Pick up a guitar.
Step onto the dojo floor with a sword.
On the surface, these two worlds couldn’t be further apart—one sings, the other cuts.
And yet, both demand the same thing: presence.
I’ve lived most of my life between these two poles. For almost three decades, the guitar has been my companion, a mirror, and a teacher. For over a decade, the sword—through Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu and Taisha Shinkage Ryu—has been my other school of discipline and discovery.
What I’ve learned is that the distance between a chord and a cut is much smaller than it might look.
Why presence matters more than technique
When I first started guitar, I thought progress meant more scales, more speed, more “stuff.” The same happened when I first stepped into kenjutsu—I thought precision of cut and memorising tons of kata, cuts and blocks were the goal.
But I remember one of the first evenings at practice, when the sword in my hand felt heavy, disconnected, lifeless. I was holding it like it was a shovel. I had no clue about what I was doing and found myself thinking about other things, or worrying about what the advanced people will say about me when they look at me.
This in turn, reminded me of a time years earlier, when I played a solo in front of a crowd. I knew every note, but the performance fell flat. Why? Because I was inside my head, worried about mistakes. The guitar was just wood and strings until you come back to the present moment and play with it, not through it.
Presence is the bridge between “playing notes” and making music. Between “swinging a sword” and cutting with intent.
The rhythm of combat, the rhythm of music
Musashi wrote that timing (hyoshi) is everything. You can strike with perfect form, but if your rhythm is off, it means nothing.
I experienced this during sparring once: I had just finished a kata, executed it correctly and started to move backwards without continuing to threaten my opponent (who happened to be my sensei). I withdrew ever so slightly too early, without paying attention to him and because he didn’t feel threatened anymore, he stroke my hand with the tip of his blade in order to showcase the lack of perception in rhythm for the rest of the people who were watching. Lesson learned, indeed.
It was the same frustration I had when I tried to jam with other musicians in my early years. I could play fast and clean alone, but when the drummer shifted the groove or the bassist held back, I fell apart. I was playing at them, not with them, because I wasn’t able to listen and follow the groove.
Both lessons taught me the same truth: rhythm is alive. You don’t own it—you pay attention to it and follow it, like stepping into a river. Whether with sword or guitar, you must watch, listen and feel first.
The power of emptiness
One of the first things that fascinated me in kenjutsu was maai—the distance between you and your opponent. Sometimes the most powerful moment is not when you close the gap, but when you hold the space and wait.
I felt the exact same thing while teaching guitar: a student once rushed every phrase, cramming notes into every bar, afraid to let silence sit. I asked them to play just one note… then pause.
At first, it felt unbearable for him. Then, suddenly, the silence became electric—the next note carried more weight.
That day I realized: sword and music both teach you that emptiness is not absence—it’s presence in disguise.
The self gets out of the way
There’s a state in kenjutsu where you stop trying to “do” the kata. The body moves, the cut appears, the strike lands. It’s as if the sword is moving you, not the other way around.
I have very vivid memories from when sparring feels effortless especially in balintawak arnis, and I barely recalled what I had “done”, the body and the senses acting instead of my mind. The japanese call this “mushin”. Us westerners call it flow… and I don’t think the filipinos give a rat’s ass. They’re just there to fight. Kidding aside, the same happened on stage during my first ever concert with a philharmonic orchestra, back in 2008. I got lost in the music, as if I entered a trance and the only thing I remember, is the orchestra conductor starting the piece. When the song ended, I had no memory of “playing.” It was just the applause of the public and the organiser of the show telling me “Congrats, you made it in the team!”
That’s when I truly understood: presence is substraction. You don’t add more control—you let go of the noise inside until only the moment remains.
Lessons for Life
The more I walk both paths, the clearer it becomes: guitar and sword are not separate disciplines—they are mirrors teaching the same lesson.
- To be aware of your breath before the note or the cut.
- To listen to the other—whether opponent or bandmate—before acting.
- To trust silence as much as sound, stillness as much as movement.
And above all, to show up fully—not halfway, not distracted, but present.
Because in the end, whether you strike a string or a sword, what really cuts through… is you.