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December 2020 Book Survey: Miyamoto Musashi

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  Introduction Daruma (Bodhidharma) Meditating, Eisei Bunko Museum/Foundation Are you a fan of Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, 1582- 13 June 1645)? I wanted to know as much as historically possible about this famous samurai, which led me to reading and studying the books profiled in this post.  At Martial History Team we promote  martial arts history based on sound evidence and sourced research . This meant that fictional works like Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (English edition, 1981) were out of scope for this review.  I focused on three sorts of books: 1. Translations of Musashi's best known book, the  The Book of Five Rings (五輪の書, Go Rin No Sho ) 2. Biographies 3. Supporting works Some of the books I read fit into more than one category, and will be noted below. As I am neither fluent in Japanese nor in the possession of the Japanese source material for this book, I cannot comment on the translation -- except when it is clear that the author is not actually translati...
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Did Miyamoto Musashi Say Something Like "There is nothing outside of yourself..."?

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I am not a life coach! Introduction Aside from sourcing so-called "Bruce Lee quotes,"  I usually don't pay much attention to other sayings attributed to martial artists. I ran into this quote yesterday, however, and it triggered my radar: "There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself." The quote is attributed to Miyamoto Musashi, the famous Japanese swordsman who was the topic of the first official Martial History Team podcast episode . The question is, did he say anything like this? The Source The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings, 1994 The source of this saying is easy enough to find. It appears in the book first published by Tuttle in 1994 as The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings , by Steve Kaufman. The subtitle says "The definitive interpretation of Miyamoto Musashi's clas...
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The True Story of Bruce Lee's "Definite Chief Aim" Letter

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What is the true story behind Bruce Lee's "Definite Chief Aim" letter? Introduction I (Richard) was tracking down another bogus Bruce Lee quote, as part of the Sourcing Bruce Lee project. Along the way I encountered an article titled  Bruce Lee’s Never-Before-Seen Writings on Willpower, Emotion, Reason, Memory, Imagination, and Confidence , published by Maria Popova for Brain Pickings on August 1, 2016. I looked quickly at the contents and realized I had already seen at least some of it in the Bruce Lee Library and more .  This line caught my eye, however: "[H]ere is an exclusive look at several pages from his 1968 pocketbook, penned shortly before Lee’s twenty-eighth birthday, each transcribed below, beginning with Napoleon Hill’s “Daily Success Creed,” which Lee copied into his notebooks." It is rare to see an author recognize when Bruce Lee copied material into his notebooks. (It happens, as noted in my writings, but not as frequently as it should.)  I had a...
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