The Warrior Archetype
On the importance of self-discipline and strategy
[post too long for email]
Probably no archetype is more misunderstood, and so held in shadow than the warrior archetype. For this article I am leaning less on Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, and more on Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings. To the Japanese, Musashi is the great “Kensei”, warrior saint. 1.
From my youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen. I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist, Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests.
After that I went from province to province dueling with strategists of various schools and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen to twenty eight or twenty nine.
When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools’ strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to realize the Way of strategy when I was fifty.
His most famous duel was with Sasaki Kojiro, renowned for inventing Tsubame-gaeshi, “swallow counter,” inspired by the flight of swallows. He was said to be Musashi’s equal. Musashi was late in arriving to the island where Kojiro was waiting with his long sword, jumped out of the boat that carried him there, rushed through the waves with no weapon but one of the oars, and killed Kojiro with one blow to the head. Thereafter he refused to use a steel sword in single combat.
Having killed 60 men in duels, he also went to war at least six times, surviving one battle in which 70,000 men died. He might have killed many thousands of men with sword or spear.
But he was also capable of this:
His ideas are no more distilled than this:
“This is the Way for men who want to learn my strategy:
Do not think dishonestly.
The Way is in training.
Become acquainted with every art.
Know the Ways of all professions.
Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.
Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
Pay attention even to trifles.
Do nothing which is of no use.“
The Book of Five Rings, Go Rin No Sho, is a short book of five chapters, respectively The Ground Book, The Water Book, The Fire Book, The Wind Book (Tradition) and The Book of the Void. Roughly half of the whole is brief explanations of sword work, or general strategy, much of which would be incomprehensible to most people, argued about still, even among those who study Kendo. But the language is otherwise very straightforward, as direct as you might imagine from a master of the sword.
In The Ground Book:
Strategy is the craft of the warrior…It is said the warrior’s is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways. Even if a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assiduously to both divisions of the Way. Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.
….When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard….to master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy…If he attains the virtue of the long sword, one man can beat ten men. Just as one man can beat ten, so a hundred men can beat a thousand, and a thousand can beat ten thousand.
…. There is timing in everything…There is timing in the whole life of the warrior….All five books are chiefly concerned with timing…If you practice day and night…your spirit will naturally broaden.
….If you learn and attain this strategy you will never lose to even twenty or thirty enemies. More than anything to start with you must set your heart on strategy and earnestly stick to the Way…Also by training you will be able to freely control your own body, conquer men with your body, and with sufficient training you will be able to beat ten men with your spirit….If there is a Way involving the spirit of not being defeated, to help oneself and gain honor, it is the way of strategy.
The Water Book is chiefly focused on the Way of the sword, which is about training the body and mind.
Language does not extend to explaining the Way in detail, but it can be grasped intuitively….If you merely read this book you will not reach the Way of strategy….Realise the principle from within your own heart [and] study hard to absorb these things into your body.
…. In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled but unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over spirited. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let your enemy see your spirit.
…You must cultivate your wisdom and spirit. Polish your wisdom: learn public justice, distinguish between good and evil, study the Ways of different arts one by one. When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realised the wisdom of strategy…. Above all you must be intent on cutting the enemy in the way you grip the sword.
…. You must understand spirit and timing, handle the long sword naturally, and move body and legs in harmony with the spirit…. Step by step walk the thousand mile road…. Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.
In The Fire Book:
In my strategy, the training of killing enemies is by way of many contests, fighting for survival, discovering the meaning of life and death, learning the Way of the sword, judging the strength of attacks and understanding the Way of the “edge and ridge” of the sword…. My way of strategy is the sure method to win fighting for your life one man against five or ten…. of course you cannot assemble a thousand or ten thousand men for everyday training. But you can become a master of strategy by training alone with the sword…. Any man who wants to master the essence of my strategy must research diligently, training morning and evening. Thus can he polish his skill, become free from self, and realise extraordinary ability. He will come to possess miraculous power.”
Obviously Musashi is more like the warrior archetype than you or I. He was Samurai and also Ronin, wandering killer for hire, entirely a product of feudal Japan and the culture of the sword. It is difficult to even imagine, standing on a battlefield with a long and companion sword, ten men with swords standing before you wanting to kill you, surviving by killing all ten men. Musashi was a legend in his own time, it is hard to imagine standing on a battlefield and facing him, he surely defeated men even before they began fighting, his presence and reputation terrifying, destabilizing. It was said he was so dedicated to finding enlightenment through the sword, he never bathed, his appearance was disheveled and uncouth. He probably looked like a demon god, scarier and more intimidating even than the image above (the last two years of his life he retired to live in a cave and wrote his book.)
The warrior is about extreme self-discipline, about reconciling with the inevitability of death, to achieve mastery in the art of war, in service to something greater than oneself. Cutting men down with the sword has fallen out of fashion, the warrior archetype for most of us is engaged in more mundane matters, like learning new skills and gaining new knowledge, taking risks, achieving our goals, writing, losing weight, getting in shape body and mind. The warrior archetype is very useful, if one is aware of it and knows how to use it. If one is not aware, the warrior archetype informs our behavior one way or another, it tends to come out sideways.
Robert Moore suggests the warrior in shadow has two aspects, the sadist and the masochist (I will leave you to imagine which describes the typical social justice warrior). The warrior in shadow abuses others and/or ourselves. There is a cowardly aspect to the masochist. The sadist is not necessarily ignorant of the warrior archetype, it is likely they identify with it to a degree they lose themselves in it, are overtaken by it and relish in violence toward others and/or ourselves. 2.
It is not just the social justice warrior acting out of the shadow of the warrior archetype, it is a lot of what we call law enforcement in this country. I met a guy recently, who was given a felony for a small amount of cannabis THC gummies. The charge wasn’t official until after Minnesota legalized cannabis gummies. He knows more about growing plants and fermenting alcohol than anyone I have ever met, a very useful fellow. A little socially awkward, maybe a bit aspergers. He lost everything. Most places won’t hire a felon or let them rent an apartment. The law enforcement people who ruined his life over such a simple thing, probably like to rail indignantly against the woke cancelling people. There is a distinctly sadistic aspect to how we do law enforcement in America, not just police but also prosecutors. The same could be said for military and intelligence. There is a lot about law enforcement, military and intelligence that is now preying upon Americans.
Many years ago, I built a bunk bed for the son of the woman I was living with. A friend had given me The Book of Five Rings (I am using for this article), thinking about the line about solitary sword practice, I made two wooden swords with some of the left over wood. I was dancing with them in the basement one day when I turned to my girlfriend and said, “everything has changed.” She asked me how, but I didn’t really know what I meant at the time. Sometime later, my girlfriend was in Hawaii, I was dancing with those swords, I hit a chair, a piece of the tip flew into the air in front of my face and I knew in that moment our relationship was over. She broke up with me when she came home.
I’m still dancing with those swords, and others I made, 15 years later. It is not about fighting, it is a dance. I know of no other exercise that is more effective at loosening joints and muscles, or more effective at improving core strength. It is about discipline, it is about training regularly even when I don’t want to, it is about being precise, fluid and direct in movement. It is about knowing that even if I don’t spar with others, even if I don’t practice anything like a traditional sword discipline, even if I would likely be cut down easily by an actual student of the Way of the sword, if I have a wooden stick in hand I’m going to do some damage. But mostly it goes to confidence, in every other aspect of life. It is about being efficient and well-practiced at learning new skills. It is about learning how to write in the most effective way.
If you are feeling stuck, like you aren’t achieving your dreams, like you don’t have confidence, like you are afraid, you might do well to call on the warrior archetype. The warrior is great for cutting through the bullshit, the lies we are told, the lies we tell ourselves, the narratives in shadow that drive us to places we should not go. Conservatives are losing America to the woke revolution, it might be time to be more disciplined in the response. Americans might want to look to the warrior archetype, to keep the pathological liars in DC and Wall Street from blowing up the world (it seems we will have WWIII before we have Covid accountability.) Or just lose some weight, America.
Despite my talk about dancing with swords, I took a look at my naked backside for the first time in quite awhile, in the mirror. The warrior in me (and the lover) was appalled. I would like to rebuild my wardrobe for my 50th birthday this summer, but I am going to need to drop about 20lbs, get a lot tighter, before I start buying expensive, quality, tailored clothing. The warrior is about self-discipline and strategy in pursuit of a goal. April, May and June I will be building an orchard, a big garden and working in a garden center. I know what needs to be done. It is the warrior in me that is going to get me through it.
A Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi, The Overlook Press, Victor Harris translation, 1974. Victor Harris was a master practitioner of Kendo, under the famous teacher Itoh Kyoitsu at the prestigious Seijudo School, who also lectured for three years at Komazawa University. Returning to England he worked as a technical interpreter of Japanese. He wrote several books on Japanese swords and sword work.
Robert Moore, Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, Rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine, 1990: pg 88-94
The first in the series:
That dance is known as 'shadow boxing' in boxing and 'kata' in karate. Its power is not to be underestimated if done properly.
I'm late on reading this and responding, but this is a powerful and insightful post, William. From your push-up regime in the last post, I know you're well on your way. I have every confidence you'll achieve your goal and earn your new wardrobe!