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Baio
5th February 2007, 18:54
I have a nagao ryu scroll, it's from taisho era anyone have any other info about the school? i know it was formed in about 1609 and its a taijutsu school bu tthats about it

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p205/shurikentsukai/nagao1.jpg

kenkyusha
6th February 2007, 00:13
(At least I believe that is was) Mr. Hartman mentioned (some time ago) that he had an opportunity to train Nagao Ryu while living in Japan...

Be well,
Jigme

fifthchamber
6th February 2007, 04:06
Nagao Ryu Website (http://www2.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/nagao/nagao.htm)
This is one line of the school..They train in Kanazawa.
Regards.

Steve Delaney
6th February 2007, 04:45
I have seen some footage of these guys in action and they are rather impressive.

johan smits
6th February 2007, 09:47
Mr. Earl Harman has given a lot of info on Nagao-ryu right on this forum.

best,

Johan Smits

George Kohler
6th February 2007, 15:16
Nagao-ryu Shogaku

Kuji Denju (Kuji Instruction)

Baio
6th February 2007, 19:34
yes it has a lot of kuji stuff and some of it gets really illegible i have the whole scroll on my phone i should try and find someone to translate it

Earl Hartman
7th February 2007, 02:59
As George says, it is instructions in Kuji. I guess "shogaku" could be interpreted as "introduction" (the word literally means "first study") or "basics".

Although the Japanese is pretty archaic, it says that Kuji is the great secret of self-protection and that one should wash one's hands every morning, then rinse one's mouth, and perform various breathing rituals while facing in each of the cardinal directions.

Not exactly "if he tries to hit/grab you, poke him in the eye, throw him down, break his arm and then crush his larynx", which is pretty much what basic Nagao Ryu techniques boil down to.

The group with the website is my teacher Shimeno Kisaburo's old group which he started at Kanazawa Technical College after he broke off from the main line led by Maeda Kogetsu. Maeda has been dead for some time, and I don't know what happened to his line. Shimeno Sensei died a few years ago, unfortunately.

Maeda was a real character and was, apparently, something of a laughingstock in koryu circles. I told Yagyu Sensei that I had studied Nagao Ryu when I lived in Kanazawa and he burst out laughing and said "You mean you trained with that clown Maeda?" I hastened to tell him that I trained with Shimeno Sensei, but it was pretty damned emarrassing, let me tell you.

Maeda figures into one my all-time favorite Japan stories: I was living in Kanazawa in 1973 when I was 21 and, among other things, training in MJER Iai Heiho under Masaoka Kazumi, one of the last surviving direct students of Oe Masamichi. He dropped dead of a heart attack right in the middle of a kendo practice at the age of 73, and the funeral was held at his dojo. I was the "dosoku gakari", or the "Shoe Patrol", the guy in charge of putting everyone's shoes in the geta bako and giving them indoor slippers as they entered. A bunch of people had just come in and I had my arms full of shoes trying to put them away, when I heard footsteps approaching, which suddenly stopped. I looked up right into the face of an apparition who looked like he had just stepped right out of a musha-e woodblock print. It was Maeda. He had long hair which fell free well past his shoulders a la Yamaguchi Gogen of Goju Ryu karate fame (he looked a lot like him, actually) and he was in full samurai fig: hakama, kimono, a big haori and a huge mucking sword in a bright orange scabbard. He just stopped dead in his tracks and looked me right in the eye for a few seconds with that patented "What the heck is a gaijin doing here?" look. I stared back, wondering where the camera crew and director were, since I was sure he'd just walked off a movie set. (Everyone else had come in dark Western suits, very subdued). After staring at me for a second or two, he pulled his sword from his obi, thrust it at me without a word, and swept regally past me into the dojo, leaving me to wonder what the heck I was going to do with a sword that was about five feet long.

Great fun.

Steve: where is this footage of which you speak?

niten ninja
8th February 2007, 12:52
Great story, really brightened my day.

sven beulke
8th February 2007, 20:27
Although the Japanese is pretty archaic, it says that Kuji is the great secret of self-protection and that one should wash one's hands every morning, then rinse one's mouth, and perform various breathing rituals while facing in each of the cardinal directions.
Hi!
Is this mikkyo? Does kuji in this case relate to the "nine-signs"(mudra) of mikkyo-practice?
Best!

Baio
8th February 2007, 20:58
yea it is theres lots of it in the scroll the nine slashes is covered a few times in it