Mr. Backlund's NAGAMAKI Query

[Kit LeBlanc]

Mr. Backlund,

Actually it is fairly well known that Ellis Amdur teaches nagamaki, within Araki-ryu and I think in the Buko-ryu tradition. From what I have gathered these are among the few ryuha still practicing nagamaki.

I know that he is always interested in other ryuha which teach the weapon. I am unfamiliar with the ryuha you mention in your signature, are they Okinawan? I would be interested in their history and their nagamaki training.

Kit LeBlanc

[Jason Backlund]

Mr./Ms. LeBlanc,

Thank you for your reply. The ryu that I mentioned originated on Honshu, not Okinawa.
As for history- the story, as was told to me by Matsubara Isao (late family source {soke} of the Matsubara Ryu) and Yamagata Takashi (my instructor in the Matsubara Ryu and the Ryuso {founder} of the Yamagata Ryu) is that the Matsubara were a samurai family prior to Meiji.
There were three important figures in the development of the family's own brand of martial art. The first character was referred to as Matsubara no Bushin (the military spirit of the Matsubara family) and was said to have existed at the turn of the fourteenth century. There is no good information on this person, he seemed to me to be the embodiment of the family's desire to create its own system. The second person was named Matsubara Norikatsu, who was said to have died in 1712. Norikatsu apparently took it upon himself to study as much as he could about Nihon Bujutsu, added much of it to the teachings originated by Matsubara no Bushin, and passed this information to his children. The third figure is Matsubara Hiroshi, the father of Matsubara Isao. Hiroshi died in 1963. He was largely responsible for taking the family traditions and turning them into a cohesive art. He abandoned a lot of the teachings that didn't make sense to him, and categorized the ones that did. He was also the one who first used the term Matsubara Ryu Bujutsu.
All of the historical knowledge of the Matsubara Ryu, as best as I can tell, was passed orally to Hiroshi, who tried his best to make something of it. As a student of history, I find most of the details of the information about the early history of the Matsubara family to be unreliable to say the least, but they are interesting stories.
As for the Yamagata Ryu, that one is easy. Yamagata Takashi's parents died just before WWII, and the Matsubara family took him in. There he became an outstanding student. His two major loves within the MA were Kenjutsu and Taijutsu. He studied several other systems of Kenjutsu and Taijutsu during his years in Japan. He moved to Orlando, Florida as a Soke Daihyo (representative of the Soke) of the Matsubara Ryu in 1972. I met him in 1984 and became a full time student. I was his uke as he experimented with many different types of techniques and theories of strategy, of which were combinations of Matsubara Ryu, other styles he'd studied, and my imput. Soon he had two new and distinct styles, and with the blessing of Isao, created Yamagata Ryu Kenjutsu, and Yamagata Ryu Goshinjutsu.
I've created an organization called Kobushin Kai, in which I teach Matsubara Ryu Bujutsu (consisting of Yari no kata, Koyari no kata, Naginata no kata, Nagamaki no kata, Yonshakubo no kata, Tambo no kata, Kumiai no kata, and In-yo no kata) and Yamagata Ryu Bujutsu (consisting of Goshinjutsu, Yoroi kenjutsu, and Suhada Kenjutsu).

I hope this wasn't too much, and if Mr. Amdur is willing, I'd like to know where he gets his keiko-nagamaki (I'd like boku-nagamaki if at all possible). I can't seem to find anyone who makes or sells them.

Jason Backlund
Kobushin Kai
Yamagata Ryu Bujutsu, Matsubara Ryu Bujutsu

[Edited by Jason Backlund on 07-04-2000 at 01:56 AM]