The greater swordsman....

[Dwimmerlaik]

Hmm...was it Miyamoto Musashi,or Muso Gonnosuke who beat him with bo and sword? Or even another?

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To be happy it is necessary not to be too intelligent

- Flaubert-

[Anssi Hakkinen]

"Well, all right, someone has to reply something!"

According to my sources (all of them agree on this, i.e. I have one source), Musô Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi was defeated by Miyamoto Musashi. In that duel, Musô used the bô staff, while Musashi used his customary twin swords. After being defeated, Musô withdrew to a temple situated at the mountain of Homan-za (in Kyûshû), where he is said to have had a vision of divine origin. Inspired by this, he shortened and thinned out his bô, thus creating the jô staff. He went out again, asked Musashi for a rematch and soundly beat him with this new weapon. (His style evolved into what is currently the most widespread and most well-known jôdo (jô staff fighting) style, the Shindô Muso ryû jôdo.)

BTW: I'm experimenting with using the French "circonflexe" (^) accent to approximate the Japanese extended vowel syllable, or whatever it's called. Please let me know if it looks funny with your fonts, annoys you or anything else.

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"The ancient rule declares that letters are the left hand and militarism the right. Neither must be neglected."
- Hôjô Sôun

[This message has been edited by Anssi Hakkinen (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Jpf]

GASP!

Is this really true Anssi?

I've only read the 'Musashi' novel, and if I remember rightly he only admitted to being defeated by a 'Bo' wielding opponent because.........
he had felt the tip of the staff touch his sternum or clothing just before dealing the killing blow.

He didn't kill his opponent for this reason, out of respect for the man's skill, they became friends after this.

I'm sorry I cannot remember the 'bo' wielder's name, but I do not have the book to hand.

I take it your account is from a historical text?

[Anssi Hakkinen]

I took that above information from a booklet named "Bu - the Profession of the Samurai", published by the Finnish Society of Friends of Japanese Culture. It's no more specific than I was, i.e. it only says Musô won the match in which he used the jô staff. I have no more information.

The "booklet" is actually a hundred-odd pages long with an extensive list of sources. It doesn't specifically say so, but I assume the above information is from "The history of Shindô Musô Ryû Jôjutsu" by Matsui Kenji, published by International Hoplology Society, Inc. (Hawaii 1993). I would consider this a "non-fictional" source, in the sense you meant, but likely the book has derived its own source material from Japanese legend (considering the presence of divine revelations and such), so there isn't really any way to know what the truth is.

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"The ancient rule declares that letters are the left hand and militarism the right. Neither must be neglected."
- Hôjô Sôun

[Tachikaze]

Anssi
I think the ^ (in the US we call it a circumflex) works OK. I don't understand why I can write ò ó ô õ ö and ø with the ASCII letter set, but I can't write an O with a bar over it.

If we don't use the circumflex, we have three choices:

Forget the extra O syllable -- Kyoto
This looks good, but if you want to know the proper pronunciation, there is no indication that the first O is twice as long as the second one.

Use a double O -- Kyooto
This causes English-speakers to pronounce the word "kyu-toe"

Use the "u" syllable as they do in Japanese -- Kyouto
In Japanese kana, they use the "u" character, rather than the "o" character for the second O syllable most of the time. This looks weird, and English-speakers will still mispronounce it.

So, the circumflex is the best answer for those of us who rely on the ASCII letter set.

Isn't it great we can have these deep, important conversations on this fôrum?

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Domo arigatô gozaimasu, Tachikaze-sama (or where-ever those accents belong http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ), thanks for the information, even though it's completely offtopic. The STW standard seems to be to forget the accents and let the puny end-user use whatever pronounciation he mistakenly feels appropriate (I can imagine the dev team laughing evilly http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif ), but I think I'll stick with the circumflex, when I can be bothered. I believe it's easier to make with the Finnish keyboard set, which has numerous special characters for our own language, so it's not terribly inconvenient, and, as you pointed out, the nearest form to the correct one.
Quote Isn't it great we can have these deep, important conversations on this fôrum?[/QUOTE]ROTFL http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Well, I doubt the Romans used the circumflex, but they really did pronounce it with a long vowel. This must be adopted for general use! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Note to administrators: please don't move the thread to Off-Topic, we'll stop here. So let's write the next post about Musashi, shall we?

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"The ancient rule declares that letters are the left hand and militarism the right. Neither must be neglected."
- Hôjô Sôun

[FwSeal]

Ok, just to stick in a token Musashi comment, its interesting that Musashi himself claimed never have to been defeated, saying 'although I dueled more then sixty times, never once did I lose." (that from the Book of Five Rings). Of course, I doubt he would have written: '..never once did I lose - okay, well, there was that ONE time...'

[Tachikaze]

I think Musashi used the circumflex when he wrote the Book of Five Rings.

In Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, Mifune, I mean Musashi, fought to a draw with one challenger, didn't he? I haven't seen the film in many years, so I could be wrong.

I have the Musashi book, but I'm looking at it and it's pretty thick . . .

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[Obake]

Bear in mind Seal-san that Musashi had already defeated Gonnosuke in their first encounter and Musashi had spared his life!

Their second encounter then "didn't count" as Gonnosuke already owed his life to Musashi and could not therefore "officially" win another duel with Musashi.

Honor in Japan is much more rigid than the Chivalric code of Europe.

Obake

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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

[ShaiHulud]

If memory serves, Gonnosuke's mother instructs him, during the battle, to drop his hips. As he and Musashi were in zugzwang following his mother's advice brought his weapon back into play without allowing Musashi any advantage. Mushashi allowed that he'd been beaten.
Thanks for the insight into WHY Gonnosuke denied himself that victory. I'd never heard of that particular chivalric rule.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! (And you'd better reply too, or I'll post this as a new thread... I fail to see why people don't bother to read old threads simply because they were created a long time ago... Nag nag..)

I surfed around the 'Net a bit at a time when I was long supposed to be asleep and found a page that clears up our problem! It appears Mr. Wayne Muromoto was even more bothered by this issue than we were / are, because he has written a whole essay on the subject (well, Shindô Musô ryû too). Go to
The Koryu.com Budo Library (http://koryu.com/library/wmuromoto1.html)
to find out: the source is a book named Kaijo Monogatari, written in 1629, which pretty much predates any and all sources at our disposal. The story is too lengthy to relate here, but I encourage you to visit koryu.com (http://koryu.com) otherwise: it has great articles on many martial arts ryûs and some general history as well, including an essay on female samurai.

So, am I The Man or what? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif (I know; "what" *sigh*)

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"A bushi who has mastered the jutsu but knows nothing of the do is like a priest who preaches one thing and does another."
- Shimmen Miyamoto Musashi

[The Black Ship]

No you Da Man Anssi!

Great find, great read (at least the first part http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif).

[ShaiHulud]

Ansi...LoL...Yeah, you're the man! Interesting departure from the book 'Musashi'
and a lot more info on Gonosuke, too.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks