The Complete Musashi: The Book of Five Rings and Other Works: Definitive New Translations of the Writings of Miyamoto Musashi - Japan's Greatest Samurai

OLD Japanese Philosophy from really tough times still have VERY much to teach any Person in this World.

Good

There is no question this translation is effectively perfect. The translator is one of the leading authorities on feudal Japan and Japanese martial arts and the samurai. His introduction and notes are expertly researched and written, importantly cutting away the myth from the real person who was Musashi. I super appreciate this effort and skill on the part of the translator and commentator. I always wanted to know who the real Musashi was and I honestly find this book to give me a very good idea of him! Absolutely wonderful!Now, I have a suggestion for a second edition. It was evident to me way back when I was a teen and read a translation of the Five Rings that this is in fact a fencing manual. Back then without the internet it was impossible to actually watch modern exponents of Musashi's school performing the movements. I tried very hard to make sense of the 5 movements described in the kata, which is the absolute essence of his method of fencing, but to little avail as there is not enough description of them to allow you to recreate them. Luckily for us his school has survived over the years and it is possible to learn his kata from today's practitioners. What I suggest therefore is a detailed and illustrated explanation of how to do the kata insterted into the book. If the translator has his doubts about the exact transmission of the kata (not saying he necessarily does of course) it would still be worth including what the modern Two Heavens (Swords) as One school teaches. There is already a page showing the author holding the two swords in the five guard postures, so why not continue on and show him and a partner demonstrating the kata together with notes to explain how to do it correctly. Of course nothing replaces real face to face instruction, but given the remarkable help the "Looking at a Far Mountain" kendo kata book has done for my study of the Kendo No Kata, I am sure even just for the sake of informing the reader it would be worthy to include a similar step by step teaching of Musashi's kata in this edition of the Five Rings.Other than this, the rest of the book contains excellent and comprehensible advice on how to fence well, most of which will make little to no sense to anyone who is not already an accomplished fencer... which is again why I'd like to see the kata explained properly so at least I'd have something to start with.Now, as to why non-fencers would read this book... I don't quite get it! Some passages can relate to things other than fencing, but not too many of them.By the way, I don't see why this book would be limited to modern exponents of Japanese style fencing. The lessons make sense with some measure of interpretation for any kind of fencing. Still... his whole method is predicated on mastery of his five kata movements, so please teach these in the book!In any case, just like the works of historical Western fencers like Swetnam and Silver, this book needs to be treated as a fencing manual and requires illustrations and lessons to explain the moves.

Viele Einsichten, die beim Kenjutsu aber auch allgemeiner im Leben helfen. Besonders interessant für mich war zu sehen, dass Miyamoto in der Lage war sich aus der Spezialisierung des Kenjutsu herauszugeben und verstanden hat, dass das innere Wesen von Kenjutsu das selbe ist wie bei jeder anderen menschlichen Tätigkeit auch, wobei er auf die Zimmerei zu sprechen kommt.

translation is Good. He adds alot of backstory on Musashi before getting into the five rings portion, which is great. I would give five stars however the cover of the book had a ripe. now, its not the true cover its the paper cover on the hardcover that is riped. To me I don't care for its look. I care about the read and the read is good. You should buy this ancient classic.(:Rugby.2004