Musashi at Ganryū-jima

Two of Japan's greatest swordsmen agreed to meet at dawn. One of them did not arrive on time. He won anyway.

Setting

April, 1612. A small island in the strait between Honshu and Kyushu, later renamed Ganryū-jima after the man who would die there. Sasaki Kojirō, considered by many the finest swordsman alive in Japan, had agreed to a duel against a wandering rōnin named Miyamoto Musashi. Kojirō was famous for the tsubame-gaeshi, the swallow's-return cut, executed with a blade so long it had earned the nickname "the clothes-drying pole." The duel was set for dawn. Witnesses gathered on the island. Kojirō landed and waited.

The story

Musashi was on the mainland. He did not hurry. Hours passed. The sun rose. Kojirō paced the beach. The witnesses began to murmur. Kojirō's anger built, and the building of the anger was Musashi's first weapon.

Three hours late, Musashi finally cast off. On the crossing, he is said to have taken the wooden oar of the boat and carved it into a sword while sitting in the bow — a wooden blade, slightly longer than the clothes-drying pole. By the time he reached the shore, Kojirō was at the height of his indignation.

Musashi stepped out of the boat into the shallows. Kojirō drew his long steel and threw away the scabbard. Musashi looked at the discarded scabbard and said quietly, "You have already lost. A man who throws away the sheath has thrown away his return." Kojirō charged. The duel lasted seconds. The chronicles disagree on how many cuts were exchanged — some say one, some say two. They agree on the result. The wooden oar struck Kojirō across the skull. He died on the sand.

Musashi did not linger. He bowed to the witnesses, walked back to the boat, and rowed away while the tide was still in his favour. He fought more than sixty duels in his life. He never lost. After Kojirō, he largely stopped fighting.

What it teaches

This is mushin in motion — the empty mind that has no need to win, opposed against the agitated mind that needs to. Kojirō was a master of the sword. What he was not master of was his own state. Three hours of waiting did the work of a hundred cuts. His attention was already broken before the steel left the scabbard. Musashi understood that the duel was being fought long before the blades met, and that the field was internal. Pressure activates the body's stress response; the need for a specific outcome floods the very faculties — perception, judgement, working memory — that make the outcome possible. The trained mind is the one that wants to win without needing to. Kojirō needed. Musashi only arrived.