This book is a spiritual guide for the man who wishes to learn the Way. My heart has been inclined to the Way of strategy from my youth onwards. I have devoted myself to training my hand, tempering my body, and attaining the many spiritual attitudes of sword fencing. If we watch men of other schools discussing theory, and concentrating on techniques with the hands, even though they seem skilful to watch, they have not the slightest true spirit. Of course, men who study in this way think they are training the body and spirit, but it is an obstacle to the true Way, and its bad influence remains for ever.

When you have mastered the Way of strategy you can suddenly make your body like a rock, and ten thousand things cannot touch you. This is the body of a rock. Y…

The true Way of sword fencing is the craft of defeating the enemy in a fight, and nothing other than this.

There are various kinds of spirit involved in letting go the hilt. There is the spirit of winning without a sword. There is also the spirit of holding the long…

If you do not look at things on a large scale it will be difficult for you to master strategy. If you learn and attain this strategy you will never lose even t…

You can win with certainty with the spirit of 'one cut'. It is difficult to attain this if you do not learn strategy well. If you train well in this Way, strat…

Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.