Yagyu Shinkage Ryu groups

[Cliff Judge]

I'd like to understand a little bit more about the various Yagyu Shinkage Ryu factions in existence today. As well as I've been able to figure out, we've got:

1) The Yagyu Kai themselves
2) The Marobashikai
3) Arakido
4) The Shumpukan

Also, the Yamato Yagyu Kai, which is the group that practices the Edo line, which had been broken at some point?

And then there is a seperate ryu in the Owari region called...Owari Han Ryu? That practices spear, but has also incorporated some kata from the Owari line of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu at some point in the past.

Am I correct in thinking that the first four groups split fairly recently? As in, within the last 40 years? While the Owari Han Ryu (sorry if I am getting that wrong) had subsumed the YSR stuff hundreds of years ago.

Is Arakido the name of an organization or an art?

What group is David Lowry associated with?

From the perspective of what these groups do on the dojo floor, I get the impression that the basic story is, there is a difference in the sets of kata performed, and how the kata are performed. Does anybody know how these things break out?

[Josh Reyer]

The spear group is the Owari Kan-ryu. They are the Shumpukan. YSR is distinct from OKR, they are simply practiced in the same dojo. At embu, they are listed as Owari Kan-ryu/Yagyu Shinkage-ryu. The founder of the Shumpukan, Kanbe Kinshichi, was a high-level student of the 19th soke of YSR, Yagyu Toshichika, and received inka (menkyo kaiden) from the 20th soke, Yagyu Toshinaga, before the war, I believe. Kanbe also studied Owari Kan-ryu, and became soke of that art. Because OKR places importance on learning kenjutsu to compliment sojutsu, the Shumpukan teaches both together. OKR never subsumed YSR stuff; both ryuha were otome-ryu of Owari domain, and thus had some overlap in students.

Arakido is the name of an organization that teaches Yagyu Shingan-ryu (jujutsu) and Yagyu Shinkage-ryu. Otsubo Shiho learned YSR from Yagyu Toshinaga. He then taught it to Muto Masao, who studied Goto-ha Yagyu Shingan-ryu. Muto then taught both to the current head of the Arakido (and soke of Goto-ha Yagyu Shingan-ryu), Mr. Kajitsuka Yasushi. This split was post-war, I believe.

The Marobashi-kai was started by a high level student of Yagyu Toshinaga, Watanabe Tadatoshi, after the war. It wasn't a split per se - Watanabe had been given inka, and he was in Tokyo, while Toshinaga was in Nagoya. They both started their respective groups, Yagyu-kai and Marobashi-kai, around the same time, and there was some cooperative action between them. Then Toshinaga died in 1967, and Watanabe died some time in the late 1970s. The 21st soke, Yagyu Nobuharu, took over the Yagyu-kai, and Watanabe's son, Mr. Watanabe Tadashige, took over the Marobashi-kai. With neither men bound to each other by common teachers or training together, the groups went their own separate ways.

I'm afraid I have no idea what Dave Lowry's lineage is.

Differences in kata break out simply because people are different. Every person will learn a kata differently, and take different things from the kata. These differences may grow bigger when two different people teach two more different people. Both teachers will emphasize different little things, even if they say the same things about the big things. Add to this that Yagyu Shinkage-ryu kata are not set in stone, but all contain "kudaki", or variations and alternatives, and there are bound to be even more differences.

So! All that said, why do you want to know?

[Cliff Judge]

Just started getting into it, and want to learn as much as I can about the history of the ryu, how it fits into the world, etc. Thanks very much for the information, very interesting and helpful.

It is interesting that YSR underwent so much branching after WWII. Is this something unique to the era? Or did Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and other ryu subgroup for similar reasons in the pre-war and Tokugawa periods, but those branches didn't have staying power like the hereditary line did?

I also wonder if this has happened in other ryu that exist today, or if its simply a matter of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu being so much better than all the other sword schools that it carries more intrinsic value. :laugh::laugh::laugh: (kidding! - wouldn't be surprised if the relatively high historical profile has something to do with it though).

[Josh Reyer]

I don't believe YSR is particularly unique or unusual in it's branching, post-war or otherwise. You see it in TSKSR, Jikishinkage-ryu, Niten-ichiryu, and others. The post-Meiji Restoration idea of a single "soke" in koryu bujutsu is what's unusual.

[DDATFUS]

Just to add a smidgen to what Josh has said, the Shunpukan also preserves Hikida Kage Ryu, another Shinkage family member.

Also, the branching of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu seems to have been going on for a while-- the Edo and Owari branches split apart in the second generation. Dave Lowry doesn't really give much information about his line, but I do recall reading that it branched off from the main line "centuries" ago. I think I heard that once upon a time there were a few other Yagyu splinter groups. Someone on Swordforum found the website of a group way down in Kyushu that practices...something... that they say is Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. It was... interesting.

YSR, of course, is also just one branch of the Shinkage tradition-- you also have Taisha Ryu in Kyushu, the aforementioned Hikida (Shin)Kage Ryu, Jikishinkage Ryu, Komagawa Kaishin Ryu, Aizu Itto Ryu (extinct?), etc., all claiming descent from Kamiizumi. And of course, each branch considers itself to be the "true" heir of Kamiizumi's tradition, with the others only being offshoots.

Which is silly, because we Jikishinkage Ryu guys have "true shinkage" built right into our names, giving us the best claim by far.

[Josh Reyer]

Which is silly, because we Jikishinkage Ryu guys have "true shinkage" built right into our names, giving us the best claim by far.
Kinda hard to be the true heir of Kamiizumi's tradition when you don't even give him top billing on the lineage chart. ;)

To further expand on my last post - pre-Meiji if you splintered off from your main dojo, you generally changed the name of what you practicing, indicating this was your own personal take on MA. Post-Meiji, and perhaps particularly post-war, it became more important to stress one's link to the past. Hence, while the splintering hasn't changed, the number of groups using the same name have increased.

[DDATFUS]

See, that just proves how legit we are-- we're the only school to have the complete lineage!

[Josh Reyer]

See, that just proves how legit we are-- we're the only school to have the complete lineage!
Also the only one to contradict Kamiizumi's own writings on how the ryu came about... :eek:

Of course, there's Hikita Kage-ryu, too. Interestingly, depending on the branch, they put Kamiizumi second after Aisu Ikosai, or sometimes third after Ikosai and Ikosai's son! I suspect Hikita Bungoro learned most from Kamiizumi when he was still teaching Kage-ryu, before he'd entirely formulated his ideas for Shinkage-ryu.

[DDATFUS]

I suspect Hikita Bungoro learned most from Kamiizumi when he was still teaching Kage-ryu, before he'd entirely formulated his ideas for Shinkage-ryu.


Joking aside (and Jikishinkage is still totally number 1, so there!), I think you've hit the nail on the head with that statement. As far as I can tell, Okuyama (the Kamiizumi student who comes third in the Jikishinkage lineage) was one of Kamiizumi's earliest students. I've heard it suggested that Kamiizumi was still much more under the influence of Matsumoto's style when he taught Okuyama, hence our unique lineage. With regards to contradicting Kamiizumi's writings, let's not forget that, whatever his other virtues, this was the guy known for writing the name of his school different ways within the same letter.

I get the sense that Kamiizumi didn't have things set in stone until very late in his life. In fact, in a way I compare him to Ueshiba in modern times. Ueshiba studied a few different things (primarily Daito Ryu) and then developed what he had learned into something new based on his own experiences and goals. At every step along the way his art evolved a little, and each student that trained with him got something different based partly on where he was when he trained them and based partly on what they needed or brought to the training. Then each student goes off and develops down his own path.

In one of the scrolls that Kamiizumi gave to Yagyu Muneyoshi (the enpi scroll?) he mentions "Chuko Nenryu." The term "Chuko Ryu" is associated with the early Kashima traditions that eventually gave birth to Kashima Shinto Ryu-- exactly what we would expect Matsumoto Bizen-no-Kami, a guardian at the Kashima Shrine, to be teaching. I wonder if at one point in his career Kamiizumi saw the kata of Matsumoto's school as a good vehicle for passing on his own insights, while later in his career he decided that some of the kata he had learned in Kage Ryu would make a better vessel for his teachings? Think of the way that Ueshiba modified some of the Yagyu Sankaku kata into a vessel for teaching aiki principles to Hikitzuchi Morio, then later (or earlier?) used modified Kashima Shinto Ryu kata to teach aiki principles to Saito.

Anyway, my rambling thoughts, made even less coherent than usual by the lateness of the hour.

[Brian Owens]

...What group is David Lowry associated with?

I haven't seen Dave post here recently, but I just sent him an e-mail asking if he wants to join this discussion.