I finally got around to reading this the other day and I was absolutely floored by the wisdom of this book. Obviously it is a bit outdated and I don’t agree with everything but I feel like I’ve glimpsed into the mind of a warrior who truly understood combat. Did anyone else have a similar reaction?
You seem to know a little bit about him and the book, if you are able to provide a comment on my understanding of what he means by the way?
To me it seems like he means that at any given moment there is a correct path to be taken to lead to victory in combat. So if not in a fight a person following the way should be training properly to make themselves a better fighter, and in a combat scenario there is a correct path to take to beat the opponent(s), and the former is necessary to achieve the later.
Obviously he talks about learning other things to assist in the understanding of the way. Am I kind of in the right ballpark?
I got from it that you should use everything you have to win. Conventions or form be damned. If you die with a unused reserve weapon, why even try fighting in the first place? If you have to be a dick to give you an advantage, do it.
Basically, treat every fight like a battle of armies. The location is as important as the time, as is the troop composition.
Yeah absolutely, but I’m wondering what he would say about compromising our morality to win. He describes the way of the warrior as also being the way of the gentleman and talks about being a good leader for one’s people (putting aside the gender issue here although I don’t see why anyone couldn’t be a warrior) so I wonder what he would say about that.