Sword Fighting: Who is regarded as the greatest swordsman ever?
The best swordsman in human history was a legendary old man who taught his disciples and died without being able to pass on the true secret of the sword. Hence his name got lost in the mists of history. But that wouldn’t make us feel like we knew everything there is to know about the world. So, disregarding the most probable answer, which is “We will never know”, allow me to put forth an answer.This gentleman from the hoaried past of Japan has a legitimate claim to being one of the greatest and best swordsmen in the history of the exercise. Miyamoto Musashi was unbeaten in dueling throughout his life.Not many samurai have been as integral to the modern culture of the ronin as Miyamoto has been. Innumerable movies and books stand testament to this fact. His exploits are legendary, bombastic, unbelievable and most definitely exaggerated. But like always, there must have been fire to cause all the smoke.He is rumored to have fought in the battle of Sekigahara at the age of 16 after which he disappeared from the public eye, only to re emerge at the age of 21. Miyamoto went ahead and challenged the famous Yoshioka school of swordsmanship, emerging unbeaten.Not content with being a swordsman, he developed his own school of swordfighting, took up wood carving, painting, writing and numerous other pursuits. Musashi wrote on strategy and philosophy in his work “The Book of Five Rings”, which is now read by his inferiors who try to apply these teachings to much more trivial pursuits. One such image to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside before we proceed to watch cat videos on youtube.Read up on his Wikipedia page for a heavily curated, but mostly accurate history of his life. Ubermensch don’t come much greater than this one here. There’s an ongoing manga which is a fictionalised retelling of his life, called Vagabond. Check that out if you are interested as well.