Entering the Void: Writing the Book of the Mind

When I sat down to write Ring Five: The Book of the Mind, I knew it would be different. The other rings were about form, rhythm, and power, things you can feel, see, and measure. But this one… this one was about what you can’t. It was about silence, about the space between thoughts, about the mental edge that separates presence from panic.

It was about the void.

At first, I didn’t know how to write that. How do you describe something that is defined by its absence? There is the literal definition of void, and then there is what Musashi meant. For Musashi the void was a place not just of the mind but of mind and body, where one can act and react fluidly without, or void of, fear, anxiety, distraction. I feel like most of us have an intuitive sense of this place. You can’t point to it, you can’t time it, and yet it’s the one thing that decides whether a swimmer performs or unravels when the pressure hits. We tend to think mind and body are separate, but not in the void, and not in peak performance.

The void isn’t emptiness. It’s clarity. Its presence. Where the mind and body meet.

Why the Void?

Every ring in Swimming’s Book of the Five Rings carries an element, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and now Void. Musashi called it “the place where nothing exists, yet all things are possible.” For swimming, that’s the mind under pressure. The moments leading up to and during a race.

When the goggles tighten, when the crowd roars, when doubt whispers what if I fail?  That’s where the void begins.

It’s not about removing pressure; it’s about moving through it. The void is that still point at the center of the storm, when thought falls away and only action remains.

Writing this chapter became a meditation on that idea. I wanted to explore what happens inside the swimmer’s mind when everything else collapses, when there’s no coach, no clock, no noise. Only breath, rhythm, and decision, and give tools on how to reach that place.

Structure: Stillness and Strategy

Like the other rings, The Book of the Mind follows the same pattern: philosophy, form, master, strategy. But the writing process felt quieter this time, almost reverent.

The opening lines came to me one morning before practice:

“In silence, in the mind, the race is already begun. In emptiness, the mind is full. The void is not absence, but presence.”

That became the anchor for the entire chapter. From there, I built around it, presence, mantra, visualization, the tools that hold a swimmer together when chaos begins.

The hardest part was defining the void without making it sound mystical. I wanted it to feel usable, something a coach could teach, something an athlete could feel. That’s where the Breath Anchor Drill and Block Ritual came from, ways to make philosophy tactile.

Stillness isn’t something you think about; it’s something you practice.

Fire and Water: Two Masters of the Void

This chapter also gave me space to honor two people who represent the extremes of mindset: David Goggins and Jiro Ono. Goggins taught me that the void can be fire, forged through pain, endurance, and the refusal to break. Jiro showed me that the void can be water, revealed through devotion, patience, and years of refinement.

At first glance, they seem like opposites. But as I wrote, I saw the truth: both lead to the same place. Presence without hesitation. Clarity under pressure. The swimmer, too, must master both, to endure and to refine, to suffer and to surrender.

On Fear and Presence

The section on fear was the one that stayed with me longest. Fear is such a strange thing in swimming, it’s invisible but heavy, it sits on the chest and tightens the breath. We talk about confidence and toughness, but not often about presence.

Writing that section, I kept coming back to a single image, a ninja on the block. Not a caricature, but a symbol of clarity. No fear of failure. No clinging to success. Just breath, body, and action.

That’s the void. It’s not about being fearless; it’s about being fully here.

Writing as Practice

The more I wrote, the more I realized I was training through the page. Every time I tried to force a sentence, it fell apart. Every time I let it breathe, it found its rhythm.

That’s what the void teaches, not control, but relationship. Between thought and action. Between focus and release. You don’t conquer the void. You learn to move within it.

The final section, The Emptiness of Form, was my way of closing that circle: When mind and body align, when breath and motion fuse, the swimmer stops thinking and simply moves. That’s mastery, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s alive.

Closing Thoughts

Writing The Book of the Mind felt like writing from the quietest place in me. It wasn’t about style or structure or even words, it was about attention. And that’s what the void really is: attention made whole.

At the end, I added a line that still feels true:

“In the void, there is no swimmer, no water, no time, only action.”

That’s where all the rings lead. Technique, rhythm, power, devotion, they all dissolve into that one truth.

The water moves. The mind watches. And in that stillness, everything becomes possible.

Study this.

Help Launch The Swimming Book of the Five Rings

This blog will always stay free, no subscriptions, no paywalls. But to make my dream of publishing The Swimming Book of the Five Rings a reality, I need your support.

Donations go directly toward editing, design, production, and promotion of the book. Every contribution, big or small, brings this project closer to the starting blocks.

If you’ve enjoyed the content here and want to see the book in print, please consider donating. Together, we can make it happen. Click the donate button below.

Donate