Welcome to Martial History Team

Martial History Team promotes martial arts history based on sound evidence and sourced research. In the coming months, expect to read book reviews, recommended history materials, and much more!

We are currently posting most of the new content on the site's Facebook page, although we expect to transition content for permanent record to this blog.

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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 translating anything. (I will
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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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Did Kano Jigoro Ask to Be Buried in a White Belt?

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  Did Kano Jigoro ask to be buried in a white belt? Introduction Today I encountered the following excerpt from a book published in 1992 by an Aikido practitioner named George Leonard, titled Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfilment : “When Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, was quite old and close to death, the story goes, he called his students around him and told them he wanted to be buried in his white belt. What a touching story; how humble of the world's highest-ranking judoist in his last days to ask for the emblem of the beginner! But Kano's request, I eventually realized, was less humility than realism. At the moment of death, the ultimate transformation, we are all white belts. And if death makes beginners of us, so does life—again and again. In the master's secret mirror, even at the moment of highest renown and accomplishment, there is an image of the newest student in class, eager for knowledge, willing to play the fool. And for all who walk the pat
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