Hello everybody!
I had a chance to read a book called "Muso Shinden Ryu: Chuden, Hasegawa Eishin Ryu" by Jean-Pierre Reniez (in French) and there was a passage in the history section that left me puzzled. Here is a rough translation (pp. 24-25):
quote:
"Once, after a demonstration of his [Nakayama Hakudo's] practice of the way of the sword in front of the famous Shindo Munen-ryu instructor Itagaki Taisuke (1837-1919), he was confided by the latter that without study, research and intensive practice in the province of Tosa his techniques would always be incomplete and open for further perfection. Under pressing insistence by Nakayama Hakudo, who wanted to penetrate the real iaido, Itagaki Taisuke agreed to introduce him to the sensei from Tosa. In this way he got recommended to Yukimune Sadayoshi, the real "grey eminence" of Tosa iaido. Quite as expected Yukimune Sadayoshi absolutely refused to take Nakayama Hakudo as deshi, since he wasn't originally from Tosa.
"Dead in the soul", Nakayama was going to return to Tokyo "bredouille", when Oe Masamichi, the future 17-th soke of the Tanimura branch, confided to him: "starting tomorrow I will have four or five days of public demonstrations (an extremely rare event at that time) and even though our sempai refused and absolutely forbade us to you the real way of the sword, you can still come and watch my demonstrations, take notes and study by looking (kengaku)."
Oe Masamichi obviously wanted to give Nakayama Hakudo material to think about his technique and his understanding of the practice of the way of the sword. The latter, of course, accepted [this offer] without doubt but with much gratitude. After this episode [Nakayama Hakudo] has worked hard and progressed a lot [parentheticals not understood], returned to Tosa and finally managed to become deshi to the famous master Hosokawa Yoshimasa (future 15th soke of the Shimomura branch). But [Hosokawa] respected, despite all, the spirit of Tosa and only awarded him the menkyo, and [Nakayama] had to wait for a few years after the death of the 15th soke before being awarded the menkyo kaiden by Morimoto Tokumi.
Thus [Nakayama Hakudo] also studied under the direction of Morimoto Tokumi (the latter being from the Tanimura branch in parallel and between (?) Goto Magobei Seiryo and Oe Masamichi; some genealogists and historians of budo even suggest that he was the soke of a parallel line within the Tanimura branch). He also finally became a student of the prestigeous Yukimune Sadayoshi, who despite Nakayama Hakudo's not belonging to the Tosa clan gave in to his earnestness, his application (?), his tenacity and above all his (?) in the research and discovery of the real way of the sword."
:end quote
It seems to be widely accepted that Nakayama Hakudo's Muso Shinden-ryu is a continuation of the Shimomura-ha, however, judging from this source, he got his menkyo kaiden from Tanimura-ha (Morimoto Tokumi), and not Shimomura-ha. I wonder if anyone could provide any other sources of information to confirm/disprove this statement? I have no reason to suspect the source itself in disparaging the MSR, as the author himself practices this style (most likely from Danzaki Tomoaki).
Thanks for your help,