The “Budo Beat” Blog features a collection of short reflections, musings, and anecdotes on a wide range of budo topics by Professor Alex Bennett, a seasoned budo scholar and practitioner. Dive into digestible and diverse discussions on all things budo—from the philosophy and history to the practice and culture that shape the martial Way.

I was in northern Kyushu the last few days on business, making the rounds of a few companies in the construction industry. Meetings done, I stepped outside into weather that was frankly too damn good to waste on balance sheets and hard hats. A flawless blue sky, crisp air, and really sharp light that seemed to mock anyone wasting time indoors. Since my translation of Yoshikawa Eiji’s novel Miyamoto Musashi is set to be published in March 2026, what better time to make another pilgrimage to the very place where the novel (and Musashi’s most celebrated duel) comes to its dramatic close?

All it took was a quick train hop from Kokura, followed by a couple of brisk boat rides, and then suddenly I was stepping onto Ganryū-jima Island. Better known as the stage for Musashi and Kojirō’s legendary duel, it’s a tiny, flat island in the Kanmon Strait off Shimonoseki. Once called Funashima, its shape and size have been altered by land reclamation, naval fortifications, and even shipwrecks. At different times it has served as a cholera facility and later as a restricted military zone where cameras were banned. Settlers lived there after WWII, but it has been uninhabited since 1973, apart from the odd raccoon dog said to have wandered over from the mainland. Who knew the little buggers could swim?

Today, the island is a quiet park redeveloped in 2003 alongside NHK’s Musashi drama. Visitors arriving by ferry find bronze statues of Musashi and Kojirō facing each other across an open plaza, monuments, a fishing deck, and trails that hug the shoreline. Smoking and swimming are forbidden, there are no shops or vending machines, and much of the land is still private. Yet the place retains a calm dignity. It’s an oddly fitting memorial to a duel that’s grown far larger in legend than the island itself. Being a weekday, and apart from a few gulls and the odd Chinese tourist, I pretty much had the island entirely to myself. It felt tranquil, almost absurdly so, when you consider that this quiet patch of rock was the stage for the most famous one-on-one in Japanese history.

The official story is tidy. In 1610 (not 1612 as is commonly thought) Musashi faced Sasaki Kojirō, known as “Ganryū” after the school he founded. Kojirō wielded his famous three-shaku (91-cm) sword (Drying Pole), already longer than most. Musashi arrived with a four-shaku (121-cm) wooden sword, supposedly carved from an oar on his way over in a little boat. The match began… And, you’ll have to buy the novel to find out what happened 😉

Well, most people already know how it turned out. In any case, standing on that island with the sea glittering around me, it was hard not to replay the scene in my mind. Yet as with most legends polished over centuries, the details quickly slide into fog. Kojirō wasn’t some braggart lured into a trap. No, sir. He was a respected instructor for the Hosokawa clan, the “Demon of the West”, a man with real standing. Musashi’s challenge was formally registered through a senior retainer, Nagaoka Sado-no-Kami Okinaga, who in turn obtained permission from his lord, Hosokawa Tadaoki. For the Hosokawa to sanction the match was astonishing. Kojirō risked everything: his reputation, his life, and by extension the clan’s stability. If he fell, his disciples could well have rioted. For an outside lord like the Hosokawa, drawing shogunate attention to violent disruptions was the last thing they wanted. And yet, they allowed it, under strict conditions: the fight would happen out of the way on Funajima Island (renamed Ganryū-jima after the fact), with only appointed officials present.

Why did Musashi push for it? Was it a blood feud, as later popular culture liked to frame it? The records hint at something more political. After the fight, Musashi hurried to Moji and sought refuge at the residence of Numata Nobumoto, a high-ranking Hosokawa vassal. Nobumoto sheltered him and eventually arranged an armed escort to reunite Musashi with his father, Munisai, in nearby Buzen. That detail complicates things. Munisai had connections with the Hosokawa, even instructing some of their retainers, including, possibly, the very man who arranged the duel. Was this Musashi’s fight at all, or was he standing in for his father in a simmering rivalry?

The idea isn’t far-fetched. In many domains, multiple schools of swordsmanship co-existed. Harmony was never guaranteed. Students could be zealously protective of their teacher’s style and rivalries ensued even within the same clan. Munisai’s Tōri-ryū dual-sword method (yes, Musashi’s father taught it) must have looked eccentric, perhaps even ridiculous, to Kojirō’s camp. Mockery is timeless, and it’s easy to imagine Kojirō’s disciples sneering. Musashi, newly arrived in Kyushu, might have been only too happy to return the favour. In such an atmosphere, the Hosokawa leadership may have decided it was better to let the matter burn itself out in one controlled match. If Kojirō won, his supremacy would be unchallenged. If Musashi won, the loss was against a swordsman of great repute, not another clansman. And once Musashi moved on, the storm would pass.

The accounts we have are unanimous on one point: Musashi emerged the victor. But even that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theories. For example, the Numata-kaki claims that Musashi’s disciples had smuggled themselves onto the island, and that they, not Musashi, delivered the fatal blow to a wounded Kojirō. Outraged, Kojirō’s men sought revenge, hence the armed escort out of town. More likely, this version was a convenient fiction crafted by Nobumoto to cool tempers and save face. After all, if Musashi had really broken the strict terms of the duel by sneaking in assistants, the Hosokawa would have had no choice but to act against him.

Walking around the island, the gap between the story and the quiet present felt almost comical. The striking bronze statues capture Musashi and Kojirō in the instant before swords connect, frozen mid-swing for eternity. A small shrine pays homage to Kojirō, whose fame, ironically, rests on his defeat. It’s a humbling reminder of how much he staked on that single encounter. One moment he was the dominant swordsman of western Japan. The next, he was reduced to a cautionary tale, remembered more for his downfall than his triumphs.

Between the duel with Kojirō in 1610 and the Siege of Osaka in 1615, Musashi pretty much slips from the record. This silence was probably no accident. The Tokugawa regime was cracking down on unsanctioned duels that threatened public order. Sword fights to the death had to fade into the shadows until protective equipment and regulated fencing methods emerged much later, in the 18th century. For Musashi, though, the gap marks something else: a turning inward. After Ganryū-jima, he seems to have shifted from proving himself with the sword to seeking the deeper philosophy of combat that culminated in The Book of Five Rings.

That change in Musashi is something I felt keenly as I stood on the island. For me, too, Musashi has never been just about the duels. His life and writings have been threads running through my own journey; first as a student of budo in Japan, then as a researcher and teacher, and as a translator tackling Musashi’s own works and Yoshikawa’s mammoth novel… To walk the ground where Musashi and Kojirō clashed was not just sightseeing. It was a personal checkpoint. It reminded me of how myth, history, and individual obsession can intertwine, crossing epochs and oceans.

Ah! I almost forgot. I even found a poem on the island on this notice board. It was written by Saitō Mokichi (1882–1953), one of the most important Japanese poets of the modern era, when he visited the island in 1921.

わが心いたく悲しみこの島に命おとしし人をぞおもふ
Waga kokoro itaku kanashimi kono shima ni inochi otoshishi hito o zo omou

“My heart aches with deep sorrow,
as I think of the one who lost his life
on this island.”

In Japanese cultural memory, Ganryū-jima is usually framed as the heroic site of Musashi’s triumph. Saitō flips the lens: instead of praising Musashi’s strategy, he honours Kojirō as a tragic figure, the one who “lost his life.” It’s an act of humanisation and mourning, giving voice to the defeated rather than just the celebrated. I thought it was very poignant.

https://youtu.be/KaFCcttQ1MQ

I left Ganryū-jima on the same boat I had arrived on. For all the speculation, all the conspiracy theories, all the stories stretched thin by time, one fact remains: from that encounter sprang one of the defining episodes of Japanese culture. Four centuries later, on a Tuesday afternoon with the island almost to myself, I felt oddly grateful for that duel. Without it, I doubt I’d have spent so much (if any) of my life chasing Musashi through training halls, books, and translations. I’m sure I’m not alone in this sense.

If you want the real Musashi, you can read my translation of his works in the book shown below. And if you’re up for a not-so-historically-reliable but utterly gripping retelling, get ready for Yoshikawa Eiji’s Musashi, which I’ve translated, and which will be published in March 2026. It’s a ripping yarn, even if it plays fast and loose with the facts.

I’ll also be making a series of podcasts and videos in the coming weeks to dig into Musashi’s life. There’s far too much garbage floating around about him, and it’s time to sift the substance from the dross. Ganryū-jima may be calm and quiet today, but standing there in the stillness reminded me how the island’s silence throws the endless noise of debate into sharper relief. That contrast, I think, is Musashi’s real legacy: a calm core that endures even as the arguments rage on.