Category: Uncategorized Page 9 of 11

NOTE: The following essay owes a tremendous amount to my consultation with Stephen Delaney of the Araki-ryu gunyo-kogusoku. I take full responsibility, however, for everything – both history and speculation – within this essay.

 Araki Buzaemon and his immediate successors

Two different martial traditions, Araki-ryu gunyo-kogusoku and Araki Shin-ryu, are associated with Araki Buzaemon Hisakatsu, a man otherwise unknown, but believed by these ryuha to be related to Araki Mujinsai (AKA Muninsai) Minamoto Hidetsuna, the founder of Araki-ryu torite-kogusoku.

These two schools are profoundly different, but both have the same anomaly in their lineage: after Araki Mujinsai, both Araki Shin-ryu and, until recently, Araki-ryu gunyo-kogusoku then listed the next two generations blank, followed by Araki Buzaemon in the fourth generation. Such blanks in the lineage are not unusual in Japanese ryuha. For example, Miura Yoshin-ryu has a gap between the alleged founder, Nakamura Sakyodayu Yoshikuni (Miura Yoshin) and the sixth, Abe Kanryu. Generally speaking, such a gap implies that the person after the gap, in this case Buzaemon, created a new ryu inspired somehow by Mujinsai, but separated by a few generations.

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 Several years ago, Peter Boylan began publishing some of his essays online. I was immediately struck by his wit and his articulate style, but more importantly, his ability to clearly describe one or another aspect of classical Japanese martial arts. He has published many of these essays in a book, Musings of a Budo Bum. There is much to admire in his work.  In this blog, I would like to engage with Peter, rather than merely praise all that is admirable within his book, and through that, further illuminate some of the things he writes about with such grace.

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Throughout my career in martial art training, I would say that the majority of people I’ve met–my fellow students, my peers or acquaintances,  are people who are happy to train with what they think is an exemplary teacher. For a number of reasons, however, (lack of drive, humility, reticence to push themselves forward .. .  . .), they act as if they have an endless amount of time to learn the system.

That’s not so. Your teachers age, and as they do so, invariably, they cannot move as they once did. Some not only lose skill, but they lose knowledge. Others lose wisdom itself. Still others change: what seemed so important once is irrelevant to them as they approach, ever closer, to death, and their students’ mastery of their particular combative art no longer seems that important. In other words, their fire has burned out.

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My name is Bill Fettes. I am a sixty-seven years plus retired police officer from South Australia. I joined the police at the ripe old age of 47, and retired at 67 and a bit at the end of 2017. Most of those twenty years were spent on the cutting edge, and the rest in Intelligence and Undercover jobs. I worked the entertainment districts in our capital city, Adelaide until after my 65^th birthday, when the police union decided I was too old to insure.

I commenced my study of Asian combatives in 1968 with aikido & Shindo Muso-ryu jodo (Japanese medium length staff) in 1980, simplified and Yang-style taijiquan (Taichi) in 1981, Chen-style taijiquan, xingyiquan, baguazhang and Shaolinquan in 1985. The last of my current training regimes was Toda-ha Buko-ryu naginatajutsu, which I commenced in 1989.

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In the early late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Kini Collins and I began a project to write a book on naginata (many portions of which later became the basis of my book, Old School). We interviewed many wonderful instructors of various ryu, and among them was this one Kini did with Abe sensei, which she first published by Valerie Eads, PhD., in “Fighting Woman News.”

 Kini and I had previously gone to Kyoto to observe a yearly national practice of Tendo-ryu, and among the many powerful women was one who stood out, Abe Toyoko sensei. Her technique had a different quality, both precise, but really powerful.  Even more striking, however, was her manner.  She obviously could not accept anything less than exemplary budo.  She was blunt spoken, even harsh, but never unkind.  She simply stated how she believed Tendo-ryu must be executed, and implicit in every word was the confidence that if one disagreed, she could demonstrate physically why her way was better.

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Some time ago, I was at participating in training on the combative use of firearms. This is a new area of study for me, and I was among a number of others, all  of whom professionals, working with a borrowed weapon. During the practice, something rather disturbing occurred. It was resolved and the training continued. After that training block was finished, I was unloading my weapon to return it, still somewhat preoccupied by the previous event, rather than 100% focused on the firearm in my hand. I’d unloaded the magazine, and was jacking back the slide to check if there was a bullet in the chamber. The action was very stiff and I gripped the weapon firmly with my right hand to properly brace the action. To my horror, I realized I had unconsciously let my index finger wrap around the trigger. I froze, stopping my action. There was, in fact, a bullet in the chamber, and I would have fired off a round in God-knows-what-direct, if I hadn’t caught myself at the last moment.

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There are two inter-related questions regarding the history of the development of aikido: 

• Does aikido owe anything to Yagyu Shingan-ryu, a classical martial tradition that Ueshiba Morihei studied before entering Daito-ryu? 
• How much did Ueshiba Morihei take from Daito-ryu in creating his art?

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Lament has been expressed that Yamaguchi Sensei (1924 – 1996) did not leave behind instructional material such as a video or book. I certainly agree with that. William Gleason and Stan Pranin have discussed the remarkable technique of Yamaguchi Sensei. It occurred to me that I had some material to offer about Yamaguchi Sensei from notes I kept while practicing at Hombu Dojo from 1973 to 1980. Yamaguchi Sensei taught a yudansha (black belt) course annually. The figure and text given below were taken from material distributed at one of these courses in 1973. The first attempt at translating the figure was done by my wife, Kinuyo Kraus, a native Japanese language speaker. Then, I prevailed on colleagues originally from China to review and interpret the figure, because some of the Kanji are quite old. I would like to thank Professor Sam Wang and Dr. Yan Ding (who lived in Japan for three years), both of the University of Mississippi, for their kindness in offering interpretations of some facets of the figure.

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