That evening, his students were eating with Bokuden and one of them was not eating. Bokuden asked what was wrong. The student told Bokuden that he had put the horse on the path to see how he would defend against the horse.

Bokuden asked his students if they thought him to be a coward because he didn’t fight the horse. They did not know what to say.

Bokuden simply said, “Only a fool would walk into a horse that kicks.”

That day, he taught his students the art of fighting without fighting.