Shintō-musō-ryū Jō No Hinkaku: The Dignity of the Jō

An Interview of Hamaji Koichi by Gerald Toff

Translated by Matuoka Hiroshi & Edited by Russ Ebert, Published by Aijokai

Which brings me to Jō no Hinkaku. In 1977, Shintō-musō-ryū practitioner Gerald Toff interviewed Hamaji Koichi, a menkyo-kaiden in the art. This interview was turned into a book, only forty-one pages, first in Japanese and now in English, one I consider to be the single most important work for anyone interested in koryū bugei.  Why do I consider this book so important when we have works as erudite as David Hall’s, The Buddhist Goddess Marishiten: A Study of the Evolution and Impact of her Cult on the Japanese Warrior, Karl Friday and Fumitake Seki’s Legacies of the Sword: The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture, or Donn Draeger’s three volume, Martial Arts and Ways of Japan, to name only a few? The reason is that these books give the reader everything except that which is most important: the experience of hearing – truly – the mind of someone who lived koryū bugei as it was in a past era. Hamaji sensei hearkens back to the time of his father and grandfather, describing a mindset largely gone from the world today. And without somehow internalizing that mindset, you will never understand a traditional cultural practice, be it a combative art or an aesthetic one.

This essay is one of many that has been revised to make the writing itself more graceful, but more importantly, to incorporate my own developing perspective on this subject. It is now part of my new book, Roots Still Cracking Rock: Refections On My First Fifty Years Within Classical Japanese Martial Traditions, which in addition to revised essays from this site, contains new work as well. Below you will find a picture of the cover as well as a QR code to order a Special Edition of the book. In this group order of ten books or more, Ran Network will make a special print-run with a dedication on the title page to your dojo or other institution. 

The general release of the book on Amazon (equal in quality of the binding) will be on approximately April 20th.  I will place that link here as well when it is ready.