Awesomeness comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s a monumental Pyramid sized thing. Other times it’s tiny, microscopic like a transistor. Sometimes it’s so obvious and in-your-face that you’d notice it even if you were blind. Other times, it’s subtle, nigh imperceptible but to the most discerning and observant. The following story is of the latter kind. How sometimes, awesomeness may not be recognized unless you know what you’re looking for.
In the world of Japanese swordsmanship, there is probably no one more famous than Miyamoto Musashi. He’s often considered to be the greatest samurai warrior ever, a peerless master of the katana, the Japanese sword. But technically, he was a ronin. Ronins were masterless warriors with no liege lord who often wandered from place to place, seeking permanent employment as retainers or weapons instructors.
Musashi was indeed a ronin, but he didn’t wander seeking employment. He wandered seeking to challenge himself so that he could raise his skills for its own sake. Others were not so Zen about it. There is a story of Musashi that tells of his visit to another famous sword master of his time, Sekishusai. Sekishusai ‘s real name was Yagyu Munetoshi and he was a the weapons instructor for the Shogun himself. This tale is about Musashi’s first meeting with Sekishusai and how sometimes it takes a master to recognize another master.
The time that this story took place – the early Edo period when the Tokugawa clan was consolidating their hegemony over Japan and imposing peace on the whole of the island – was a time when the samurai were slowly putting down their swords and picking up other pursuits. Sure they were still the warrior class and that called for skill at fighting, but with the end of the civil war that had plagued Japan for over 150 years, constant warfare was at an end. Many samurai found themselves either on the losing side of the Tokugawa consolidation and thus without a patron, or simply squeezed out of a cushy fighting-man’s position without constant warfare to drive up demand. The job market was tough for those who lived by the sword. To stand out in this labor pool they had to prove that they were as good as they boasted and that meant many samurai roamed the land offering up and provoking challenges.
Such was the situation in Nara province where this story takes place. Musashi had traveled there to request a duel with Sekishusai, the head of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu school of swordsmanship. He wasn’t there strictly there to promote himself by winning a duel – he was there more to test himself to see if he was as good as he thought of himself. Who better to test himself against than the Shogun’s own sword-instructor. And if he wasn’t, then maybe he could learn something to add to his repertoire. But there was another who was there expressly for the purpose of self-promotion.
Musashi happened to lodge at the same inn as one Yoshioka Denshichiro. Yoshioka was a famous swordsman from the Yoshioka-ryu school in Kyoto. Yoshioka had himself come to Nara to challenge Sekishusai. This wasn’t too surprising since it was a time when various schools of arms were jockeying to become retainers of the Tokugawa house, the new Shogun of Japan. Since the Yagyu school was an official retainer of the Shogun, if Yoshioka could prove that he was better than the head of the Yagyu school, he had a good case to make to the Shogun to take on the Yoshioka school instead.
Sekishusai was a master of the sword who had fought in the wars of the Sengoku period for decades, and had retired to polish his skills further. He had impressed the Tokugawa clan enough, and his sons and grandsons served the new Shogun as warriors and instructors, but Sekishusai himself had essentially retired. He had nothing more to prove to the outside world, so he ignored most challenge requests.
That day that Musashi came to the inn, a servant from Sekishusai came to deliver a note and a box to Yoshioka. She apologized to Yoshioka stating that her master would not be meeting him for a duel as he was ill with a cold. As a token of his sincerity she presented to him the box, in which was a single peony flower. She had been ordered to make sure that Yoshioka received it.
Yoshioka took a glance at the flower, and laughed. He picked it out of the box and flung it to the ground in the inn’s garden. He then sent the servant on her way telling her that Sekishusai was an old has-been, a feeble minded coward whose skill clearly wasn’t up to snuff. He then went out with his entourage to drink and celebrate his “victory” over the headmaster of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu school of swordsmanship.
Now Musashi had overheard everything. Afterall, he himself had come to the city to try his sword against Sekishusai. Once Yoshioka was gone, Musashi went into the garden and picked up the flower that Yoshioka had so carelessly tossed away.
At first, there was nothing special about the flower that Musashi could see. But after another look, Musashi suddenly noticed something that his keen eyes, honed with years of training and battle, perceived as particular. It was at the cut end of the flower. It had not been cut with scissors used for flower arrangement, which is what one would’ve expected.
It had been cut with a sword.
It was, indeed, a perfect cut. A cut of supreme precision that only a great master with immense skill could’ve made.
Musashi realized that Yagyu Sekishusai Munetoshi was not a “feeble minded coward” or an “old has-been” as Yoshioka had so arrogantly declared. He was, in fact, still a formidable warrior, one that Musashi would dearly love to test himself against, or learn from. So he took out his sword, made a similar cut at the end of the stem, and had it sent to the Yagyu school as his calling card.
This tale may entirely be apocryphal. There’re few if any historical records that this meeting between Musashi and Yagyu Sekishusai Munetoshi actually took place. Both were amazing swordsmen and it’s completely possible that the story was made up after both men had become famous. It’s certainly found its way into popular culture. Nonetheless, it showcases an important point about awesomeness.
Awesomeness isn’t only present in large grand things. It may be in subtle and mundane aspects of the world, hidden from untrained eyes. True awesomeness may not be visible to someone who does not know how to look for it.
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