Menkyo Kaiden & Koryu Densho

[Chris Li]

So what privileges or rights does that give? Can a soshi give a menkyo kaiden? That was more my question.

Regards,

Andrew De Luna

Well, there are no laws governing this kind of thing. Just custom and tradition - and that will vary quite a bit from art to art and from branch to branch within a particular art.

In the end, the "rights" are, I suppose, whatever you end up being able to get away with .

Best,

Chris

[Ollie]

I have read true Daitoryu Densho and Menkyo Kaiden and Koryu Densho here on E budo .com and i find my answers .

Ollie

[Nathan Scott]

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[Patrick McCarthy]

... When it comes down to it, martial arts are physical arts, and you either have practical skills at it or you don't. Most students are more interested in developing real ability at martial arts than they are with studying under an inferior teacher who holds the ultimate administrative authority to issue papers. Students such as these are probably not going to care whether or not the mainline "recognizes" them or not, since they actually have the skill sets...

Nicely put Nathan.

[someguy]

As it was relay to me Nathan from Dan Sharp Sensei, you are correct in regards to Okabayashi Sensei. He wanted to avoid the political fighting going on with the other branches and Kondo. The fact that Kondo copy wrote the name Daito Ryu was another driving factor as were a few others things like some of the technical ways Okabayashi Sensei teaches. There is another thing in play here as well I think in regards to Hakuho Ryu, in that Sensei did get a Menkyo Kaiden in Tokimune's Sokoku Den Ono Ha Itto Ryu which Tokimune said contained the secrets of Daito Ryu.

[Nathan Scott]

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[Ollie]

Dear Nathan
Thank you very much for the very good explanations

great work

Ollie

[skylinerR32]

5) Kondo Sensei has mentioned only a couple of Daito-ryu branches in the past as "recognized" by him. If I remember correctly, they are the Takumakai and Kodokai - both branches founded by menkyo kaiden level instructors under a previous headmaster. The Sagawa Dojo is in a little bit of a gray area, in that the menkyo kaiden level existed during Sagawa Sensei's lifetime, but according to Sagawa Sensei (in Transparent Power), he was not interested in investing any more money in higher licensing.

Addressing the Sagawa Dojo as situated in a Daito-ryu "gray area" and Kondo's recognition of other legitimate sources of Daito-ryu instruction, the following is a re-post of a response from another thread:

From the FAQ Section of the Mainline Daito-Ryu website back in 2000 before it underwent signifcant re-design (http://web.archive.org/web/200008290.../faq.html#q2):

* What is the relationship between the Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu General Headquarters and other Daito-ryu organizations such as the Kodokai and Takumakai?

These organizations were formed around the teachings direct students of Takeda Sokaku, namely Horikawa Kodo and Hisa Takuma. As such the Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu General Headquarters recognizes their validity as representing portions of the Daito-ryu tradition and is on friendly terms of mutual respect with them and many of the individuals teaching under their auspices. Other groups include the Roppokai, founded by Okamoto Seigo, and the Sagawa Dojo, founded by the late Sagawa Yukiyoshi.

- Jim Yang

[JNavarro]

I was not aware that Tokimune Sensei issued high rankings in his version of Ono-ha itto-ryu - or, that Tokimune felt that the secret to Daito-ryu was in OIR. I hope the secret is something more than the hitoemi principle found in all Japanese martial arts!

I do agree that sword/weapon training is a critical element to understanding Japanese unarmed arts though.

BTW, Kondo Sensei was involved with the trademarking of Daito-ryu when Tokimune was still alive, and to my knowledge, has not taken any legal actions against anyone to date.

Mr. Fitzgerald, I see by your web page that you have sought out training under Okabayashi Sensei. Good luck with that. However, after reading your last post, I'm not sure you are helping him out much by identifying his art as "Hakuho ryu Aikijujutsu", then immediately re-identifying it as a branch of Daito-ryu: "( Hakuho Kai Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu )". How is that keeping him out of the politics?!?

Regards,

Nathan,

I don't want to take this thread off topic, but I wish to clarify a few points. The official name of the art is Hakuho Ryu Aikibudo. This is the way it's written on certificates and I have been corrected on two instances by Okabayashi Sensei, since I used to call it Aikijujutsu instead of Aikibudo.

Okabayashi Sensei was awarded Menkyo in 1985 by Tokimune in his version of Ono-ha Itto-ryu.

When it comes to the "secret" it does include hitoemi, but there are a few more concepts involved. I don't wish to elaborate on that not because I wish to keep a sense of mystery or mystique, but because as I have seen on countless posts here on e-budo, it is virtually impossible to explain in writing. Besides, I'm just a simple student whose understanding of what's going on in the techniques changes on a weekly basis.

[Nathan Scott]

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[wagnerphysed]

Going back to Nathan's earlier post and the statement Chris made about formal transmission...

IMO, a mainline art that is formally transmitted (speaking of koryu here), may have a paper headmaster that is not respected by peers in adjunct or parallel lines of that art. However, as can be seen in TSKSR, formal transmission retains the essence of an art that allows the next or future generations to learn the pieces necessary to relate the original combative elements of the art in a near perfect manner (I can't say perfect because I nor anyone else have actually seen the true combative applications of any of these arts). Both Otake sensei and the late Don Draeger were able to take what some had viewed as a lackluster koryu style and put the piss and vinegar back into it. No doubt this was a result of the formal and full transmission of the art across generations, despite any lack of combative intent in interim headmasters.

Sometimes, it's the practitioner who has access to the real/ true goods who can push the boundaries of an art while staying within the true essence of the ryu.

[Nathan Scott]

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