shoutout to james this is the first book recommendation from you that I've enjoyed! slay. this is a nonfiction book about martial arts which teaches more so the philosophy of a good warrior. i don't really think I learned that much as a lot of the stuff was pretty basic information that as someone who doesn't do martial arts already knew. stuff like "if you're trying one strategy and it doesn't work, try a new strategy!" or "try to anticipate what your opponent is going to do so you can counter it" like yes that's obvious🙄🙄 idk ig this was written in the 1600s or something and yes this is important but how relevant is it now??? all of the warrior philosophy I can see resonating with a martial arts anime nerd who has never understood of the concept of emotional intelligence but it didn't really offer me anything that I hadn't already thought of/experienced in my own life💀💀 trying to cut this book some.slack though cause maybe it was revolutionary at the time or have never properly been written down by anyone in 1600?? idk lol. I think I also have to consider the context of this book, from my understanding the guy who wrote this was a great warrior and was about to die so he wrote this as a summary of all his teachings as supplementary material for his students and it definitely reads as it. like it very much feels like a written summary of a lesson that was taught to someone with physical examples (especially the explanations of certain sword movements). anyway, despite all my complaints I still thought this was cool but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're already interested in martial arts and specifically the philosophy of martial arts and you need some where to start with literature about being a good warrior or whatever 3.5 stars