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Thread: Koryu demonstrations & events in Japan

  1. #16
    popupsoldier Guest

    Talking

    Wow ! Seeing as though it was such a rainy day, and I just got to Harajuku station as everyone was packing up, it:s great to see such wonderful pics!!!

    Thanks Daniel.

    Tim Oldham

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    Hi everyone,

    Thanks for all your kindness! My PC's hard-drive crashed on friday, and I haven't been able to get back online since then...

    Kim, congratulations on the great job you've done with the design of an easily accessible, and enjoyable format for the images - your page looks great! Let me get back to you soon with a bit of commentary about the day.

    With thanks,

    Daniel Lee

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    Default Koryu demonstrations & events in Japan

    Hello all,

    I'm going to be in Japan from Dec. 13th to Jan 8th, and was hoping that people might be able to reccommend and interesting budo-ish activities that might be going on during this time frame. I'm going to be in both Tokyo and Shizuoka, possibly Kyoto, but my schedule somewhat flexible, so might be able to make it to a variety of things. Of particular interest to me would be any events related to SMR jo. I'll be talking to my SMR instructor this weekend hoping he can hook me up with something, but was wondering if there might be any demonstrations or events going on. Although, maybe bad timing for this, since I've heard that most things shutdown at the end of the year.

    Thanks in advance,

    -Charles Lockhart

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    The hombu dojo of Mochizuki Sensei's Yoseikan Budo is in Shizuoka. I don't know the address or #, but a world master shouldn't be hard to track down in ihis own home town. Sensei himself is in his 90's and living in France with his son, but his fine cadre of senior instructors carry on. The dojo is on the banks of the Abegawa in (I believe) the Miroku section of the city.

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    Question Koryu demonstrations & events in Japan

    Does anyone one know if there are any koryu embu/demonstrations in the Hyogo/Osaka/Kyoto area during August?
    Richie Styles

  6. #21
    Meik Skoss Guest

    Default kobudo embu in Japan

    A friend sent me this e-mail message and I thought I'd post it here on e-Budo as well.

    >Hope all's well. A quick question for you: I remember hearing that every three years in Japan, a big embu of koryu takes place. Do you know when the next one will be? Is it held in Tokyo or Kyoto?<

    Actually, there are several held each year. The biggest one is generally in February or thereabouts, and it's *usually* at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. It does move around the country sometimes, so you'd need to check to see where it is.

    There are a couple of other good ones in Tokyo. On 29 April (I think), one at Riverside Sports Center (not too far from Ueno). On 2 November, there's a good one at Meiji Jingu. Outside if it's clement, otherwise it's inside of the Shiseikan Dojo.

    Another excellent embu is held at Nagoya Castle, on 10 October. The ryu at this demonstration are mainly from the Owari/Nagoya area, and you'll have a chance to see a lot of good Shinkage-ryu and Kan-ryu stuff one does not otherwise get a chance to see very often.

    Demonstrations in Kyoto occur during the spring holiday season of Golden Week (3~5 May). The Budosai is at the p;d Butokukai building, near Heian Jingu. Most of what you'll see there is iaido (mainly Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu and Muso Shinden-ryu), Shinto Muso-ryu jojutsu and its related arts (Isshin-ryu, Ikkaku-ryu, Uchida-cum-Chuwa-ryu), and Tendo-ryu and Jikishinkage-ryu naginatajutsu. Plus odds 'n sods of an awful lot of other stuff (mainly weapons arts).

    The Shimogamo Jinja demonstration is at Shimogamo Shrine (gee, I bet you guessed that right!). It's the day after the Butokukai embu. The day after that there's a smaller demonstration at Shiramine Jinja.

    Another demonstration is held in the fall, in Hiroshima Prefecture (I think). I have never been to that one, but it's generally just a j.v. event. The ones where all the biggies come outare the demonstrations in February at the Budokan and the one in May, at Shimogamo Shrine.

    Finally, every twenty years (on a ten-year alternating schedule), there's the embu at Ise, commemorating the rebuilding of the Inner and Outer Shrines. That's another BIG demonstration, which even the headmasters attend. (Not every soke/ryuha daihyo goes to the others, often preferring to have their senior students do the demonstrating.) The last one was about five or six years ago.

    Hope this helps.

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    Aww Meik youve upset me now

    Hiroshima is my biggie.

    Hyakutake Colin
    Hyakutake Colin

    All the best techniques are taught by survivors.


    http://www.hyoho.com

  8. #23
    Meik Skoss Guest

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    Well, I did say, "generally," didn't I? I was, as a matter of fact, referring to what happens in the groups from Tokyo/Kanto. To be fair, ryu of a given area usually send their best people to local embu. It makes sense for them to do so. Given that we generally have to pay a major part (and usually all) of our expenses for these events, giving our "baby bunnies" a chance to do their stuff is a good way to share the burden inherent in representing one's ryu.

  9. #24
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    Meik:

    I'm pretty sure there is a yabusame enbu at Shimogamo Jinja during the May Butokusai at the Butokukai. At least there was when I was living in Japan. Can't remember if it's Takeda Ryu of Ogasawara Ryu, though.

    Also, in addition to all of the iai at the Butokukai, I distinctly remember a lot of naginata, in addition to Niten Ichi Ryu, some Itto Ryu and Hoki Ryu iai. There was also some Shinkage Ryu stuff, although I don't know which line (they wore bright red kote, laquered like the fukuro shinai). I'm sure there was a lot of other stuff, but it's been so long I can't remember.

    I even saw a kusarigama vs. kendo taryu jiai there once. The kusarigama guy had the kendo guy completely flummoxed and whacked him cleanly in the doh a number of times with the fundo (that's what you call the weight at the end of the chain, right?); the judges (kendo guys, o'course) were really confused and had no idea how to call it. Pretty funny.
    Earl Hartman

  10. #25
    Meik Skoss Guest

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    No, the yabusame embu is at Kamigamo Jinja, on the north side of the city. I've never seen it, but the one at Tsurugaoka Hachiman, located in Kamakura is pretty interesting. I'm not much on wakyu, though, as it seems a pretty inefficient way to shoot and I'd much rather see a good barebow field archery contest. Inu ou mono, on t'other hand, has a bit of interest to me (if a bit rough on the dogs; perhaps cabbies could be used instead?).

    Like I said, there are odds 'n sods of various ryu to be seen at the Budosai Embukai. The Shinkage-ryu group was probably that of Kato S., of the Shumpukan. They've also demonstrated Owari Kan-ryu a couple of times at the Butokuden. Other interesting schools I've seen there are Kogen Itto-ryu, and some kind of jujutsu I don't recall now (this was in May 1974 -- perhaps it was Sekiguchi Shinshin-ryu?).

    The isshu jiai can be very interesting. I recall seeing a kusarigama vs. kendo match once, with fairly similar results. That's happened to me once, too, when I fought a guy at a Tendo-ryu seminar. Hazzard S. just couldn't bring himself to call a point for me, even though I hit my opponent numerous times with both the fundo and ha, and nailed him once with the butt end of the e, on the head. Oh, well... it was lots of fun while it lasted. Buko-ryu kama's simply some of the best stuff going; waaaaaay better than Isshin-ryu in my UNhumble opinion.

    The best match I ever saw there, though, was between two godan-level cops. One guy had his shinai knocked out of his hands; his opponent came in with a *really* big menuchi. Result? The disarmed guy threw his aite with one of the best osotogari I've seen in a long time and then scored with men dori. Very classic stuff -- it makes me wet just thinking about it.

  11. #26
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    Well, we won't go into the "wakyu is really inefficient" stuff; we just finished our annual kyudo seminar last week; one of the sensei who came over is in his mid 60s, shoots a 45-50 pound bow and regularly hits in the >95% range (95-96 hits out of 100, 14" target at 30 yds). And wakyu is about as "bare bow" as you can get; 300 year old technology, really; the only thing that's really changed since late Edo is the fact that modern bows are glued together with epoxy resin now instead of traditonal glue. I've seen a number of bare bow enthusiasts, and I think that a good kyudo archer could compete with them fairly well.

    Also, modern kyudo technique is designed to get the strongest possible shot out of a relatively weak bow; back in the day the shooting was considerably different to allow for a) stronger bows, b) armor, c) the need to shoot quickly in battle, and d) a soft shootng glove as opposed to the hard wrist shooting glove developed for the toshiya which, for reasons that I do not completely understand, is still in use today for close-distance target shooting (perhaps I will get to the bottom of this one day). The draw was probably to the chin or the chest to avoid the fukigaeshi and for foot soldiers was certainly from the bottom up, not the top down as with most modern kyudo. And the bow was not allowed to spin in the hand as nowadays.

    One could argue that the Japanese bow itself is inefficient, I suppose; my view is this is primarily due to material limitations; not having access to large herds of ruminants like the Mongols the Japanese did not have a ready supply of horn and sinew for making the kind of short, heavily recurved bows used on the Asian continent. The Jaanese did, however, have a plentiful supply of hardwood and bamboo, not available to the Mongols. You can't build a Mongol type bow out of hardwood and bamboo laminate without having the bamboo shatter if it's overdrawn. So, to get a decent draw length, and, hence, sufficient power, the Japanese, like the English, adopted a longbow design. If you're on a horse with one of those things, lifting it above your had and then drawing down is probably the most efficient way to shoot it.

    I have heard that Englishmen brought back some Middle Eastern-type bows from the Crusades; the glue holding the laminations together could not withstand the damp English climate and so the bows fell apart, thereby proving to the English that their yew self bows were obviously superior.

    Yeah, Ive seen a lot of that type of "lose-your-weapon-and-then-throw-the-guy-when-he's-stupid-enough-to-lift-his-arms-that-far-above-his-head-'cause-he-thinks-he's got-you" stuff. Actually, what I saw was the ceiling and then the floor since I was on the receiving end of it.
    Last edited by Earl Hartman; 30th July 2003 at 21:49.
    Earl Hartman

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    Originally posted by Meik Skoss
    Well, I did say, "generally," didn't I? I was, as a matter of fact, referring to what happens in the groups from Tokyo/Kanto. To be fair, ryu of a given area usually send their best people to local embu. It makes sense for them to do so. Given that we generally have to pay a major part (and usually all) of our expenses for these events, giving our "baby bunnies" a chance to do their stuff is a good way to share the burden inherent in representing one's ryu.
    Yes of course your right. We only have Soke and his Menkyo Kaiden do the Budokan. So its the only chance we have. As you also say we have to pay the expenses for these things dont we. If I start making trips up North I might become a bit more famous but then again it would make a big hole in my pocket.

    I am up in Tama (Your old hunting ground) every September for a Zekoku Batto Takai. Apart from that its mostly Kyushu.

    Hyakutake Colin.
    Hyakutake Colin

    All the best techniques are taught by survivors.


    http://www.hyoho.com

  13. #28
    Meik Skoss Guest

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    Gee, Earl, it's a good thing you let it ride re: wakyu and didn't go into any long discussion re: kyudo. I mean, that'd be the opposite of what you said, right? Yappashi, kimi wa kawarahen, nyah...

    You've raised a good point, however, if indirectly, with the example of Middle Eastern (or traditionally made Japanese bows) in what folks laughingly call "weather" there in Olde Blighty. It brings to mind a paraphrase by an American Rhodes scholar of an English poet: "Oh, to be in April, now that England's here." Not to put too fine a point on it, but, yeah, it's best to use what works in a given environment. If a composite bow assembled with fish glue (yumi?) or animal sinew and umpty-dozen secret ingredients is what works, then use 'em. If yew is the best thing going, use that.

    I've a longbow made of American yew that's little short of wonderful; it beats my composite recurve hands down in terms of the smoothness and speed of release. It's a good bit heavier (60# @ 28", the recurve is only 48# @ 28"), but feels a lot lighter on the draw. Anyway, it's more interesting, I think, to use local materials and deal with a lot of the other design problems imposed by their characteristics.

    Kusarigama's cool, though. Very nasty. The secret is to have a short chain, so it can cycle quicker (that's why I don't like Isshin-ryu as much -- too long/slow).

    You remember the scene in the first part of the Musashi trilogy where he fights Shishido Baiken? He gets his swords wrapped up in the chain and then fights to avoid closing with Baiken? It's directly opposite to what common sense would dictate: you *want* that weighted chain immobilized, otherwise it'll pulverize you in short order. (It's what you call "fundoshi" in Japanese.) Close with the kama and then strike him down; that's what you've got your kaiken-cum-tanto for, right?

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    "Kimi" to wa nan da, "kimi" to wa...dousei yobisute surun dattara "omae" gurai ni shite yo. Wagahai wa rippuku de aru.

    I couldn't let the slight on wakyu pass, as you knew I would not, of course. Like you said, you should know me pretty well by now.

    Anyway, I hope at some point to get a proper longbow and a proper steppe recurve (Mongol/Magyar) bow and see what they're like. What I notice, since I've never really seriously studied Western archery, is that pulling a shorter bow of a decent strength just beats the hell out of my shoulders, especially the right one, since you can't get the elbow of the string hand back behind the point of the shoulder like you can with the modern kyudo draw, which allows you to use your entire body to resist the pull on the string. The result is that for me, anyway, it causes a great strain in the shoulder. In addition, the release and the bow shock are really rough compared to wakyu, due to the shorter length of the bow. Still, I am sure that it is just a matter of getting used to it.

    Also, in discussions with serious archers, especially those who shoot Olympic style, I find that while the vocabulary is different we are really talking about the same thing. While it is true that the bow in the West does not have the historical, religious, and aristocratic associations it does in Japan, and thus did not develop the kind of ritual and ceremony associated with its use in Japan, the actual heart of the shooting technique seems to me to be very much the same although it is expressed differently becasue of the difference in equipment. In any case, I find that I have much more in common with a serious Western archer than I do with any of the Zen bunnies who are trying to recreate Herrigel.

    "Fundo-shi". Jeez.
    Last edited by Earl Hartman; 31st July 2003 at 04:14.
    Earl Hartman

  15. #30
    Mekugi Guest

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    There is a neat one coming up in Kumano, Hongu.....


    Be there or be square!

    -Russ

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