"Go alone to places frightening to the common brand of men." - Miyamoto Musashi

Both the eastern and western warrior traditions have a literary and historical history of the warrior’s quest. The labors of Heracles. Jason’s search for the Golden Fleece. The quest for the Grail in Arthurian legend. The Knight Errant, roaming the European countryside righting wrongs and championing the weak. The ascetic wandering samurai undertaking his Musha Shugyo seeking martial perfection. The Youxia traveling China doing the same. This is such a prevalent cultural archetype that it’s been discussed at great length academically in modern times through writers such as Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson.

There are strong reasons for the universal occurrence of these traditions. The warrior’s quest in medieval times was seen as a way to both develop and improve one’s martial skills. This was usually done in order to showcase themselves competitively in tourneys or duels and gain a position serving a lord. This holds true in both medieval Europe and Feudal Japan. The Japanese term is Musha Shugyo, which means “Warrior’s Pilgrimage.” In Europe this is called errantry, or being a knight-errant. In both cultures it was seen as a way to improve oneself beyond the possibilities of conventional training, and was seen as a personal spiritual journey as much as a physical one.

The fact that these traditions are not reflected in our current warrior culture is a loss. Part of this is the difference in how our warrior class is organized. We have no modern equivalent of the hedge knight or ronin, to be a warrior today is almost exclusively to be a soldier in a standing army. There are the private military corporations. But to be employable by those groups at any sort of significant level you have invariably accumulated experience in the military or law enforcement. This would put you past the point in your career where knight-errantry or undertaking a musha shugyo would have happened for your historical counterparts. 

There really is no true modern parallel to this custom. We have some rights of passage remaining to us but they all involve organizations and institutions. Errantry historically was a very personal and solitary thing. And excellence can be developed in groups, but mastery is always found alone.

So what lesson do we take from the warrior’s quest and the custom’s loss? We can’t wander the countryside challenging other swordsmen to duels. But, we can learn the power of solitude in our training. Training partners are vital, but the real process of self-discovery through mastery happens alone. Learn to spend the bulk of your training time alone with your thoughts and your efforts. Do this and you’ll master not just your craft. You’ll also master yourself. And that goal is the ultimate aim of training.