How Boxing Workouts Can Transform Your Fitness Routine?
Explore how boxing challenges the body and mind, helping you overcome training plateaus, build functional strength, and improve cardiovascular health.
Issai Chozanshi
Bio
Issai Chozanshi (伊勢貞丈, 1659–1741) was a Japanese samurai, scholar, and writer from the Edo period. His real name was Niwa Jurozaemon Tadaaki, and he is best known for his philosophical work on martial arts and strategy, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts (武道初心集, Budō Shoshinshū).
Chozanshi was a samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate and had a deep interest in Zen Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. His writings explored the relationship between nature, philosophy, and martial arts, often using allegorical tales and dialogues involving demons, tengu (goblin-like spirits), and legendary warriors.
His most famous work, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts, presents profound lessons on adaptability, the mind’s role in combat, and the importance of harmony with nature. It remains a widely studied text among martial artists and philosophers today.
When you gamble for tiles, you are skillful. When you gamble for your belt buckle, you begin to hesitate; and when you gamble for gold, you get confused. Your skill is the same, but you get cautious because you value something outside yourself. When you do this you become awkward inside.
Swordsmanship is the art used at the border between life and death. It is easy to throw away your life and proceed toward death, but it is difficult not to make life and death two... Entrust life to life, and entrust death to death; but do not make this mind two... With this, you will gain complete freedom.
Being composed and being off-guard may look alike, but they are quite different. You should first test this out for yourself.