Musashi Defeats Kojirō: Birth of a Sword Master

Miyamoto Musashi arrived at Funajima (also called Ganryujima) island deliberately late on April 13, 1612, for his duel against Sasaki Kojiro, the most celebrated swordsman in Japan. Kojiro waited on the beach, increasingly agitated. Musashi had carved a wooden sword from a spare oar during the boat crossing. When he stepped ashore, Kojiro drew his famous long sword, the "Drying Pole." Musashi killed him with a single blow. The duel at Funajima was Musashi's most famous encounter and arguably the most storied single combat in Japanese history. He was approximately 28 years old. By his own account in The Book of Five Rings, written near the end of his life, he fought his first duel at thirteen and won over sixty more before retiring from dueling at age thirty. Born in Harima Province (modern Hyogo Prefecture) around 1584, Musashi grew up during the turbulent end of Japan's Sengoku period. He fought at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 on the losing side and spent the following decades as a ronin, a masterless samurai, wandering Japan and challenging swordsmanship schools. He developed niten ichi-ryu, a distinctive two-sword fighting style that used both the katana and the shorter wakizashi simultaneously. The style was considered unorthodox and was dismissed by traditionalists. Musashi's undefeated record silenced the critics. Kojiro was a master of the Ganryu school and was known for a technique called the "swallow cut," a sweeping overhead strike of devastating speed. The matchup between Kojiro's precision and Musashi's unorthodox approach captured the Japanese public imagination and has been retold in novels, films, manga, and television for four centuries. In his later years, Musashi settled in Kumamoto as a guest of the Hosokawa clan. He painted, practiced calligraphy, and wrote The Book of Five Rings, a treatise on strategy, combat, and philosophy that has been studied by martial artists and business strategists worldwide. He died in 1645, reportedly in a cave where he had retreated to write.