The Book of Five Rings

Japanese martial arts books evolved from books on the art of war. One of the most representative of these early martial arts books is Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings”. It is a superb book. It is written in a short but well-developed and condensed text, and the entire book is divided into five chapters: “Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Air.
The emphasis throughout the book is on kata. He taught how to hold a sword, how to face an opponent, how to move one’s feet, and many other things, all of which could be “kata”.