How Many Generations Does It Take To Create A Ryūha

In a recent blog, I questioned the mythos around the founders of various traditional ryūha. However, beyond the question of whether the founder truly created his martial system in the archetypal manner that is the usual account, there are several other questions:

• Did the putative founder actually have any role, direct or indirect in the creation of a particular fighting system?
• Did the founder even exist?

A Skip in Generations: Miura Yoshin-ryū

In many schools, the lineage can have gaps, sometimes many generations, spanning may decades or even centuries. Let us consider Miura Yoshin-ryū. In Old School (pp. 301- 302), I write:

In this first example, there is a break of five generations in their lineage. This can mean a number of things, and I have no idea which of them might be true:

• What Nakamura Yorifusa created was passed down directly, with physical and oral instruction. There could have perfect transmission, but for some reason, the sixth generation headmaster, Abe Kanryū, did not record the names of his predecessors. Why? There could be politics – a scandal associated with one someone in the lineage. On the other hand, Abe may have decided to teach without receiving proper sanction from his own teacher, whoever that was. In not recording the names of his predecessors, he could be either enacting rebellion, wiping them out of history, or offering them respect in not claiming for himself what he didn’t earn.
• Abe Kanryū may have learned something inchoate, that was ‘passed around the village,’ so to speak, and he formalized things in a typical ryūha format, recognizing debt to Nakamura Sakyodayu Yoshikuni.
• Abe Kanryū was a powerful creative individual (or possibly was like many martial artists, a charismatic man who impressed people as being formidable), and he developed something quite fine, Miura Yoshin Koryū. In my view, there is a hint of this in the name: in calling what he did ‘old school,’ he made it more respectable in the eyes of people who venerated past arts as being more authentic and powerful than the present. In his speculative origin story, he picked a man, Nakamura Yorifusa, whom nobody had ‘claims upon.’ In other words, other great jūjutsu men of the same era were already named as founders of other schools. Nakamura was known, but had no school; in claiming him as a founder, Abe gave his own school ‘weight.’

Fictitious Founders: Akiyama Yoshin-ryū

Composite Lineage: The Development of Takeuchi Santo-ryū

Lance Gatling and I previously published an article on this school. Like most schools, their lineage is in a ‘line.’ In other words, when one looks at a scroll or document concerning the school, you see a succession of names, one after another. For example, if you turn to page 537 of the Bugei Ryūha Daijiten, you will see a lineage chart that starts with Takenouchi Hisamori, the founder of Takenouchi-ryū. In fourth position is Araki Muninsai, the founder of Araki-ryū.  Based on this chart, Araki was the student of the grandson of Hisamori, Takenouchi Kaganosuke, something that others have taken at face value. (In fact, Araki almost certainly studied with a student of Hisamori’s, and was surely an older man).

Takeuchi Santo-ryū was actually created by Yano Hirohide and his son, Yano Hirotsugu, who are listed as 17th and 18th in the lineage. In fact, Hirohide studied two different lines of Takenouchi-ryū and a third system, either Araki-ryū or another martial art that had some relationship to it. Hirotsugu then consolidated and modified these three different lines and named his consolidated system, Takeuchi Santo-ryū. What the Yano family did, in order to give respect and full credit to those who went before, was to combine and interweave those three school’s lineages. Rather than making a ‘spider web’ flow chart, however, they put them in a single ahistorical sequence. This makes a historical mishmash, but includes everyone in those three lineages. (1)

In a document  among the personal effects of Shimada Hideki, last known instructor of Takeuchi Santo-ryū, various sections of the Takeuchi Santo-ryū mokuroku are designated as descending from either/both the Sakushū or Kobayashi kei (lines) of Takenouchi-ryū, others from the Araki-kei, and some as ‘unique to Takeuchi Santo-ryū.’

Before They Were ‘Cultural Treasures,’ Ryūha Were Organic Entities, Under Continuing Development

Partly due to a veneration for the past, and partly due to the fact that koryū had largely been displaced by more contemporary martial arts, there is an ideology that ryūha are pristine treasures unchanged from the first generation when some genius, in a divine revelation, created or channelled the art in complete form. It is clear, for example, that new sections were added to various schools, over hundreds of years. One can see this when a school presents kata that are obviously a study of applications quite unlikely in the historical period that they allegedly were created. For example, any kenjutsu school that focuses on vertical cuts to the center of an enemy’s head is not practicing an application appropriate to armored/helmeted combat. To be sure, such techniques might exist in a very old school, if for no other reason than a study of combative spacing, accuracy or a host of other reasons. But if the school specializes in that, despite any claims of antiquity, it clearly was created (or changed) in a later period of history, where those fighting would not be wearing helmets.

One thing that does confuse people is that, in many cultures, innovation will occur within a school. In Japan, innovation resulted in a new school, either under a name that clearly designates it as an offshoot, or with an entirely new name (and a new origin story, often complete with visitations from gods or mountain elements). Japanese martial practices were, in fact, under almost unceasing ferment in the Edo period, but each change resulted in a new school or branch-school.

Even very old schools also innovated, but usually in a more conservative fashion, and many, if not most of them, did not die out – this is largely due to Japan’s isolation in the Edo period, where there was no need to innovate fighting tactics, as there were no outside enemies, and the totalitarian system suppressed the possibility of revolt for 250 years. It’s significant to note how many schools did die out in the Meiji period, that explosively creative era, where Japan modernized its military and matched the West in only a few decades. The only reason any of the traditional schools remained is that the governing powers that ruled Japan saw in them utility: to inculcate values such as stoicism, and a consciousness of Japanese culture as unique and uniquely martial. At this time, Japan mostly used modern martial arts as physical/spiritual education. Consolidated training methods such as jūdō and kendō  served a purpose of making many people’s (the residents of what were once feudal domains/’mini-countries’ into one people, the Japanese. The purpose of the old schools, the koryū, was to inspire and link modern Japanese to a powerful set of myths that were, in each practice, enacted physically. At this point, overt innovation of koryū served little purpose. It still occurred, but it is fair to say that the intent was to make each ryūha ‘more of what it was,’ (however that phrase might be interpreted), not ‘the strongest combative art possible using archaic weaponry that was largely useless on a modern battlefield.

A lineage Can Include More Than Martial Artists

The Tenshin Bukō-ryū lineage lists Toda Seigen as founder. There are certainly elements of Toda-ryū within the curriculum, but it is unlikely that our 2nd generation, much less our third, studied with Seigen. The reason for this is the second generation in our lineage is said to be Hojō Ujikuni, and the third, Daifuku Gozen, the great Sengoku era daimyo and his wife. There is simply no known history of Toda Seigen traveling to the Hojō domain, or to Numata domain, where Ujikuni, in his youth, resided as a hostage to Daifuku Gozen’s father.

To complicate matters further, the fourth individual in the Tenshin Bukō-ryū lineage was a warrior named Suneya Danjyō, a retainer of a retainer of Hojō Ujikuni. Not only is it beyond implausible that he would have been taught by his daimyo’s wife, he was killed in battle during the fall of the Hojō, his death preceding that of Ujikuni and Daifuku Gozen. He left an infant son, who was carried, along with a few other Suneya family members, to a tiny village in the heart of the Chichibu mountains. In some form, a family martial art centered around the naginata was later passed down within the Suneya family – when it actually started and what was actually its curriculum is undocumented and unknown. It is my best guess that a latter generation of the Suneya studied with someone who taught him nagamakijutsu that derived from a line of Toda-ryū. The Suneya family continued to elaborate this in subsequent generations. Whoever formally consolidated things started the lineage Toda Seigen. He or she then added the legendary daimyo and his wife, who were heroic romantic figures, as well as being the feudal lords of the Suneya family, who had sunk from a glorious  warrior who died in battle to village census takers (the equivalent of a mayor and tax collector in one, perhaps the lowest status bushi one could be). This is extremely common within many schools: one’s lineage can include those who had an influence upon one’s teachers or oneself, glorious family members, those to whom one’s family offered service, legendary warriors who inspire the imagination and somehow embody – something – that the people establishing a martial tradition feel is the same. And of course, demons and gods and mountain elementals.

This is not dishonest – in fact, it is more honest than the obsessive-compulsive idea that one’s lineage only includes the people who not only taught you, but signed your scrolls. Rather, in the old-school form, one is saying, “All these people made me, and furthermore, all of them are necessary for this school to exist.” Remember, too, that such a scroll was not written for historians – they were written for the students of the ryūha. For example, including Tomoe Gozen, the 12th/13th century legendary woman warrior in one’s schools history insists, so to speak that feminine influence/power was essential for the establishment of this ryūha and is still an element today – this emphasis is important in a naginatajutsu school, particularly one that happens to be led by men (at one or another historical period). Similarly, including earlier warriors renowned for grappling ability or for glorious sacrifice or tactical intelligence are ‘shadow messages’ to students that these qualities are requisite for mastery of the ryūha.

Conclusion

The kanji for ryū is 流 (‘flow’). If the martial ryūha were only the creation of a single person, and thereafter, continued in pristine form, unchanged, then their names would only include such  terms as tenshin  (天真 ‘from the gods’). Often this is included within a schools name, indicating that there was some kind of revelation in its founding. But just as a river is not merely its headwaters, the flow of a ryūha includes its entire length. Surely, some generations merely practiced as they were taught, unquestioningly or stoically accepting what they considered to be unanswerable questions. Others, however became part of the flow themselves, and the ryū changed, generation after generation, sometimes subtle changes in footwork or angle of attack, and sometimes major revisions of its curriculum. That is the nature of a living art.

Footnote

(1) By the way, Takeuchi Santo-ryū is a fascinating school. Essentially, in its latter years, they were enacting much the same process as Kano Jigoro did in creating a competitive form of unarmed jūjutsu. Eventually, they, like almost all grappling schools, were subsumed by the Kodokan, but with their emphasis on ne-waza and incredibly strong practitioners, they had a significant influence on the development of jūdō. Many of the great jūdōka of Kyushu started in this school, among them Kimura Masahiko, and the great Samaura Masaaki, a 10th dan, who specialized, in particular, in Takeuchi Santo-ryū’s ura nage (‘back throws’). In fact, their influence went even further. One member of the Yano family was Yano Takeo 矢野武雄. He was born in the early 1900’s,  in Kumamoto and is likely to have been a young son of the family. He moved to Brazil as a young man, and was a brilliant competitor in so-called jiujitsu and luta livre matches from the late 1920’s through the 1950’s.  He was a jūdo student of Isogai Hajime of the Butokukai. Yano fought both genuine matches and works (fixed matches). In particular, he had a very productive professional relationship with Jorge Gracie (the most prolific fighter of the Gracie brothers). He fought his last pro wrestling match in 1958. He was a pioneer in jūdō in Brazil, as well as teaching some famous Brazilian jiujitsu practitioners.  (Choque: The Untold Story of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil by Roberto Pedreira).

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