The key to the successful counterattack is staying calm while your opponent gets frustrated and irritable. In sixteenth-century Japan, there emerged a novel way of fighting called Shinkage: the swordsman would begin the fight by mirroring his opponent’s every move, copying his every footstep, every blink, every gesture, every twitch. This would drive the enemy crazy, for he would be unable to read the Shinkage samurai’s moves or get any sense of what he was up to. At some point he would lose patience and strike out, lowering his guard. The Shinkage samurai would inevitably parry this attack
...more

