Shinkendo

[Torayoshi]

I have been studying Shinkendo for 2 years now and I love it.

I though that you Lords and Ladies Would like to take a look at it , if you haven't heard of it.

www.shinkendo.com/main.html

Torashi

[qworg]

I met him (Obata Toshishiro) when he gave a Shinkendo demonstration in Champaign, IL.

Extremely good. I have a signed photo from him.

It's not every day you get to meet The Shredder's right hand man! (Oh, now there's some armor!)

=)

[Torayoshi]

This is the local school that i studied at :


www.shinkendoflint.com

My Sensei is in the SCA now, thats kinda my fault :-)


Torashi

[Please Delete]

You might also want to take a look at some other arts as well.

I've been studying Nakamura Ryu Battodo under David Drawdy here:

nvbudokai.org

Here's a better site for information, as it is Guy Powers's site (Powers studied Nakamura Ryu under Obata Toshishiro and then went to Japan to train with Nakamura Taizaburou--I think that was all before Obata created Shinkendo):
www.webdiva4hire.com/kenshinkan/

There are other branches of the Toyama Ryu Military Academy schools as well, and most seem to be affiliated in the states with:

www.toyama-ryu.com/ (FYI: I believe there is still a trademark and legitimacy controversy between Obata and other Toyama Ryu folks--politics that people can go look up for themselves, we probably ought not get into it here)

For those interested in going further back, I know that we have started a Mugai Ryu study group under the auspices of Ninna-gosoke, who appears to be attempting to make that ryuha more unified than it has been in the past:

www.iai.gr.jp/en/index.html

They've been trying to get back to their roots and are reintroducing tameshigiri as a more vital part of the curriculum than previously. Whereas the Toyama Ryu branches go back to about 1925 (and Nakamura Ryu and Shinkendo obviously more recently than that), Mugai Ryu goes back to the 17th century.

For other Koryu, you may want to check out koryu.com.


-Ii

[vvanfleet]

It is my understanding that these battodo techniques were created as a kind of basic gunto training, narrow in scope and purpose---they were intended to help prevent new officers at the academy from cutting off their own thumbs and the like with their brand new government issued guntos. Evidently, it was a problem.

There came to be a set of seven basic techniques which then became embellished into a couple sets of variations. All in all, Toyama Ryu consists of simple, straightforward methods of drawing and then directly felling an opponent, aptly suited for a military that no longer relied on swords for combat, but carried them just the same.

Toyama Ryu is a neat, no-nonsense brand of swordsmanship---the world certainly needs more of that. It is however, relatively narrow in scope; my teacher considers it but a “small sub-system of drawing techniques. Toyama ryu is categorized in Shinkendo as "gaiden waza" (borrowed techniques). Though ranks are awarded separately for Toyama ryu, these limited methods are taught as part of the overall curriculum and are not presented as an independent art, as they are deemed inadequate.

More on Toyama Ryu

“… After World War II, three instructors with relations to the Toyama army school resumed teaching Toyama Ryu to the public. The techniques of the three individuals began to differ as time passed, so the three men came together once in an attempt to unite and standardize their organizations and techniques. Unfortunately, this effort failed.
Nakamura Taizaburo was one of the coaches at the Toyama army school, and he was one of the three mentioned previously who resumed teaching Toyama Ryu after the war. The Zen Nippon Toyama Ryu Iaido Renmei was established to hand down these Toyama Ryu techniques, and Nakamura Taizaburo titled himself SoShihan of the Federation. This organization added an eighth technique to the original seven part battoho kata (teaching dotangiri) as well as a six part kumitachi (pre-arranged paired form).

The techniques of Nakamura's Toyama ryu changed many times over the years as he realized the irrationality of the original Gunto no Soho techniques when applied to a battle context, and he incorporated ideas from arts like Kendo and various sword ryu-ha.
Several years later, the Zen Nihon Battodo Renmei splintered into different organizations consisting of Toyama ryu, Battodo, Battojutsu, Nakamura ryu, Todo, Iai Battodo, and others.

Nakamura held many seminars in the earlier years in which Toyama ryu and tameshigiri were the focus of instruction. However, since the techniques were changing frequently during that time, the instructors that participated in these seminars now remember and teach different forms of Toyama ryu based on which seminars they had attended.
Many suwari (seiza no bu; techniques from kneeling) Iaido instructors attended these seminars. At one seminar, in which there were 200 participants, Nakamura took advantage of the opportunity to ask the Iaido instructors present why they wear their katana in the belt and practice while sitting in the formal kneeling position (seiza). They replied that they didn't know, that they were taught this way by their instructors, and as such, taught their own students the same way. None of them had asked their instructor, knew the answer themselves, or had researched the roots of their art to find out.

The fact is, historically there was no tradition of samurai wearing the katana in the belt while indoors, and while sitting in seiza position in particular because it was against the samurai code of etiquette. When the long sword is worn in the belt indoors, it is also a disadvantage in regards to freedom of movement. There were several instructors who did not care about the history, they only did what they were taught regardless of whether it was historically logical. “

[Please Delete]

I'm not really sure what the original number of kata in Toyama Ryu was.

In Nakamura Ryu there are three sets of kata and one kumitachi set: Toyama Ryu (8 kata), Seitei Toho (6 kata), and Nakamura Ryu (8 kata). The kumitachi has 6 two-person kata.

(see Kenshinkan Dojo for more information)

This statement is a bit misleading:

Several years later, the Zen Nihon Battodo Renmei splintered into different organizations consisting of Toyama ryu, Battodo, Battojutsu, Nakamura ryu, Todo, Iai Battodo

It is difficult to follow the histories though. 'Battodo', 'Battojutsu', and 'Iai Battodo' are used almost interchangeably by many practitioners I've known and talked with. You could add things like 'Gunto Toho', 'Happo Giri Toho' (at least for Nakamura Ryu), etc.

It seems there were three major organizations as of 2001:
Dai Nippon Toyama Ryu Iaido Kai (founded by Morinaga Kiyoshi sensei [d. ca. 1986], a former instructor at Toyama Military Academy)
-- I've often heard this branch referred to as 'Morinaga-Ha'

Zen Nihon Toyama Ryu Iaido Renmei (founded by Nakamura Taizaburou sensei [d. 2003], a student of the Toyama Military Academy dispatched to teach in Manchuria)
-- This is just for the teaching of Toyama Ryu; it is separate from Nakamura Ryu (I couldn't say why)

Nihon Toyama Ryu Iaido So-Renmei (founded by Yamaguchi Yuuki sensei [b. 1900, d. ??], another instructor at Toyama Military Academy)
-- I believe I've heard this referred to as 'Yamaguchi-ha', but I'd have to do some searching. I'm not sure if there are many practitioners in the US.

Nakamura Ryu Battodo (founded by Nakamura Taizaburou sensei)
-- This is the form of Nakamura sensei, founded on the Toyama Ryu, but with additions by Nakamura sensei.

Different people have quibbled over the names 'battodo', 'battojutsu', 'iai-battodo', 'iaido', etc. but it is mostly a semantics game. Generally speaking, it seems that the differences are ones of lineage, rather than terms like 'iai' or 'batto'.

Here's one take on the history that seems reliable, but I realize I'm biased : www.webdiva4hire.com/kenshinkan/toyama02.html (once again, it is the Kenshinkan Dojo, since Guy Power and his wife have apparently done the most work on translating a lot of the history, including co-authoring "Naked Blade" with Obata sensei.)

In the end, however, this is all 'gendai toho', or modern sword systems, so going into it too much might be off-topic. If so, I apologize.

-Ii

[Otagiri Tatsuzou]

ii said:

In the end, however, this is all 'gendai toho', or modern sword systems, so going into it too much might be off-topic. If so, I apologize.

-Ii

No apologies needed, Ii-dono. One cannot learn too much about swordsmanship, modern or historical ... especially when wearing one.

[vlvanfleet]

As stated above, Toyama Ryu originally consisted of seven katas, later an eighth was added. Later still, a few variations on that set. My point was that it is a simple, limited system that is taught as a part of the Shinkendo curriculum and that it‘s original purpose was as a rudimentary training for a military that no longer relied on swords for combat ---i.e. it was not the most inspired style of swordsmanship.

The original kata were eventually agreed to be archaic and ineffective by it‘s practitioners, so the forms changed a bit after the war. This is a good example of how an old or “original” form is not necessarily a superior form. Something to think about.

[Torayoshi]

Quote:
In the end, however, this is all 'gendai toho', or modern sword systems, so going into it too much might be off-topic. If so, I apologize.


I don't think you should apologize Ii-Dono, as Shinkendo makes no attempt to claim a linage that dates to period. The "Idea" that Obata Kaiso had is to recreate a swordsmanship that is likely to be practiced by late Sengoku / early Edo period Samurai. To do this he drew on all his experience as a martial artist as well as his stunt work and other research.

Now that being said I don't think that makes it any less true to how samurai trained and certainly not any less effective of a combat style. Just a modern look back at how some of the sword styles have splinted off from a complete training and an attempt to bring them back together.

By Splintering I mean Iai forms , Kendo forms , and other styles that teach one aspect of swordsmanship.

( I would like to note that I am NOT an expert in the curriculum's of other school I was speaking generally and am not trying to incite a duel with a student {or master} of any other school :-) And I know that there are many school that teach more than one aspect or are trying to reincorporate other aspects as the Mugai Ryu Ii- dono mentioned.)

As for Toyama Ryu, it , as taught by Obata Kaiso, is standard in most Shinkendo school. (thought I believe it is up to the individual instructor) And I am ranked by Obata Kaiso in it.(very low but I'm working on it )

I, personally, find Shinkendo to be a fun and intensive study of the samurai arts. Coupled with Toyama Ryu and Akibujutsu, it is a very broad look in to the samurai world. Thats why I posted it.

Torashi

[vvanfleet]

Japanese reinactors have a rather large challenge when trying to understand exactly how the samurai used their katana in period. The swordsmanship represented today, are contemporary forms, regardless of ryu or lineage. Many of the ryu that exist today lay claim to an ancient linage. This tends to legitimize their teachings and reassure students that what they are learning is “genuine“. I think that this is somewhat misleading and is not really necessary. Claiming to be an heir of a medieval ryu, or having “roots” in older forms is a little like saying that the Toyoda Company is an heir of Henry Ford--sorta true, but really not and a pretty silly thing to say in most context. Claiming a direct, ancient lineage is a way of suggesting that what is being taught today is pretty much what was being taught four hundred years ago and that the contemporary martial art is an authentic replication of method that is the result of an unchanged transmission from generation to generation. Impossible, in my opinion.


These issues are a pressing personal concern to me, because I am both a reinactor and a teacher of swordsmanship. I teach Shinkendo, Toyama Ryu and Aikibujutsu; my intent is to try and determine what the techniques of the Sengoku Jidai actually were. Swordsmanship of the oldest ryu have been changed, generation to generation, effected by the mood and purpose of study as it changed over the centuries, as well as the preferences of its teachers. I think in order to rediscover what period techniques actually were requires applied research and intelligent inquiry. The truth is that there are no unbroken lines of transmission from period to reference and I argue, that even if such existed, it would not have come to us unaltered by centuries.

So in an attempt to recover these techniques, I study the contemporary sword arts and challenge them with applied research as is the mood and method of my teacher Obata, who is well known as a bit of a maverick in the conservative community that is the Japanese martial arts. I think it is this attitude that makes him distinctive; unfortunately the tone of such address is usually received as irreverent. Not true. For instance, I feel comfortable challenging Toyama Ryu, because I teach it, and in doing so, I try to maintain an objective attitude about what I do. Most teachers are not so frank about the subject they teach, perhaps I should be more restrained. I usually reserve my blunt comments for that which I know, that which I feel qualified to discuss, so if I sound critical, understand that it is directed at that which is my own, rather than others.

[adarael]

Well said, vvanfleet.

I have severe doubts about any school or tradition from any culture, anywhere in the world, that lays claim to any kind of unbroken lineage of transmission or orthodoxy. Drift is inevitable as time passes.

Unfortunately, a great deal of Japanese history seems to self-legitimate in this fashion.

[Please Delete]

I have to admit being torn very much between the concept of 'modern' and 'traditional' arts, especially with something like Japanese martial arts. The general idea of the tradition, to my mind, goes like this:

Some time, way back when, people were actually using swords to kill each other. During this time, they came up with methods of practicing to use those swords, and must have been doing something right to live to continue teaching them.

During the Edo period, you had years of peace. The tradition is what kept the techniques as in tact as they are--unquestioning transmission meant you may have lost something occassionally, but that you kept it as in tact as you could without continually duelling.

WWII was the last time, as far as I'm aware, anyone actually saw what swords did on the battlefield in a regular sense.

Now, where does our authority come into play where we say that X doesn't work so you should do Y? How do we know?

On the other hand, there are things I've seen in koryu where it seems obvious people have received a 'garbled transmission'. For instance, you see a 'wrist-flick' nuki-tsuke in a lot of arts that don't do tameshigiri. They say this will cut through an opponent, but they really ought to try it on an actual target.

Still, I've seen things that seem completely illogical, but the movements can be traced reliably back to when it was actually being used--perhaps something of the emphasis is missing somewhere, but the concept appears to be there. An instance is some of the 'jumping' techniques to jump over an opponent's blade (when they do a low cut)--it seems silly and useless, but it goes back in some schools to at least early Edo, when people were still dueling.

As for tracing styles back, you can do it through the Edo period, when they actually kept track of schools, which had to be licensed with the government. Some, like Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, you can go back to the historically documented writings of Yagyu Munenori. If the details aren't exactly right, at least the koryu give us something to work from, rather like a tattered extant robe doesn't show us all of the detail, but usually enough to work with modern techniques and say 'to be effective, you really have to add X to Y...'--that's about the closest I've seen.

I'm always wary of 'new' schools. There are so many 'new' ryuha that I've seen--in the US, in particular--where I don't see any legitimacy of knowledge and I don't agree with the interpretation. But how do we judge such a thing, really?


In the end, a person has to judge for themselves what they believe to be sound and logical and what isn't.


BTW, one of the approaches I take in looking for how the sword might have been used in period, is try to find kihon and commonalities between the styles. Rather like looking at several extant garment fragments to figure out how things go together. So far, I've noticed that there are themes emerging.


Oh, and I think that a lot of the Toyama Ryu folks would take some offense at saying that Toyama Ryu is outdated and archaic and not complete. It is hardly archaic--at least not as much so as koryu--and I would say that it is complete: at least as complete as a sake cup compared to a beer stein. It just isn't as large, and is perhaps more limited, but it is just another road to walk down. Personally, I like Nakamura sensei's insights and they make sense to me, but I don't consider Toyama Ryu to be any less of a ryu just because Nakamura sensei gathered together his own concepts of swordsmanship and expressed them in extra kata. By that logic, all our systems are broken compared to something like Eishin Ryu or, perhaps even better an example, Tendo Ryu, where there are so many kata they are actually letting some of them lapse out of the curriculum. 'Completeness' is a very subjective term in an 'art'.

-Ii

[vvanfleet]

vlvanfleet said:

The original kata were eventually agreed to be archaic and ineffective by it‘s practitioners, so the forms changed a bit after the war. This is a good example of how an old or “original” form is not necessarily a superior form. Something to think about.

Ii: The practioners that text is referring to are Naramura and his contemporaries. Naramura reworked the original katas because HE deemed them irrational, even dangerous. I was not naming them such. The Toyama ryu I study is a result of Nakamura’s work. My own teacher was Nakamura’s student---You and I are first cousins in the same sword art. I find contemporary Toyama Ryu very viable and have made no criticism of it. I have rather agreed with Nakamura and his contemporaries that the original forms were poorly constructed and in need of revision. I am not aware of anyone who teaches these forms as they existed before the war. Toyama Ryu as we know it today was refashioned primarily by Nakamura, making it much more logical. If Toyama Ryu is lacking, it is in scope, this is why Nakamura continued to add to the original set of techniques.

Maybe you didn’t like that I admitted it’s rather humble and unimpressive pedigree, but it was what it was. And it belongs to us both. Nakamura gave it a dignity, that it did not originally have.

The information I have offered previously comes from sources that you have sighted and admitted a bias to (The Naked Blade), here‘s more:

“Toyama ryu was taught at the Toyama army school to officers in order to train them to rapidly deploy their gunto from a draw. As a result, there was not enough basic suburi movements in the curriculum, and no kenjutsu style kata or sparring to supplement the Toyama ryu training. The officers at that time already had substantial experience in Kendo, so adding sparring to their Toyama ryu training would have been deemed redundant. However, after the war when the Toyama ryu federation was first established, Nakamura created six pre-arranged sparring sequences (similar in flavor to the Kendo no Kata), but were unrealistic and insufficient when compared with the techniques of koryu kenjutsu. Since there was not enough suburi practice, there were reports of people cutting their knees or palms, or throwing their swords in the periods before, during, and after World War II. Even Nakamura writes about his own injuries in his books. Perhaps it is this reason, to avoid injuries, that the movements and sword swings in Toyama ryu Iaido have become slow. Originally, Toyama ryu emphasized speed and strength to allow for it to be used in battle, and this is evident from the photos of officers training in IJA publications.”


In reference to traditional ryu, I study traditional ryu; however, I realize that my education is not a replica of the Sengoku techniques and if I am interested in such I am forced to left to recover them via practical application. How do we determine that a technique is viable/logical/probably correct? Well, we do our best to try in out; we spar with the techniques in a realistic situation; we challenge our findings; we use what works and continue to search for others means all the while.

It is great fun.

[Please Delete]

I'm sorry, I was looking back at the history and may have been misreading it. As I read it:

In the 1870s, the Toyama Military Academy was formed.

In 1925, according to a 1941 pamphlet, Kenjutsu Kyohan Shokai, the Toyama Iaido forms were established.

In 1939, according to Nakamura Sensei, a gunto-toho (army sword sword system) was implemented because of poor showing on the battlefield--probably a reinterpretation of the 1925 forms.

In 1941, a pamphelet (see above) had written descriptions of the 5 Toyama Ryu iai kata as well as Omori Ryu and Eishin Ryu kata.

1944, the academy published Gunto no Soho, with 7 kata, tameshigiri, and changes to kesagiri.

According to Power: "Nakamura sensei modified the original seven army forms and added an eight, itto ryodan" I had always read this to be referring to Nakamura Ryu, as opposed to Toyama Ryu.

It was my understanding that the Toyama Ryu kata are (roughly) the kata from 1944 (before the end of the war), the Seitei kata are kata that were meant as a standard set for the different Toyama Ryu groups, and the Nakamura Ryu set was specific to Nakamura Ryu, although now I'm wondering about this.

Oh, and I don't think it has a vaunted history going back years and years. Rather, what strikes me as most significant is that it was being reformed in WWII by people who actually had reports of how well it did or didn't work.

Anyway, I thought you were talking about the peribellum kata, as opposed to what I always figured as 'pre-war' kata. I apologize.


-Ii