In The Book of Five Rings, he explicitly criticizes the use of same length swords (a Chinese school of fencing, from what historical fiction I have read) as denying one the flexibility that he achieved with a wakizashi (shordsword) and normal katana (broad or bastard sword length). When he used two bo ken (wooden swords), he trimmed them to his desired lengths, first.
The samurai had always carried the two swords, but only used the normal length one in combat, saving the shorter sword for use like the knight's dagger, or for defending against capture by suiciding first (saved a LOT on ransom that way, I guess :-).
OTOH, the Musashi only fought in one formal battle that I know of, in which he was on the losing side. In full battle, one can't use many of the tricks of dueling without interfering with your comrades (imagine 100 Kwai Chang Caine's fighting in close order. Now stop sniggering), including most dodging. Instead teams use other tactics, like back-to-back, everyone ganging up on one guy, etc, which are better for 20 vs 20 than 1 or 2 vs 1 or 2 (see RuneMasters or Eusibius (sp?) for a fuller discussion of unit vs. individual tactics).
Powered by hypermail