Oldest Koryu Jujutsu style?

[the Khazar Kid]

What is the oldest style of Koryu Jujutsu?

Jesse Peters

[Walker]

Sumo

[Kevin Geaslin]

I believe the oldest Koryu Jujutsu is the Takenouchi-ryu, but I'm probably wrong.

[wmuromoto]

If you included all grappling methods, then the sport of sumo is the oldest, since it claims to have originated in the legendary Age of the Gods. More historically, the Takeuchi (Takenouchi)-ryu claims to be the oldest, and if one appends "surviving" to this, it is probably true.

However, in the ryu's own scrolls, it says something to the effect that "...there are other <grappling> ryu. To study all of them is to be like a dog on a leash running around a post. You will go nowhere." In other words, the ryu's own documents admits that there were other grappling arts extant at the time of the ryu's founding. The Jikiden-ryu grappling methods may have predated the Takenouchi-ryu, but it has since long disappeared, save for possibly some techniques that Otake sensei of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu is reported to have attempted to reconstruct.

In all probability, the Takenouchi-ryu was one of many that sprang up very early on, but it is the only one of the early jujutsu ryu to have survived, and then became a major influence on subsequent jujutsu and yawara ryu and ryuha.

Wayne Muromoto

[Ellis Amdur]

Hey Wayne -

The whole question of the Jikiden Ryu aka Muso Jikiden Ryu is interesting. I've got a copy of a makimono from the 17th century, and the lineage is really dubious. Choisai Ienao is listed as the 7th headmaster, and Araki Mujinsai as the 11th. The 10th, Fujiwara Katsuzane is in the Araki Ryu lineage, but this name is unknown outside Araki Ryu. A lot of the others in the lineage are also "names" from other ryu. I have not heard of any really old makimono from this ryu, only ones that are much later dated. It is my guess that it was an Edo school that tacked together a lineage with some prominent people to give it credibility.

As for Otake Risuke 'reconstructing' Jikiden Ryu, I am not contradicting you, but I would be very surprised. Otake has stated often that he opposes "reconstruction" of kata or techniques - even in his own ryu. I'd be astonished if he tried to reconstruct that of another ryu, even one with claim of the Choiisai in the lineage.

I think the best way to consider this subject is that Takenouchi ryu bears the same relationship to close combat schools (grappling with weapons, etc.) as TSKSR does to kenjutsu. Not necessarily the first, per se, but the first that "took hold" and thereby became the paradigm for future schools.

Finally, as you know, but probably others don't, Takenouchi Ryu was, in the Meiji period, one of the very strongest schools at freestyle grappling. They began to "lose," as I recall, when IPPON on a throw designated the victor. The Takenouchi Ryu strategy was often to take the fall and simply continue into a lock or break, using the momentum of the throw to add power to their counter technique.

Best

Ellis Amdur

[fifthchamber]

Hello all,
Forgive my ignorance on this matter but where would a Ryu-Ha such as the TSKSR (Or maybe the Kashima Shinryu..)fit into this equation?
As they are the oldest extant school over all and do feature Yawara (I believe. Source; Donn Draeger's Classical Bujutsu/Budo) in their system would they not also have a claim to the oldest proven Jujutsu type techniques? (Despite the others named above...Sumo et al).
Or is it because they are a Sogo-Bujutsu and not a specifically Jujutsu based school (Not that the Takenouchi Ryu is mind you..But you know what I mean..), Or that they do not actively teach the Yawara? (I thought it was in the Ura portion of the syllabus but I am not sure). Or was it added at a later date?
Sorry if the questions answer is blindingly obvious but while there are such knowledgeable people in the post I thought I had to ask.
Help appreciated..
Abayo..

[wmuromoto]

Hi all...

Ellis, you are probably right per the Jikiden-ryu and Otake sensei. I was writing from the top of my head trying to recall a series of pictures from one of Draeger's books that shows Otake sensei doing some Jikiden-ryu jujutsu, and don't remember whether it was in the book or what Draeger had said once regarding it...It may have been garbled in my mind/Draeger's take on how Otake himself may have noted that the Jikiden-ryu may have been an Edo-period construct, in spite of its lineage...

The Japanese are not without their hyperbole. My sensei's dojo is in his front yard (way up on a hillside) but he put up a big metal kanban declaring that the Takeuchi-ryu is "Japan's oldest kobudo" without any of the caveats that should accompany it; i.e., maybe the oldest SURVIVING kobudo in the KANSAI area THAT WE KNOW OF, but maybe it wouldn't have fit. Then again, I'm not too embaressed by it because you can barely see the sign because of the overgrown trees and weeds that grow around it, and the declaration is somewhat obscured by a bunch of characters also declaring that he also does landscape architecture for a fee, teaches shakuhachi, Eishin-ryu and Shizen-ryu, and if you call this toll free number...

Seriously, yes, if we go beyond the hype, one could say that, yes, the T-ryu has a pivotal place in the development of the ryuha system in grappling and close quarter weaponry, like how the systems that claim to be from Hayashizaki Junsuke (the "founder of iai," so-called in a test I had to take for a dan ranking in ZNKR iaido) is actually an influential but probably not original root source of iai.

I did hear that our ryu was involved in freestyle grappling in the Edo Period up to the Bakumatsu and a little later. Your anecdote of the ryu moving away because of the ippon thingie sounds right. I was once told that in one of the last matches, a Takeuchi-ryu exponent (can't remember his name) met a Kodokan judo person, under the evolving judo style shiai rules. I think he was Yamashita, but I'm not sure...Anyway, the judoka threw the t-ryu guy with a clean seioi nage. The judge immediately called it an ippon, but then the judoka staggered and fell, clutching his arm. The t-ryu guy used the throw and momentum to dislocate the judo guy's arm in mid-throw. So the judge had to correct himself and declare a hikiwake, a draw.

Another story I was told was that Kano sensei was impressed with the grappling methods displayed by a lot of Kansai jujutsu people, so when he went to Kyoto, he got a lot of them together to consult with him on developing more newaza techniques for Kodokan judo, which was turning into a national, umbrella sport. A picture I saw in a book about Meiji and Taisho era martial arts shows Kano in front of the old Kyoto Butokuden, surrounded by several jujutsu masters, about three of four of whom belong to the t-ryu or related t-ryu ryuha.

I think Kano's genius was he was able to get a lot of jujutsu guys on committees and they would add to the potpouri of grappling knowledge of judo. He also didn't set himself up as a soke of a new "style." Rather, he made judo more like a sportive, open-ended national pastime, which allowed for innovation in randori freestyle grappling. The koryu guys either went off and just did kata geiko, or tried to maintain kata and randori, or switched over entirely, I think. I remember meeting the son of the current Hontai Yoshin-ryu soke, and he laughed when I showed such an interest in their ryu. He said he taught judo on alternate days, and while he enjoyed HTY, he called it an "antique," then offered to take me and my HTY friend, Stephan Fabian, out drinking. Fabian passed for that night because he knew that meant we'd have ended up under a table in a sakaba passed out on booze and I needed to catch an early train the next morning. Still, what I saw of their kata geiko was impressive.

For others, I don't mean to sound like I'm dissing koryu grappling. I've done it long enough to have a great appreciation for it, especially for my own ryu. But there are a lot of things to be said for randori style training as well, as Ellis has mentioned in other threads. I did judo for nigh on 15 years before I had to call it quits, but it has served me very, very well in kata geiko style training simply because things seem to "fit" a lot better. For my money, if I had all the time in the world and wasn't working at a job that requires sometimes 12-hour days, I'd really recommend a combination of kata geiko and randori-style free grappling, be it kumite, randori, etc., or similar methods that offered the same advantages of learning how to move from technique to technique spontaneously, to "feel" the opponent, and to improvise one's techniques based on an unplanned and oppositive partner.

Anyway, my two cents' worth. Ellis: I'm finally getting my head back together (months of reflection, walking and jogging) and will try, really try, to put together the next issue featuring you-know-who soon...

Wayne Muromoto

[Ellis Amdur]

Ben -

1) From ancient times, Japanese did competitive grappling - stand up, without a ring, similar to Mongolian wresting.
2) At a certain point, a ring was added - sumo.
3) As all Japanese men probably did this (pretty close to the most fun thing a man can do in a vertical posture), it naturally affected close combat - you come to grips, you know what to do, in an inchoate way. Dump your enemy, and stab them or beat them to death with a rock.
4) Naturally, when koryu systems began to develop, some decided to study parameters of combat at body--to-body range - almost always, with the idea that one would have weapons, or if disarmed, (desparately fighting against someone still armed). This method of combat had a number of names - koshi no mawari, kogusoku, torite, etc. etc. Different ryu were either more or less interested in this aspect. TSKSR, although it has yawara, is questionable as far as it's history - in my opinion. The techniques I have seen photos of, and in my discussions with members of the ryu about this syllabus are stand-up generic armlocks, not all that different from Kiyose Nagae's "Jujutsu" or similar stuff. I believe/guess that this was a later addition to the ryu. Kashima Shin Ryu also has that look to me - it seems more like a self-defense application. I may be incorrect here, but it is my understanding that Kashima Shin Ryu has been willing to tinker with the syllabus, as needed, to ensure they will always win, and for 400 years, one was concerned more with fights, duels and the like than battlefield combat.
5) Anyway, some schools began to emphasize close-combat as a specialty. Takenouchi Ryu, if not the first, was the most significant. Just like there were kenjutsu schools before TSKSR, there were schools that empasized close-combat, particularly with hand-held weapons before Takenouchi Ryu. But in each case, these two ryu were paradigms, and set the stage, so to speak.


In sum, the split between these schools was not originally that vast. TSKSR and Takenouchi Ryu, for examples, are BOTH sogo bujutsu. The distinction really is between schools that prefered not to get their clothes sweaty and dirty and those who didn't mind. In other words, some schools always tried to manipulate spacing so that they would be at effective cutting range and the enemy not: other schools tried to manipulate spacing so that they could physically control the enemy to cut and stab them in close. This aspect of things continued to develop until one had self-defense systems that centered around grappling. these came to be called jujutsu, a word that began to be applied to schools that did grappling, as a generic term, even if that is not how they referred to things themselves.


With respect

Ellis Amdur

[Earl Hartman]

Wayne:

Shizen Ryu?

Also, I liked your comments re: the similarity in approach between Takeuchi Ryu and Nagao Ryu. Takeuchi Ryu sounds very cool.

[Cady Goldfield]

Glad to hear you're going to print another issue of U-know-What. Some of us have been anxiously waiting with our subscriptions in limbo. Welcome back, Wayne.

[Brently Keen]

Ditto what Cady said!

Brently Keen

[Arman]

Mr. Amdur-

Thanks for taking the time to post and answer some questions. One aspect of this whole koryu grappling lineage (and not just grappling, I suppose) that is troubling to me is the question of martial degradation once the Edo period began. As Draeger has pointed out with, I believe, some evidence, the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate resulted in a gradual decline of the martial arts as combat arts.

How are we to adequately account for the transition of grappling styles from an era of incessant warfare to one of enforced peace? In other words, what do we use as analytic tools to discern the difference between pre-Edo and post-Edo martial curriculum within a particular ryu (especially where one might not admit to any significant changes)? Or, is this even really possible? It seems a critical question if we are really going to talk about the development of koryu grappling arts. (Maybe this should be a new post)

Anyway, thanks for any input.

Cheers,
Arman Partamian
Daito-ryu Study Group
Maryland

[Ellis Amdur]

Arman - (you all caught me on a day that I have to be in front of the computer all day, so I keep escaping online - hell, as long as I get my report finished before midnight).

O.K. Your question.
REALLY OLD SCHOOLS
1) The oldest schools almost surely have sets in which the better armed person wins. (ie.,1) tanto against unarmed person - tanto kills 2) standing person walks up, kicks kneeling person in the head, they try to block, and their elbow is snapped and they are pinned and killed 3) One comes up behind a standing person and slams them to the ground from behind, and stomps on their head
2) There is also, in such ryu, sets in which the superiorly armed individual is countered, BUT, they are usually advanced sets. As if to say, "all right, since you asked, you are lying on your back, and a guy straddles you to stab you in the throat. Given you will probably die, what should you do anyway."
3) There is usually gokui sets in which you learn how to best kill someone while in the superior position (like straddling them - where and how should one should REALLY stab. And these last have stabbing techniques, for example, that the counters you learned in #2 will not work. PERIOD. )
These sets are usually part of a ryu in which weaponry still plays a very large part - sword, naginata, spear. It would be my guess that similar training would occur in most modern military. One learns all sorts of things using projectile weapons, and probably spends a rather brief module considering what to do if, God forbid, it comes to bayonets in the dark.

Other sets, which could be "indoors," are really for assassination or taking prisoners (for example, both Araki Ryu and Takenouchi Ryu have sets to take somebody unaware or worse while serviing them food.) Note that there was no particular squeamishness about deploying a weapon indoors either. The technique is far less important than the kiai - how can one organize oneself that you really do mentally disarm a wary individual.

The posture of most of these techniques will be standing or Iidori - on knees and balls of feet. If they are in seiza, something drastically has changed. Iidori is NOT to "strengthen the hips." It is a simulation of being on the ground, on all fours, so to speak.

SCHOOLS IN TRANSITION
This is my term for a school that really expanded in the Edo period. Takenouchi Ryu is, I believe one, but an example that I am more familiar is Kiraku Ryu. This school comes from the Toda Ryu, and the oldest sets are kogusoku, I believe - 'battlefield" grappling with weapons. The school has a lot of weapons, including the chigiriki (chain-and-staff), bo, kusarigama, sword, etc. In mid Edo, they added whole sets of techniques they explicitly called jujutsu - and they are, as I recall, more self-defense oriented, and some of them are empty hand vs. empty hand. They also have a lot of counters against short sword/knife - this curriculum expanded as this was a very likely type of combat in the towns, particularly vs. non-bushi.

Among the kind of techniques you see are blocks of overhand strikes, still using particular "fists" that are really only suited to hit a pinned opponent, countered with a block, lock and throw. (BTW - that's why karate, when it hit Japan in the 1920's was so revolutionary. Jujutsuka did not really know, for the most part, how to "box." The kempo component was largely very unsophisticated, and really didn't practice against someone who was bobbing and weaving - it wasn't needed anyway, in earlier times).

It was during this time that people started to do free-style grappling as well, just as people started to do kendo like practice. In the Sengoku period, learning to "chain" grappling or other techniques was, I believe, less important. Chip Armstrong's description of training for war in Koryu Books I, describes the effectiveness of pure kata training in this regard. it is my belief that one learned to get a responsive body, chaining standing techniques through sumo, and this would transfer as well as anything. On the ground, one wanted to pin and stab as quickly as possible. Takenouchi Ryu probably had the most sophisticated chaining within kata, however, going attack to counter to counter at times.

EDO JUJUTSU
As the Edo period progressed, in many ryu, weaponry, particularly that least relevant to the day, was dropped. Spear, naginata went first, as did chained weapons, and then sword. Remaining would be short sword/tanto and an expanded empty hand curriculum, again with most of the scenarios countering superior force. Examples would be Tenshin Shin'yo Ryu as one developed for this purpose, and Kito Ryu as one which devolved into this (used to have an array of weaponry). You will also see a lot of seiza, as opposed to iidori, and more and more standing techniques.

DAITO RYU
Let me really go out on a limb and briefly put my views on Daito Ryu in this. And these views are not about "does it work in the octogon, or on the street," etc., - solely about historical provenance. The organization, the focus on elaborations of empty-handed combat, none of this can possibly be of a period of history that some claim - much less 1000 years old. The idea of "inside the palace" defense also doesn't make sense, as that presupposes that enemies, too, will not want to offend their victim by shedding blood. If you are intent on killing the Aizu lord, do you think that you will care if you break the rules on drawing a weapon inside the palace? A ten year kenjutsu ka against a 10 year unarmed aiki man? Armed man wins almost all of the time. Maybe not against Takeda, or Ueshiba in the garden, but this story presupposes a whole palace SWAT squad of empty-handed martial geniuses. It seems to me that were I concerned about assassination, I'd want my folks to be prepared for people who DIDN't obey the rules. (An example of this is Masaki Ryu - the original manrikigusari was wrapped in cotton and sewn black silk, and stuffed in the belt. Someone makes a move with a dagger, for example, and they suddenly get a chunk of iron in their temple. Far better than a joint lock, no matter how skilled - and far more sure of success as well).Daito Ryu's particular concentration (proved in that it had to incorporate/associate with OTHER ryu such as Onoha Itto Ryu assoc. with it for weaponry, meaning it didn't have it's own sogo bujutsu component), indicates that it was, I believe, the truly amazing creation of Takeda, a man who was able to find the line in almost any configuration he got into with another person and "make a technique" out of it. The MOKUROKU got created by the note-takers - his son for example, who organized all he passed on. Again, as I am aware that, for some reason, this subject gets everyone awash with prickly heat, I'm answering a question about recognizing age of method through looking at the techniques. I am not postulating if Daito Fighto is Mighto or Lighto.

IN WHAT CONTEXT IS KORYU GRAPPLING "WORKABLE?"
Finally, lest there be some misunderstanding, one that often comes up when one compares "warfare-oriented" arts or "self-defense arts", I am also not postulating as some koryu wankers have, that koryu jujutsu is inherently "stronger" than more modern systems. I think an intact old system would be better to prepare one for a 16th century battlefield, and that some of those techniques transfer very well into modern times. (I think that for the military, there are aspects of some kogusoku ryu which would transfer quite quickly, with some relatively simple adaptation, to the difference in equipment warn by the soldier. Again, that would be a very small part of a modern soldier's needs - hand-to-hand combat is not, for good reasons, the major focus of training of the modern soldier. )

Given, however, that one doesn't start with a spear, sword etc, and find oneself in a melee situation, then empty handed skills and real "wrestling-type grappling" is far more important than it was in medieval times. Were one to get in a configuration (hand-to-hand on the ground, perhaps trying to deploy a weapon) similar to that in kogusoku, it would either be a police situation or some sort of civilian fight. And the set up for that would be far different than spear against naginata both jammed in the mud, two or more bodies against each other and all toppling and then grabbing to pin and stab. Instead, it would be in a nearly or totally empty hand context - a "fight" or an "arrest"- requiring, therefore, much more skill in the wrestling aspect of close combat - ie., judo, sambo, BJJ, etc. In other words, I believe that were one really intending to be prepared to use the techniques one learned in kogusoku-type arts, they would be part of an outcome, NOT of COMBAT with hand-held weapons, but more likely sudden close-range fighting. For this context, modern grappling systems are necessary to learn to make the old stuff work just as skill with the sword, spear etc., were necessary to make old school grappling even conceivable in the Sengoku period..


With respect

Ellis Amdur

[wmuromoto]

Hi Ellis,

Like you, I'm chained to the computer today and should really be doing some work, but I need to take a break now and then.

I will second your opinion on the relative effectiveness of koryu systems. It's more a matter of application and situation. One could argue that in the Edo Period, many of the martial systems lost their "effectiveness," yes, but then again, by the beginning of the Edo Period, guns had become used widely on the battlefield, and with about 200 years of no civil war to speak of (save for peasant uprisings and the like), many martial schools simply changed to fit the times, and "jujutsu" developed into unarmed self defense methods and for contests, albeit pretty rough contests.

I can't speak for other ryu, but it's pretty clear in the kata of the Takeuchi-ryu that you have layers of accretion (sp?) of kata. You have some kogusoku methods which are clearly for combat on the battlefield, when you lost your sword and are rolling in the muck and the enemy is doing his best to chop you into pieces. Then there's the usual "walk around the corner and whack 'em upside the head before he knows you're attacking" (much like what Earl mentioned in regard to the Nagao-ryu) to subdue a criminal, and then there's the toh-shihade, toride, kumi-uchi and other forms which I really think came later, because some of their kata only make sense in terms of a limited response encounter, like a contest, wrestling match, or dealing with a drunk relative.

One night I asked if we had any "warm up" exercises because jumping right into throws in the middle of winter was hell to my Hawaii temperment. My sempai led me through a series of warm ups that had become since a kind of set ritual for our classes since I the time I asked. But they were suspiciously modern-ish, so I asked him if it was a kind of kihon. The sempai said heck, no, I wanted warm ups so he gave me warm ups, directly from his college rugby club. We ain't got no warm ups, he basically concluded. The kata remained the same, but things around them changed to fit the times. When I returned a couple years ago, I found my sensei leading the class through some warm ups and I suspect they came not from the divine inspiration of the founder some 500 odd years ago, but from the rajio taiso (radio exercise programs) of a couple years past.

There's something to be said about innovations and modernization, including pop-top beer cans, cable TV, and spam musubi.

IMHO, different ryu will have different responses to the question of age and "relevence." The Takeuchi-ryu, with its array of different kata, is only one way that a ryu struggled through the generations.

Wayne Muromoto

[wmuromoto]

Daniel,

I'm not sure about your claim that koryu jujutsu concentrates against "linear tsuki." Most of the strikes one defends against, at least in the Takeuchi-ryu, are against uraken from different angles. The only linear tsuki I know of are dealing with knife and sword thrusts.

I haven't yet seen one kata in our ryu that deals with a karate-like linear tsuki per se. The notion of a strike like that probably only entered Japanese koryu attention when karate was introduced. I do know that some of my sempai have adapted some methods to deal with such tsuki, as well as for boxing jabs, etc., but it's not part of the established kata; they are variations and self-developed additions.

Uchikomi...Do you mean overhead angular attacks like in aikido type striking? That, too, is rarely seen in my ryu, at least, unless you're talking about a strike done with a sword. The term is a bit confusing to me because in judo uchikomi means practice throws, not any punch or strike.

Wayne Muromoto