The following text is translated by one of the Fudokan students William Stonborough,  from a compilation of Hida’s writings in French by Kenji Tokitsu (author of Miyamoto Musashi – his life and teachings). 

“I was the eighth child in a family with a less than brilliant life. When I was born, my father was already 50 and my mother lacked milk… I was very thin, with a girl’s face and walk. The other children would often carry me around on their backs at play because I was so light. Guests at the house often asked me if I was a girl. My bones were small and my skin was pale, dry and without fat. This was why I was often rubbed down with oil on my whole body.

Thus death was ready to snatch me, like my brothers and sisters. When I was six, I caught typhus, which then caused a pneumonia and violent diarrhoea. My temperature was at 40 degrees and the doctors had given up hope.

My father ( a doctor)  had lost another of his sons that same year and was distraught. The day before the festival of the dead, he said “I would like him to survive, if only for the next three days, so I can spend the festival of the dead with him”. I did not die, but I was only skin and bones…

I was continuously sick during my childhood and thus I familiarised myself with a great many medicines. I had a fragile digestive system, I continuously suffered from migraines and dizzy spells, I constantly caught colds. My life’s horizon was a sick-bed. The image of my childhood is that of a frail boy, only skin and bones, shivering upright against the cold wind. What a dark childhood it was!…

Later, my peers nicknamed me ‘reedy leaf’; I was not capable of standing up against such a humiliating nickname. I could only accept it and, when it became too difficult to bear, I would leave without being noticed. My biceps were no bigger than my wrists, I was ashamed of my body and I despaired at the thought that it could not withstand the least effort. I was, in truth, a ‘reedy leaf’…”

At the age of eighteen, the consciousness of the fragility of his body drove him to make the decision to change his own body.

“One day, I began to think about my future, about my destiny within society. I became afraid and began criticising myself. I thought: “Oi, Harumitsu! What will you do if you’re such a loser? A bit of cold and you catch a cold. You eat a little something and you get stomach ache, then diarrhoea. You get tired as soon as you walk a little. When you’re asleep, you have only nightmares. What’s the point of living like this? What a sad life you’re leading. The only thing you’re good for is to nourish the earth of your grave.”

This horrible thought struck me to the heart and a great whirlwind of feeling rose up in my chest, already so crushed by this feeling of inferiority…

My innermost Self wanted to achieve a good state of health and a robust body, the way a man who is dying of thirst craves a drink. I didn’t just want to become healthy – I wanted to become strong, really strong, so as to be able to bravely do something for others. this desire became a determination in which I wholly invested myself, and it enabled me to transform my body and my spirit, in the end. This was in April 1900. I was 17…