Miyamoto Musashi’s book “”The Book of Five Rings”

I have the last 5 months reread Miyamoto Musashi’s book “”The Book of Five Rings” and have had quite a lot of eureka moments, as the more times I read it I get a completely new perspective about bladed combat, I have lost count as it is more than 10 times as I don’t take notes but try to understand the full picture than just a few pieces of the puzzle, as I view it from my interpretation of the book that has changed or rather confirmed my view on how to use long bladed weapons, which is completely contrary to how I have been taught to do in sport fencing, the FMA styles I have trained and other systems where the weapon is launched first and the body moves after or at the same time.

As it is nearly the same as I have learned training AMOK! stick and machete, making it easier for me to change muscle memory and an easy transition, that in the end has removed any doubt about if I should or could combine previous training and concepts, but I cant as they are incompatible with my current one, but also teach how others systems attacks to have general idea of why and what to expect, and most importantly persons with no training based on watching how untrained persons swings a stick horizontal at shoulder height as it is the most natural way for the shoulder, so they are exposed to very different attacks to learn and experience the difference in oppositional training and sparring. 

The emphasis on using the body first to launch the attack, and with heavy stickiness on impact which will keep the pressure on the line of attack instead of a possible redirection of his weapon and an unknown counter attack path, creates situations that I have been training a lot and have explored all kinds of variations for swords, inspired by a really good chi sao like sensitivity drill I was taught by a HEMA instructor Dan Smith from the EHCG, which then opens up for a lot ways to find a Guided Discovery path/way to attack while keeping the opponent locked in a momentary fixed position, that leaves him no choice than to keep him there to avoid being cut as the power output is maximal and if he breaks contact he will get cut, or try to find a way to attack without disengaging the blade to blade contact. That is only 1 element of many that makes the book so interesting to keep reading it over and over again, the book is so full of wisdom that I find it worth to keep on finding as much as possible from a source with so much to offer.

I have used the same concept with knives and it is perfect for martial arts trained opponents that does not move their hands outside the frame of their torso when they parry, as while the other is working on a solution and is at the start of the second OODA loop (Observe, Orientate, Decide, Action) after his parry which is his 1st loop, I find a path by reflex and have finished my actions and have completed the 2nd OODA loop with my second attack that is combined with a pin, control of his weapon hand, trap, takedown or something else while keeping him on the start of the next one while I execute my Actions fast and extremely aggressive non stop, as the Decision is to go AMOK!, so he has to Observe constantly and will have difficulty to reach the Decision point. 

If the OODA loop is an unknown term I recommend reading about it as it is one of those things that is extremely important to know, and it has even more applications than only strategic warfare and combat, same goes with Musashi’s book ”The Book of Five Rings". 

Rick Hernandez blade work

Insane machete fight from Dominican Republic

I have a theory that most attacks with either long blunt or bladed weapons will be delivered in a horizontal angle at shoulder height, as it is the most natural height to swing at full speed at an opponent. This theory is based on watching persons with no martial arts training doing that consistently, even if they have received a week of intensive training. What really got me started on watching for it was seeing a show from BBC, called Last Woman Standing that was a female version of Last Man Standing, the competitors were athletes from various sports and competed against local tribes in their traditional sport, which could be wrestling against a small tribe in the Amazon at the annual wrestling competition, all the challenges were hardcore, but one of them was stick fighting in the Philippines against professional military women soldiers who had trained Pekiti Tirsia Kali for many years, they actually did win the fights and they did it not by using what they had been taught, but by swinging full speed and power horizontally, as the adrenaline rush and fear kicked in and they didn’t expect that they should fight each other in a full contact stick fighting tournament. So I started to look if that was a common attack, and so far I am right when it is not trained persons, so that has changed my priority to what attack to learn how to deal with first, the horizontal caveman swings. 

Kratos Combatives combat laboratory HD

Experiments with new ideas in a non cooperative format, we test our new ideas without telling the other what you have planned to get a real response based on reflexes, and not by letting him counter what you are doing by announcing your intention. This is how we experiment in a sparring format, were the primary goal is to test if the idea works or not, it’s not a sparring match to see who wins, only to try and functionalize our plans and see if it can be done with the lowest risk to be countered, as a double kill is not a good trade off, we want to see if we can succeed and avoid getting hit while delivering the attacks.