Oishi Shin-Kage Ryu

[Toryu]

Dear Friends -
Recently came across this Boku-to advertised as an example of Oishi Shin-Kage Ryu equipment from the Bakumatsu era. I have done some fruitful research as to the origins of the school - read Watkins Sensei's webpages thoroughly. I wonder if anyone here agrees or disagrees with the attribution and why?

The item itself is 136 cm long, with no measureable sori, the tsuba is nearly 9 cm in diameter, most here agree it is oak and while quite long it is very well balanced in the hand, at least for me.

Acopy.jpg
tsuka.JPG
tsuba.JPG

I look forward to any comments - I apologize if this should be in the equipment section but since it is not for sale I thought it would interest the Ko-ryu folks.
-t for Toryu or if we must Tom...
www.toryu-mon.com

[Kendoguy9]

Hi Thomas,

Welcome to e-budo and thanks for an interesting first post. I don't know enough about Oishi Shinkage-ryu to say if that bokuto is an example of theirs or not. There is an Oishi Shinkage-ryu dojo called the Kanoukan that has an English language website. They state on their site that they welcome non-Japanese into their dojo and can speak English. Seems like a friendly bunch. They might be a good group to contact. The photos they have up of Oishi Shinkage-ryu show a very long bokuto. Their page can be found here: http://kanoukan.web.fc2.com/english/index.html Keep us posted with what you find out.

Best regards,
Chris

[Guy Buyens]

Oishi Susumu Tametsugu (1798-1865) was known to make life difficult of dojo in Kyushu with his extreme long shinai (1.5m bamboo training sword) but I thought the bokuto was of normal length, but apparently not. Or may-be the long bokuto is a more recent development following the tendency to use a long shinai?

[Toryu]

Thanks Guy -
As I understand it he wreaked a little havoc in Edo back in the day as well. Thank you also Chris, I had not thought to search for dojo in Japan - I was thinking I might scare up some Kage-ryu practitioners on this forum.Still hopeful that I will. From their photos I see the Kannou-kan uses saya-bokken - would be fun to have a saya for this one too...
-t

[Guy Buyens]

I was thinking I might scare up some Kage-ryu practitioners on this forum.

I thought the long swords of Kage-ryu were only used when fighting in Yoroi (armour). I am not aware if they use long bokuto but when it comes to Kage-ryu, you should ask Colin (hyaku).

In my understanding, Shinkage-ryu (indeed new kage-ryu) was not only influenced by kage-ryu but also by other schools like Katori Shinto-ryu and uses “normal” length blades. This had everything to do with the era in which the school flourished and where schools concentrated more on superiority during duels than fighting on the battlefield. Certainly in the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu (Yagyu Munetoshi, who created this school, was a student of Nobutsuna who on his turn had created Shinkage-ryu) normal sized blades are used.

So where does the long bokuto from Oishi ShinKage-ryu come from, other than the use of a long shinai in the kendo-like matches of its creator (and not because of the historical link with Kage-ryu).

[Kendoguy9]

At least one branch of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu (the Shunpukan) still practices with odachi. I have seen them do the Empi no Odachi and it is a very interesting kata. It seems to be designed for armored warriors. Here is a video of them doing some odachi (Sangaku maybe? I don't know my Yagyu that well): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsfNuzJYBng

[Guy Buyens]

branch of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu (the Shunpukan)

I believe people from the Shunpukan dojo are primarily doing Owari Kan-ryu, which is a spear school.

I understand that besides sojutsu (Owari Kan-ryu ) they also do kenjutsu (indeed Yagyu shinkage-ryu). This is consistent with the fact that in order to really be good in spear one also has to study sword (I read that the 8th soke of Owari-Kan-ryu, Kanbe Kinshichi, was a long time student of YSR).

However their O-dachi seems to come from a line of Hikita Kage-ryu and not mainline YSR.

So, just out of curiosity, I wonder if O-dachi is currently being used in mainline YSR. May-be the YSR people can confirm.

[Toryu]

Guy -
Please google Yanagawa Han Kage Ryu - I think you'll soon find yourself on Watkin Sensei's webpages. According to his and other histories I have found the Kage Ryu from this area of Kyushu developed independent of any other Kage Ryu. It has always used choku-tô and so the Oishi Shin Kage Ryu was a natural development from the older school. I think the same article on Kage ryu can be found on the Koryu.com website as well.
-t

[Guy Buyens]

Guy -
Please google Yanagawa Han Kage Ryu - I think you'll soon find yourself on Watkin Sensei's webpages.

When I told you to ask Colin, i should have been more precise, he is Watkin Sensei, so sure I am aware of his website and the article on koryu.com.

I am not sure though how o-dachi is currently integrated in any form of Shinkage-ryu.
In David Hall's encyclopedia it is said that the 7th generation (I wrote the 8th) Kambe Takeyasu trained extensively with Yagyu Genshu and his successor Yagyu Gencho of YSR. From them (the Owari line of YSR, not the Edo line), HIkita Kage Ryu was probably introduced.
So the Shunpukan dojo is still doing o-dachi, but I don't know about the current Owari line of YSR.
As far as Oishi Shinkage-ryu is concerned, I don't know if it is a continuation of of Kage-ryu kata or a tendency of going back to longer swords initiated by the creator of OSR.

[Josh Reyer]

The o-dachi of Hikita Kage-ryu is a Shunpukan thing. The Yagyukai practice nothing larger than jousun length. The 3rd soke of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, Yagyu Hyogonosuke, did have a gigantic 1.45 meter sword made, but it was purely decorative, being too large and heavy to wield.

[Guy Buyens]

Recently came across this Boku-to advertised as an example of Oishi Shin-Kage Ryu equipment from the Bakumatsu era.

I realize, we probably were too much carried away (at least I was) by the use of longer swords in different schools that we forgot the initial question about the origin of a bokuto.

Also, when we speak of o-dachi, we usually refer to swords with a blade length of 3 shaku (91 cm) or more. However in practice terms, odachi might just refer to long sword as compared to short sword (kodachi).

Coming back to the item in the original post, I don’t know the origin and I can only say it is not an Ono Ha Itto-ryu bokuto. OHIR usually uses bokuto referred to as odachi (long sword), in contrast to kodachi (short sword). The odachi has a blade length of about 71 cm and a tsuka of about 25 cm (in contrast to the kodachi which has a blade length of 46 cm with a much shorter tsuka). The OHIR bokuto are rather thick, little sori, and have a very robust tsuba. Nevertheless in OHIR, there is a cho-odachi (長大太刀) used by uchikata in the Sanju kata, which is about 15 cm ( blade length) longer than the standard odachi. However, nothing compares to the bokuto that was described in the original post.

So if the bokuto that is advertised, is part of the Oishi Shinkage-ryu equipment, I imagine the shop selling it must be located near Hiroshima and be able to tell more about the connection with the Oishi Shinkage-ryu.

[Cliff Judge]

Since Watkins-san is our esteemed moderator, I expect to be corrected if I am wrong but his Kage ryu has no relation to Aisu Ikkosai's tengu-inspired system. But as we all know, they use incredibly long swords....if Oishi Shin-Kage ryu is a related art perhaps that's where their bokken morphology comes from.

As I understand it - and it must be more complicated than this - there are really two other and more prolific streams of Shinkage ryu, which happened to get stuck together somewhat by Kamiizumi Nobutsuna. Matsumoto Bizen founded one system in Kashima, and this went on to become Jikishinkage ryu. They claim Kamiizumi Nobutsuna in their lineage, though I am not clear on whether he was actually licenced in Kashima Shinkage ryu. (He trained Nen ryu under Jion, was licensed in Katori Shinto ryu, and at least had a lot of exposure to Kashima Kashinto and Kashima Shinkage ryu, before finally training with Aisu Ikkosai who was his most influential teacher.) Even stranger to consider when looking at things from a modern perspective, Kashima Shin ryu claims this same lineage (though Zen'ya was licensed in Jikishinkage ryu anyways).

Kashima-inspired schools train with straight bokken (for at least some of their kata sets). So if the bokken in the original post are lacking in sori maybe that's a clue. Though the ones in the pics on the website look pretty curved to me....but perhaps that is a different set of kata.

Kamiizumi Nobutsuna founded the Shinkage ryu system from which Yagyu Shinkage ryu, Hikita Kage ryu, and others derived. Per Josh the Yagyukai doesn't train with field-length swords anymore, but that doesn't mean that the branches of Shinkage ryu do not.

If there are any videos of the Oishi Shinkage ryu performing embu with these long bokken, I'd look for them doing a version of Empi to decide whether or not they are descended from Kamiizumi's Shinkage ryu. I'd look for dynamic tension in their kata, and perhaps screaming, to indicate a Kashima Shinkage ryu derivation.

[hyaku]

Oishi Eiichi Sensei is an old friend from the Yanagawa Han Kobudo Shinkokai days. I have done many Kageryu Embu with him doing Oishi Shrinkage Ryu embu at the same venues. I used to demonstrate at the grave of Oishi Susumu every year. They used a standardized 2.7 saya suki bokkuto. Don't know what they use now. The carpenter cut off his thumb!

His daughter was the original choice of descendant. But she was more interested in going to Amerika. They left the Shinkokai to it alone. Had quite a good following of kids.

Recently my Kageryu deshi living in Osaka met a guy who claimed to be following on the tradition, the one shown in the embu photographs. Can't say I remember him.

I have never seen the bokuto shown in the pic. Eiichi sensei never showed me anything like that. We did make up a yon shaku shinai to display. I used it a few times at my University Kendokai. Useful until opponents got within the length. Then you were dead meat.

[hyaku]

The kanji for Kage in Kageryu is Keshiki (a view/perspective). No links with any other kage, shin, shinshin, or otherwise. Minimum length used by a girl has been San jaku

[Toryu]

Watkin Sensei -
Thank you for your comments. If anyone has ideas where this bokuto might fit I am open to any suggestions. It is clear it has age but is too slender for sword on sword practice most likely some form of iai kata. The seller was in Kyoto, the item came out of a collection from Nagano ken the attribution came from the family that sold it, the seller had no more information he could provide. For now it is "Denrai", held to be from, but it is looking like the attribution cannot be supported.
thanks all,
-t