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The Samurai of old Japan embodied a yoga technique in the fencing instruction. The novice had to develop the power of mental concentration, and then use it by picturing himself during meditation wielding the sword to perfection. Thus the body was broken gradually to the will of the mind, and began to respond with rapid lightning strokes and placings of the sword. The famous Katsu, who rose from destitute boy to national leadership of Japan's nineteenth-century awakening, went night after night to an abandoned temple--where he mingled regular meditation with fencing practice in his ambition to become one of Tokyo's master swordsmen.

-- Notebooks Category 4: Elementary Meditation > Chapter 3 : Fundamentals > # 125