lost, like at least there was
an honorable victory. And the other thing is that people
like to watch this stuff. The warriors are doing this
because they like to show off. They're kind of like
you know, the ultimate fighting champions or the boxers of
(06:28):
the time period as sports heroes. They go out and
they have these duels and they you know, are movie
stars basically. And also like the crowd likes to come
watch these things. So saying like hey, meet me at
this temple at night to fight my champion who is
a TBD, that's a you know, that's some red flags.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But yeah, yeah, it's got some red flags. And you
want ideally, in theory, you'd want a lot of witnesses
to make sure that everything's fair or everything happens the
way people said it did. And also especially since this
supposed to be like revenge to restore the Oshio Kaklan's reputation,
you think they'd want it. Thinks they'd want it to
(07:08):
be public instead of like maybe spreading a rumor that,
oh yeah, our guy nicked Musashi's elbow and now our
honor is restored. Like, I don't this does not compute
what's going on. You're right, Ben, I have questions. There
are red.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Flags, yes, but you know, if we go back to
the analogy of Mimo and Musashi is being kind of
one of these great wandering samurais that you see in
these old like you know, Kurosawa movies, that kind of thing.
He suspects some stuff too, but he's in. He's not
going to say no. That's that's a that's a blight
on his honor to say no. So he's in. So
Musashi goes to the duel. He shows up that night
(07:42):
at the temple and there is a lone figure standing
underneath a tree there, and it is this twelve year
old boy, this new master. He's there with a sword
in his hand, and it seems like maybe Musashi's going
to fight this guy. The kid fight the kid. Yeah,
and so Musashi to these first two duels, he arrived late. Well,
(08:05):
one thing that's interesting about this night duels, Musashi arrived
on time because I think because of what you were saying,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They're red flags, and people are expecting him to arrive
late because they think that that's his mo. But actually
his mo is to think things through and think, Okay,
what's going to work best for me in this situation,
because he he's shown time and time again in the
past that he's thinking ahead and he always seems to
have a plan an idea of how he's going to
(08:37):
take on whatever the challenge is. And here the challenge is, okay,
a duel at night time with a lot of red
flags against people he's fought, or like a clan that
he's fought twice before with a particular style. So he's
going to maybe assume that he's going to psych them out.
He's going to be like two or three steps ahead
(08:58):
of them, you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Know, yeah, exactly. So he figures it out and he
outthinks to them and instead of showing up two hours late,
which is how he showed up to every other duel
that we've seen him fight with this Yoshioka clan. He
shows up to this one two hours early and he hides.
And as he's there hiding, he sees a bunch of
(09:19):
Yoshioka guys walking around and starting to hide in the
bushes and behind rocks and behind pieces of the temple,
and he gets the drop on him. He sees like
this is an ambush. They're going to just all come
out and jump me. These guys are armed with all
manner of weapons katanas, spears, bow and arrows, even a
rifle or two, probably, like we don't know for sure
exactly what they are with, but rifles existed, and I
(09:41):
think that they wouldn't be above just trying to shoot
him if they could get away with it.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
He knows that something's out right, and so when he
gets there, he watches these guys set up. So what
do you think he does here because he's kind of
hiding and he's seeing that the twelve year old boy
is going to stand under the thing call me out
to the duel. As soon as I come out out there,
all these guys are going to rush me from every
direction and just execute me.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, one of the best ways to defeat an ambush
is not walk into the ambush in the first place.
And he's kind of not doing that because he's hiding
behind a bush and they don't know that he's there.
And this is Musashi, so I'm guessing that he might
ambush the ambush.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, and that's what he does. And so the numbers
of this encounter range. Some versions of it, there's five
or six guys from the Oshioka school. The numbers go
up to like sixty or seventy people. Right, it's somewhere
between five and fifty Yoshioka klansmen, all set up with
these weapons, hiding in the bushes. You know, a lot
(10:44):
of the legends are the higher numbers because that's a
more you know, like the Serrano story, it's a little
bit more flashy to talk about. What we know is
the Musashi's out numbered, and you know, five fighting five
guys at the same time with the Samurai sword is
still extremely difficult. No matter what you see in the movies.
This is a big ambush and you are heavily outnumbered.
(11:06):
So he sees that these guys are are are hiding,
they're in the grass, they're getting their weapons ready, they're
talking about where to stand. Some of them are going
to hide over here, and he's kind of watching this happen.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, so they're just puttering around. Maybe they're just kind
of still figuring out the details, like, Okay, what should
a signal to attack be. Maybe they you know, need
to take a leak whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, And while they're all kind of planning the ambush
New Moota Musashi ambushes them. He does what no Samurai
or ronan ever do. He takes the katana in one
hand and the wakizashi in the other, and he charges
out and attacks into the ambush with one sword in
each hand. It's oh, it's yeah, yeah, it's not hew
(11:48):
swordsmen usually fight, so Samurai in these days rarely ever
fight with the katana in one hand. It's really heavy.
We've talked about it before. On the first part of
this episode, they fight with the katana in two hands.
It's a two handed weapon. Yeah, they're heavy, and it's
not easy to maneuver that thing with one hand. But
Musashi's extremely strong. So he's got the samurai sword in
one hand and he's got the wakizashi in the other,
(12:10):
and he is fighting with both hands. It's really it's
really rare. But when you're outnumbered by as badly as
he is, even if you get to drop on the ambushers,
that drop doesn't last for very long, and before long
everybody's kind of aware of what's happening, and he's in
there fighting them.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But on the other hand, Musashi has caught them off guard.
So what does he do in the window of time
while they are off guard. He's not supposed to be there.
He's always late. They're like, what does not compute? He's
way earlier than he's expected. They're still setting up.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, so like, try to put yourself in their position
to picture this for a second. We talked about it before.
He suffers from heavy egzima, so his face is all
scarred up, and at this point he's probably got some
cuts and scars from his previous sword fights. His hair
is all unkempt and unwashed because he doesn't because he's
worried about being ambushed in the shower or the bath,
and so you know, he's totally just this ragged mess
(13:07):
dressed in these these kind of loose clothes. They're not
the cleanest, and he is probably looks like a demon
or some kind of wild animal out there, and he's
extremely mad that they were about to dishonorably ambush him.
So and this is at night too, at night in
like the you know, the the torchlight of this temple probably,
and he is just charging into this crowd, cutting a
(13:29):
swath towards the master of the Oshioka Klan. He is
killing anybody that gets close to him. And then and
then the important thing is, like, once he starts getting
closer to Marashichiro, you realize that, like, you know, Musashi
has won his first two duels with wooden swords, but
to this one, he brought real swords with real blades,
(13:50):
and he's using one in each hand, and these guys
are falling with every swing of his weapon.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, okay, so he gets to twelve year old Mattisichiro.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
What happens, Well, first he slashes the kid, right, he
kills all these guys that are along the way to him,
and he hits this kid with the sword and puts
him down. Oh yeah, And then and then he fights
his way out and escapes into a nearby field and
runs away from whoever's like, you know, say what you want,
like killing a preteen boy is maybe not extremely badass,
(14:24):
but this kid challenged him to a duel and was
about to ambush him and murder him. And you know,
we have to put this in perspective in that way, right, Yeah,
from Musashi's point of view, Yes, she was eight when
he killed his first person, so different world. Yeah, and
that was it. You can't that's the end of the
Oshioka Klan. It's it's done. After this, the entire school,
(14:47):
the entire school of sword fighting disappears because there's no
one left to teach the fighting scut style.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Now, I assume there are members of the extended Yoshioka
Klan doing other things like not teaching swords, Miss.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Shim Yeah, they're actually extremely famous for dyeing clothes and
kimonos and you know, like applying colored dyes to clothing
like traditional Japanese clothing. Nice. But so they pivoted, they pivoted. Yeah. Yeah,
the sword fighting arm of the Yoshioka Clan was done. Uh,
and it had been basically single handedly ended by Miamota Musashi.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, single handedly, although for that third challenge, double handedly
very fair.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, I like that, Yeah, double handedly removed by Musashi.
This is like something out of like a cowboy movie, right,
or like a John Wick. We talked about John Wick
before too, like just I mean, it's it's pretty crazy.
And this is also like I think I have talked
before about how he fought with the sword in each hand,
but this is the first time that he is recorded
doing this, so it was even more amazing at the time,
like especially expecting it. Yeah, especially if you are at
(15:52):
like a school that teaches sword fighting. You've never seen
this technique. You're like, what is happening with this?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, and that's it. That's what's actually does. He has
this multiple styles, multiple techniques, multiple strategies. He can sometimes
have a wooden sword, sometimes have a weapon in each hand,
a spear, whatever. Like he he doesn't just know how
to use only one weapon. He can use all kinds
of different stuff. So he's like a master of not
(16:18):
only all these different sword fighting styles but or fighting styles.
But he also can out think his opponents and you know,
be better than them and faster than them and smarter
than them. That's an advantage of having multiple different fighting styles, right,
Like oh, non shocks, I don't know how to use these,
you know, like in a D and D adventure when
(16:40):
like your hero, your character is like very well versed
in one weapon, and then you find an awesome magic
weapon that your guy doesn't know how to use, and
you're like, well, got to decide.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, And swords are so important to samurai, and yet
our guy Musashi doesn't really use one. But swords for
samurai are held in such reverence. Swords have names, they
have identities, they have histories, they have genealogies, they have
origin stories either passed.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Down from families that family member to family member.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah. Yeah, and some of these swords that you now
see museums, they've been around for centuries, and you know
there's the story of like which clan possessed it and
then which you know, et cetera. And the sword makers
are also badass in their own right. The swordsmiths. There's
a story and which I think illustrates how important swords
(17:33):
were and the craft of making the sword in addition
to the craft of wielding the sword. There are these
two master sword makers, Masamune who is the master sword maker,
and then there's his student Moramasa, another truly excellent sword maker.
Now here's the thing. These two guys chronologically historically probably
(17:57):
never actually met in real life, but the reputations are.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Such that don't let that get in the way of
a good story.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Though, Yeah, we're not gonna let that get in the
way of a good story, which is in a way
kind of what's going on with Musashi also, like did
he fight five guys? Did he fight sixty guys? It's
the vibe, right. So Maramasa, he's the younger one, he's
the student. He's feeling really full of himself, and he
(18:25):
challenges his teacher Masamune to a sword making contest. And
so each sword master crafts a sword. Each swordsmith goes
into their forge and you know, pours the metals and
makes the alloys and tempers the steel and do this
that and the other thing, and there's all sorts of
very important metallurgical things going on. And then when the
(18:49):
swords are done, when the swords are tempered, the two
of them come out and they place the swords into
a river, standing up with the blades facing against the current.
So anything that floats down the river might bump up
against the blade of the sword. And then what happens
(19:10):
well on the one side of the river, Murramasa the challenger.
His sword beautifully slices everything that drifts down the current.
Leaves that are drifting down the current, sliced in half. Fish,
even the story goes, the very air itself is sliced
(19:32):
by the blade of this sword. Can we top that?
Can Mora Masa's teacher Massamune do this? Can the established
swordsmith beat this? Or is this time for the you know,
the new guy to win? Well, Massamune puts his blade
in the river, you know, same setup. It's in a
position to bisect anything that floats past it. So leaves
(19:56):
float down the river and whoop, they're cut in half,
beautifully perfectly. But nothing else gets cut, No fish, no air,
no nothing. Who wins the contest? Who do you think
is deemed the winner of the contest?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Man, You'd think it'd be the guy that cut everything, right,
You'd think sword cut through the fish.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, seems better. He cut through the fish, he cuts
through the leaves, he cuts through the very air itself.
But this is a sword making contest, not a sushi restaurant.
And Masamune was deemed the winner of the contest because
both of these swords are very, very fine blades. But
(20:40):
Masamune's sword knows how to cut exactly the right thing
and doesn't try to cut anything else.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Right, and then these guys have kind of this reputation
you know that follows them. Oh yeah, where I think
like Massamune is kind of the more zen one. He's
like the good sword maker, where his weapons are only
used for honorable things, and you know, he's the lawful,
good sword, whereas Morimasa is hot headed and his swords
(21:10):
are bad in the sense that they're they're evil weapons.
They crave blood, and when they're drawn, you have to, uh,
you have to spill blood before you can return it
to the scabbard kind of.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Thing, even if it might be your own blood. Yeah,
circumstances warrant.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And that's that's like a true thing that that happened
in Samurai times sometimes because there was an idea of
you know, if you drew the katana, you were expected
to draw blood. And sometimes that was like you kind
of nick your finger before you put it back in,
just to like appease the spirits, because like you said,
they believed there were spirits and things involved here. Right,
(21:46):
we talked I mentioned dungeons and dragons earlier, but like
these were magic weapons as far as some of these
people were concerned. And the way they talk about them
and the way they think about them. The spirits of
your ancestors are in this blade and literally right and
uh and that's really interesting, right. It puts a lot
of value on the weapon and the people who make
the weapons, and that kind of ties us back to Musashi.
(22:08):
He's kind of the living embodiment of the Second Sword,
the Evil Sword to the people in Japan right now,
and that's how they consider him. He's cutting through everybody
and anyone in his way. He's just kind of owning everybody,
but not just you know, not just beating them, but
doing it in the most disrespectful way possible that in
their minds they can be defeated. Right, So this gets
(22:30):
attention of some pretty big name guys, and this is
when we're going to get into Musashi's most famous duel.
He fights against a guy named Sasaki Kojiro, who is
known as the Demon of the Western Provinces.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Oh, what's he like?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Well, he's big and strong, and he is very committed
to the traditional ways of fighting. He is a master
of the ganriu style of fighting. It's a strength first school.
It's called the School of Rock, which is is that's
what it's called.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Not to be confused with the Jack Black movie of
the same name, which is about a different type of front.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Right, or the or the chain of businesses now where
you can go and learn how to play drums or guitar. Okay,
I'm getting carried away, and I really want to get
into this, but let's take a break real quick. We're
going to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Okay,
(23:30):
welcome back, and let's get right back into it. Sasaki Kujiro,
he is a he's an expert in the no dachi,
which is like a two handed samurai sword. So you know,
the katana was big, but the no dacchi is stands
somewhere in the order of like six feet tall at
a time when the average samurai was probably five to five, right,
(23:53):
And it is a two handed sword. It requires big
guy a lot of strength to wield this thing. But
it is a massive weapon and it is extremely dangerous
in the hands of a person who knows how to
use it. Is saying slices through armor and people and
anything else. Do you want to swing it at and
Sosake starts hearing these stories of Musashi. Musashi's the grand
(24:15):
master of sword fighting. Musashi is winning enough duels and
making a big enough name for himself that now people
are coming to train with him. They are starting to
look at him as a master. But anyway, one thing
to Sake is Sake is kind of this more traditional
samurai guy, and he people start thinking that Musashi might
be onto something right because he's getting results. You know,
(24:37):
he's unorthodox, but he is getting the results, and people
are starting to flock to him, and they're starting to
want to learn from him. And Musashi's talking about opening
a school and he's training people, and he's gaining this
prestige that all of these ronan have been seeking ever
since they leave home with their sword to try to
like make a name for themselves. Musashi is becoming famous.
(24:57):
He's becoming a famous swordsman. He's becoming a Cansey. People
are interested in him. They want to talk to him,
they want to see him, they want to learn from him.
Sasaki doesn't want to hear any of that, Saki Guguiro,
he doesn't want to hear any of that. He is
the demon of the Western Provinces. He is the world
heavyweight champion, and he decides he's heard enough about this
(25:18):
Musashi guy. And I mean, what do you do in
feudal Japan when you got two swordsmen who have beef.
There's really only one answer, right.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I'm assuming it involves a duel.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yes, you can not have a spelling bee. They have
a duel. Then they are going to duel, and they
are going to do it in a dramatic fashion. They
are going to there's an island off the coast of
you know, one of these towns, and they are both
going to row out to this island and have this
duel on this island and they are going to fight
(25:51):
to the death as you do.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, is there do we know if there is an
audience for this or is it really just go off?
Take it outside, settle it between the two of yourselves,
settle it amongst yourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So the best comparison here would be the Aaron Burr
Alexander Hamilton duel, where there are people know this is
happening and it's but it's not. It's not the Chevalier
de Saint George having the big con. It's not like
you know, it's not an exhibition, right, it's not an exhibition.
They're not going to meet at like Caesar's Palace and
have a duel. People are gathered on the shore to
(26:29):
watch the fight as best they can see it on
this island. But on the island itself, there's a there's
a select group of a small group of people like
you know that are all kind of there to adjudicate
the thing, right the refs, Yeah, yeah, exactly, make sure
somebody doesn't show up with a gun or something, I guess,
you know.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, And the general public is at a safe distance.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yes, got to stay back. Who knows what's going to
happen in this duel here has potential like geography altering
ramifications from this battle between these great sword saints of
feudal Japan.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, so what does happen?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So the battles supposed to take place at eight o'clock
in the morning, at kind of sunrisey time period. Sake
goes out there, he's got his sword, he's sharpening his weapon.
He makes a big show of pulling it from the
scabbard and throwing the scabbard into the ocean, which at
the time was very symbolic that I do not intend
to resheet his weapon. I am going to fight to
the death. I'm not going to show you any mercy.
(27:28):
But the problem is that Musashi's not there. Eight o'clock comes,
it goes nine o'clock, there's no Musashi. He starts rowing
up like they can see him, rowing towards the island.
About nine point thirty, he's rowing out there. He claims
that he overslept, but as we know he's done this before.
This isn't something Musashi is just doing for the first time.
(27:50):
He's pulling the same move he used on both Yoshioka brothers. Yeah,
trying to ice him or intimidate him, or be disrespectful
to him in a way that would make him Yes. Yeah,
So Musashi also claims not only that he overslipt, but
do you remember the story of Masamune you were just telling,
(28:11):
and the importance of like sword, swords and weaponry, and
how that said so much about you, and how how
Sasaki Kushiro is sharpening his famous no Dachi the Demon
of the Western Provinces. Musashi also claimed he forgot his swords,
so he shows up and he's like, oh, I forgot it, sorry,
(28:32):
quote unquote forgot right, so he's kind of rowing out
there on this on this canoe and he gets there
and he gets off the canoe and he just takes
the oar of the canoe and he's like, I'll just
use this. I guess I'll fight with this. What do
you think? And Sakes go about to have a freaking
aneurysm right like, who is this guy? I'm going to
(28:54):
I'm going to kill you so hard. I'm gonna kill
you so bad that nobody will ever fight I do again.
And Musashi and him they kind of face off. Musashi
they circle a little bit, and Musashi circles so that
he has the sun at his back. They were supposed
to fight at sunrise. Now it's like nine thirty suns
at the perfect height where it's just shining right behind
(29:15):
Musashi's head directly into Sasaki's eyes. Can't see anything. Yeah,
Musashi charges, Sasaki charges. They jump. I think about the
beginning of the beginning cinematic of the original Ninja Gaiden
on the Nintendo where the two warriors jump at each other.
That's how I envision this. They jump, they swing at
the same time, and sasak hits the ground and drops
(29:38):
and is dead. Wow. And some versions of the story,
Musashi's headband is cut by the not dachi, but the
rest of him is untouched. I don't know the significance
of that, that myth, but it makes me think of
the story you just told of, like only the thing
that was supposed to get got cut.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah there's precision, yes, yeah, not a wasted motion.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And that's the end of Sakimo. Musashi crushes his head
with one swing of a boat oar, and that's how
he dismisses the greatest swordsman in Japan. And nowadays, if
you go to that island, there's a big bronze statue
of Musashi standing there holding a rowing ore, which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So he's a sword saint, but the statue is of
him holding an oar.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, he's an or saint.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Ye, he's an r saint.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Probably the greatest, greatest, greatest wielder of an ore in
the history of feudal Japan. Yeah, yeah, probably ever, probably
world history. I can't think of too many. I did
enjoy the story of John Elfred Wilson hitting crocodiles with
the boat or during the Great Locomotive Chase, but not
really the same Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Not the same, but ores can be formidable if they're
wielded by someone who knows what they're doing with them.
So what does Musashi do? Does he do a little
happy dance, a little boo yeah, victory dance? Does he
retire peacefully?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
What does he know? He's kind of done? At this point,
He's thirty. All of this has happened in his twenties,
which probably explained, God his start at age thirteen, right,
And this probably explains some of the arrogance that we
see associated with him, right, is like he was kind
of a young dude through most of this, Right, And
so at this point he decides, you know, he's He's
fought in a lot of duels. He's defeated the great
(31:26):
masters of Japan and all of their at their own game.
He's beaten them when they get their weapon, and he's
fighting with a wooden stick or something else that he's
not you know, hasn't been training on his entire life spork. Yeah,
he doesn't need to prove how tough he is anymore.
He doesn't need to prove himself. So he opens a school,
he teaches his fighting style, and he starts getting into
(31:48):
other things. As well. He branches out, he diversifies his portfolio.
He becomes an artist, poet, He writes poetry, he does calligraphy,
he sculpts, he writes, and he gets into Zen Buddhism
and Zen philosophy, and he starts writing about that, and
he does that for a while, and when that gets boring,
(32:08):
he climbs the mountain and goes lives in a cave.
And that's when he starts writing his books. And that's
when he writes the Book of Five Rings, which is
a book that now functions as a technical manual on
being a badass in feudal Japan. And that's it. At
the last half of his life, he teaches and he
writes these books, and he finishes his last book, hands
(32:31):
it off to a disciple, and then just dies a
week later. He passes away in sixteen forty five at
the age of sixty two. First, his first dual victory
was at age thirteen, and we have him documented as
winning fighting and winning sixty one duels over the course
of his career, which is which is basically double the
(32:54):
score of the second guy that we have any info on.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, what lasts is not only his reputation as a warrior,
but his writings and the Book of Five Rings Ben
you described it as a technical manual in the art
of badassory. It's divided into five parts. The rings are
named after The rings are basically chapters named after different elements.
(33:21):
So you've got the Book of Earth, where he lays
down the foundations of his strategy and well of his
strategy his technique, and in a way, the technique is
not one specific technique, but more a general way of being.
He says stuff like, do not think dishonestly, know the
(33:43):
ways of all professions, do nothing which is of no use, etc. Etc.
And he also talks about things specific to swordsmanship and
ways to think about approaching your opponent's body. He also
ends with the Book of Void, and he says stuff
like by knowing things that exist, you can know that
(34:05):
which does not exist, which on the face of it,
doesn't have anything to do specifically with martial arts or
sword skill. But this is maybe his generative spirituality or
his way of being in the world that informs all
(34:27):
of his other stuff. I'm right, that's I'm getting really
abstract for a Badass podcast, aren't I.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Well, it's interesting though, Yeah, because like the thing I
love about the Book of Five Rings is that in
some ways he's doing the like if you want to
do this, you have to do this. But it's also like, also,
if you're fighting these guys, here's how you hold the
sort up. If you're fighting a guy who uses the
down technique, and if you're fighting a guy who's holding
the sword to the left, you got to use the right.
You got to stab him in the face in between
the things. Also, you should probably take a calligraphy class
(34:53):
at some point.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Also I do love to do nothing, do nothing which
is of no use, which is just like, don't waste
your time doing stupid stuff. Yeah, but he's also like
so yeah, so there's philosophy, but there's also like very detailed,
like step by step instructions on how to win a
sword fight against your enemies. It's just like, here's everything
that I'm thinking about right now, here's here's all, here's
(35:15):
all my stuff. And the Book of Five Rings has
kind of got this art of war vibe where you
can get like, you know, you can buy people sell
like a Book of Five Rings for business, which I
don't really know how you would translate this for business,
But I guess that's also why I'm not a successful
business person.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Well, I guess in business you want to everything you do,
you want to be of use somehow.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's fair, that's fair, and you do kind of however
you define that. Yeah, and so there's a lot of
there's a lot of this, like understand how everything works,
understand like know your enemy kind of thing. There's a
lot of that in there. Yeah. The Book of Five
Rings is kind of the samurai version of the Art
of War. It's kind of held in that same category.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, some of the priests from his Dukko do which
is the path of a loneness or the way of
walking alone, or any of the other ways of translating this.
This is the last thing he wrote. It's really short.
It's just twenty one principles, just short aphorisms, short precepts.
And this is something he wrote about a week before
(36:21):
he died, and very little of it has to do
with swords or being a warrior, at least on the surface.
It's stuff like never be jealous, except everything the way
it is, do not fear death. Okay, I can see
what that has to do with being a warrior, but
also with being a non warrior also, and we talked
(36:43):
about how he's Buddhist. He says, respect Buddha and the
gods without counting on their help.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
This path of aloneness is really interesting because it's like
some of them are like, be indifferent where you live,
do not pursue good food, and all things have no preferences.
And I'm like, and this is what makes us not
good Buddhists.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Though, Pat yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
He kind of does, like he kind of finds he
finds religion later in life, and he does kind of
me he lives in a cave and he has nothing right.
This is but his entire life has always been he
had nothing right. He gave up everything because he wanted
to travel the world and have adventures and that worked
out well for him. And then at the end, like
he just you know, this wasn't important to him to
have like a nice house and no good food and
(37:25):
be distracted by worldly possessions, which is probably great in principle.
I don't know if I could live like that, but
I think I'm a little too materialistic.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I think it's a journey that we all walk in
our own way. I like it which is.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
My way of saying I don't know, yeah exactly. That's
a very diplomatic way of putting that.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, but yeah, but this is Musashi. He's a philosopher,
he's a thinker, he's a calligrapher, he's a poet. He's
a guy who lives in a cave. And he's also
a badass fighter with a sword or wooden stick or
or whatever he happens to be picking up.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Could kill you with whatever he's holding in his hands
right now.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Well, that is the story of Miyamoto Musashi. We hope
you guys liked it, and we wanted to say thank
you as always for listening. Please do subscribe to our
podcast if you liked it, and be sure to share
it with other people. It really helps the show out.
So thank you guys so much.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And remember, badasses, it's okay to think of stabbing, so
maybe don't actually do it. 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 editing
(38:47):
is by Ian Jacobs, Brandon Phibbs, Mixing and music and
sound design is by Jude Brewer. Special thanks to Noel
Brown at iHeart Badass of the Week is based on
the website Badass of Week 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
(39:10):
us at Badass Podcast at badassftheweek 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.
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