Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings a relevance to modern day Self Protection.
These are but a few excerpts from the infamous book for you to ponder in modern times that may serve to protect yourself and or loved ones. No one really likes violence, but as we have seen just this weekend with violent demonstrations (nothing new, humanity has always had these), but they are gaining momentum with the Q revelations and the Actions now taken against the deep state organizers and cabal.
These are simple suggestions to increase awareness, avoidance and or advantage, should you be driven to do so.
• "You’re everyday posture and position is your fighting stance". (This of course, where possible translates to your everyday natural posture, but is also relevant to striking from wherever your hands/weapons happen to be).
• "You must strike with intent and focus". _(Mindset is a critical factor, particularly proactive mindset which of course is in line with the combative mentality, if we must fight, then we will fight until there’s nothing left to fight about.
• "Think neither of victory nor of yourself but only of cutting and killing your enemy." (This is the ‘MUSHIN’ or NO MIND principle, thinking not of victory, or defeat, nor of consequence, but rather only survival, escape or victory. In combat your perspective should always be what you will do what is necessary in the now.
• "Bear in mind when your opponent starts to fear, that he is being controlled by you during combat", ‘you have victory in your hands.’ In all cases when you face a potential aggressor, his/their immediate perspective of you and you of them, begets the outcome. During a potential conflict, you seek to change their incorrect perspective of you as prey/victim into victor. This might be via a strong verbal projection of your indignation, or as decisive indisputable action and fearlessness.
• "An enemy will attack only if he feels sure of himself." Most predators seek weak prey or victims, not someone that will create attention, cause them pain or injury from pre-emptive action with victory as the only mindset.
• "By perceiving your opponents mental condition, you will always gain victory.’’ This comes from your understanding of the modern enemy, in relevance to what you are prepared for. As example, understanding body language cues and pre-conflict indicators or malicious intent in the opponents state of mind. Are they over confident, fearful, deceptive or blankly aggressive, these are sure indicators of your need to seize initiative, which will go a long way toward assuring you victory.
Miyamoto Musashi in his prime, wielding two bokken. Woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
• "Regardless of combat circumstances, you must always remain calm. Calmness is attained through meditation and belief in your own skills." Managing or controlling our emotions under stress is vital to victory as in any conflict we can can become weaker mentally if we allow our emotions to overwhelm us. Although some of the debilitating effects of adrenaline such as tunnel vision, auditory exclusion and loss of muscle control are largely autonomic (automatic body reactions), they are directly related to our preparedness and or perception of the danger at hand. The opponents ability to handle these emotional, mental and physical challenges have been enhanced by their successful experience and repeated actions and or past similar actions. The effects of adrenal stress can become manageable with preparation with the de-sensitization affect that will allow you to remain more calm and lucent during a potential threat to life incident.
• "You must train hard to be able to move into the attack and stop it before it even occurs. This takes great courage." This will come through preparation to step up when the need to survive becomes necessary by the intuition or perception of the physical attack about to unfold.
• "Use your environment well; always strive to keep your opponent back peddling into the obstacles to limit his foothold and movement." Constant forward pressure integrated with the use of our environment, captures and maintains your advantage during a conflict.
• "The ‘Way’ cannot be learned through frivolous contest." True survival are not about or enhanced by sport or art for art sake, instead realities must be included in your perceptions via real environments, clothing light and dark or even strobes as emitted by emergency vehicles produce. You can only act as you practice, this quote from Paul Vunak says it all; "in a crisis we will not rise to our expectations, but fall to our level of training’’.
• "When you understand yourself and you understand your enemy you cannot be defeated._ Sun Tsu said it before him and many have said it since, part of your overall awareness and combative functionality comes from knowing the enemy’s methods of operation, how they think, more than they know how you think. How you deal with the fear and how you will control your emotions and physical response/s are all relevant to knowing yourself.
• "Do not permit yourself to be intimidated by the size of your enemy." Outward appearance is not a valid indication of ability, strength, ability and most of all intention. Never allow yourself to clutter your mind with consequence, think only of victory.
• "The truth is that strength lies in the interior of the warrior: in his heart, his mind and his spirit." Chances are that it will be the adversity of live experience and/or hard, hard training and pressure testing of what you have, that will reveal this truth to you, so prepare yourself for the truth.
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Image Credit: masterjonathanfield, Utagawa Kuniyoshi