book of five rings vs. tao of gung-fu

[elbows_and_knees]

sparring techniques? have you read a book of five rings? It's about philosophy and strategy, not sparring techs. you can apply the strategy to what you do, but it will not blatantly give you techniques...

I think it does actually in the "fire" section, involving swords.

Example: How he used strategy to plan out an effective technique for an opponent. I would count it as sparring tactics, because he says exactly what he did and how it could be used on other situations.

P.S. This was meant to be an edit

the fire book is all about strategy and how to implement it:

THREE METHODS TO FORESTALL THE ENEMY

sen no ken

tai no sen

tai tai no sen

He then goes into other points of his strategy:

To hold down a pillow

crossing at a ford

to know the times

tread down a sword

to know "collapse"

become the enemy to release four hands

to move the shade

to hold down a shadow

to pass on

to cause loss of balance

to frighten

to soak in

injure the corners

throw into confusion

mingle

crush

penetrate the depths

the mountain-sea change

to renew

rat's head ox's neck

commander knows the troops

let go the hilt

body of a rock

Any examples contained within he is using to illustrate a specific point of strategy, not a sparring technique. you mentioned tactics, however, which IS strategy. The poster said he was looking for sparring techniques.

[Menjo]

Ok, then somewhere in the book(to lazy to look), there was a story where he told a boy to use a specific sparring tactic to defeat a samurai. I said i thought it was in the fire section, however I was wrong, so to be safe, I'll use that story. However I dont see the point of re-writing all that,

Yes yes, this story was probably not true, and yes it had a deeper meaning, skip all the "knows" and I THINK he mentioned a tactic.

I would consider my post off topic, in response to your last sentence.

[granmasterchen]

i would say musashi......bruce lee just repeats the same things musashi and sun tsu said many years before his time and rewrote it out for the modern world and the modern use of martial arts, i don't see anything too special about that, anyone could have read those scrolls and then decided to do a comparison to how martial arts have evolved since then and how we use them now and what comparisons can we find and so on and you have his book....yep anyone could do that., no offense to anyone buy im just one of the many many many people that aren't huge bruce lee fans.