hatsumi and koga ryu

[Cryozombie]

I have to ask for Clarification on a point...

Detractors of the Art often claim Takamatsu said he "made up" the Togakure-ryu from Childhood games... I have heard that this was a "mistranslation" of what he claimed which was that he was introduced to the Togakure-ryu in the form of Childhood play... anyone have any information on that?

 

[Chris Parker]

Hey Cryo,

Yeah, I'm with you here. From what I remember, the story goes something like this:

Takamatsu Sensei was a quite sickly and weak child, often bullied by his school-mates, and nicknamed "Cry Baby" (which had not yet gained street cred as a name, as Johnny Depp was many years off immortalising the name...). As a result, his father sent him to his Uncles school, which (publically) taught Shinden Fudo Ryu at the age of about 9 in order to "toughen" him up for a planned military career. For the first year or so, the young Takamatsu was not taught any techniques, and was basically used as a punching bag fo rhte other students. He was hit, kicked, and thrown around until he bled, occasionally knocked unconscious, revived, and then thrown again.

Eventually he began to be taught the techniques of Shinden Fudo Ryu, being granted Menkyo Kaiden in just a few short years. During this time, it was revealed to him that Shinden Fudo Ryu was not the only system taught there, but Gyokko Ryu, Koto Ryu, and Togakure Ryu as well. As he began to be taught these arts, he had a preference for Koto Ryu, as it had a focus on conditioning and hitting, but found Ninjutsu (Togakure Ryu) far less appealing. I feel that this is due to the way he was introduced to the school, with skills such as Shiho Ten Chi Tobi and Shoten no Jutsu were first presented as more "games" than training drills. After all, Togakure Ryu's tiajutsu curriculum is not anywhere near as large as schools such as Gyokko's or Koto's.

So I do feel that it is a mis-interpretation, and is based more on the fact that Takamatsu was a child when he was first shown the aspects of the art, but none of that means it is "based" on kid's games.

 

[Bruno@MT]

...

Thanks Chris. Nice to know that my understanding matches yours enough for comfort. One of the reasons I try to be careful when posting on this topic is that there is such a load of unbased myth and disinformation on the internet that it is sickening, and I don't want to add more to it.

Besides it would be ever so embarrassing if you'd completely gut my post in public. Especially since my sensei is also on this board

 

[Chris Parker]

Hey Bruno,

Yeah, agreed on the degree of bad information out there... the trick is to develop the ability to sort out the good from the bad, and I get the feeling that you have that down pretty well. Oh, and thanks for the credit, don't know if I would class myself as an "expert", you know, but thanks anyway. Just remember to include such people as George Kohler in your list of people to listen to. He is someone I would certainly class in the expert level.

Don't worry, though. I'll only gut your posts through PM... straight to Troy Wideman, that's cool right?

 

[yorkshirelad]

Hey Bruno,

Yeah, agreed on the degree of bad information out there... the trick is to develop the ability to sort out the good from the bad, and I get the feeling that you have that down pretty well. Oh, and thanks for the credit, don't know if I would class myself as an "expert", you know, but thanks anyway. Just remember to include such people as George Kohler in your list of people to listen to. He is someone I would certainly class in the expert level.

Don't worry, though. I'll only gut your posts through PM... straight to Troy Wideman, that's cool right?

Chris, if you ever decide to write a book on the history of various koryu, put me down for a signed copy mate.

 

[Shinobi Teikiatsu]

Chris, if you ever decide to write a book on the history of various koryu, put me down for a signed copy mate.

Seconded.

 

[tenzen]

i seem to have been mis understood. i am not denouncing hatsumi i have a tremendous respect for him and what he has done. what i was intending was to discuss these schools and their lineage charts according to the bujinkan, and how they where at one time in the hands of people from the koga region. also i am not trying to build kawakami up i was just adding in something i had read. i admit what i read was not conveyed the right way here and there was a misunderstanding of what i read by myself. i am only ranked a shodan in the bujinkan. my rank comes from the mochizuki ryu and the shinden itami ryu. the shinden itami ryu was created by my sensei yoshida takayuki. he passed away aug. 23 2007 from natural causes.

so back to the original topic. hatsumi is known to have alot of scrolls from various ryu ha that he is not soke of. my question now is do you think he has added some of the tactics from these scrolls to the bujinkan system? what type of principals do you think he added?

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Hi Tenzen,

Can you provide where your Mochizuki ryu comes from exactly? If it is a Kouga school can you provide who transmitted it to you/

And can you provide any information concerning Takayuki Yoshida and Shinden Itami ryu. You can provide it in English or Japanese I can read both thanks.

 

[Chris Parker]

As I understand it, Hatsumi Sensei has quite a number of scrolls for systems he hasn't studied (bought, given as gifts etc), so what he teaches from them may be quite limited. For example, he has scrolls pertaining to Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, but doesn't teach that art. He has, however, shown them to illustrate the differences in the way scrolls are written, between varying sword systems (same for sojutsu and naginata scrolls).

But remember that before meeting Takamatsu Sensei, he learnt from Ueno Takashi, who taught him Asayama Ichiden Ryu (to Menkyo Kaiden), as well as Bokuden Ryu Jujutsu, and possibly others. And these certainly have been shown, or at least influenced his current teachings.

 

[tenzen]

yoshida sensei created the shinden itami ryu and i think it was only taught to me and one other person who is unfavorable at the moment due to some personal issues. i have not taught this but only to my wife and i dont think he passed it on at all. i would not consider this a form of ninjutsu as it is taijutsu and does not contain shinobi aruki or other things of that nature it is only fighting. the weapons used are projectiles and flexible weapons mostly but there is some sword work which would be considered awkward like the sword work of koto ryu. i met him through my grandpa they were very good friends.

the mochizuki ryu comes from yoshida sensei also. it's techniques focus on breaking bones. the weapons used tend to be heavy and used for smashing. in the sword work the spine of the sword is often used to smash bones.


i heard somewhere that hatsumi learned koto ryu from ueno also and takamatsu only helped him refine it. ueno was also a student of fujita seiko. interesting how these all seem to tie in together. wonder what kind of influence that had on hatsumi's training with him, and did hatsumi train with seiko? ever?

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi Tenzen,

Do you know where Yoshida created his Shinden Itami Ryu from? Is there another school he based it on? Considering your description, it is probably not surprising that a quick search only turns up this thread for Shinden Itami Ryu, but a similar search for Takayuki Yoshida gives an artist/photographer and a baseball player, but nothing in regard to martial arts that I could find.

As far as Mochizuki Ryu is concerned, I would be with Jadecloud Alchemist in asking where this art is from. Mochizuki Ryu is listed as being one of the old Koga systems, but there has been no indication that it has survived past the 17th Century. If you are saying it has, we would be very interested to learn what evidence there is. The alternative is that it is also a modern creation (probably Yoshida again), simply using the same name.

Please bear in mind that there are a number of red flags being raised here (such as the 8th Dan ranking), and my questions are designed to get answers, not to fraudbust at all.

As far as Ueno teaching Hatsumi Koto Ryu, that is possible, and I wouldn't rule it out. Bokuden and Asayama Ichiden are the most prominent that Ueno taught. He did also teach a version of Koto Ryu, which has a number of differences to the way it is taught in the Bujinkan. I would say that Ueno may have introduced Hatsumi to Koto Ryu, but Takamatsu was the one who taught the complete art to him, as a result, Takamatsu passed the Sokeship onto Hatsumi. I believe the Genbukan version of Koto Ryu is based more on the Ueno version, coming from Sato Kinbei. The Ueno variation is still taught in the schools of Kaminaga Shigemi (Ueno's successor), and Kai Kuniyuki (Shigemi's successor). For an example of this approach to Koto Ryu, see here:

Kaminaga Shigemi is demonstrating the last two techniques.

 

[tenzen]

not sure where he created it from. it could have just been a blend of all that he practiced. he was a very private person and not very technology savy so yeah the internet wont tell you much, if anything. from what i was told he practiced quite a few different arts not all of which where japanese this can be seen through the fighting of the shinden itami ryu. some techniques would from tan outside prospective resemble silat while others would look like fu jow pai, then like jujutsu and so on. it has a strong emphasis on grabing and ripping the muscles and flesh. alot of hand forms are made or modified for this purpose. for instance boshiken after striking the thumb can be used to squeeze flesh between it and the hand, with a strong jerk and twist motion this can tear the flesh. of course it takes alot of practice befor you can actually tear the flesh but an untrained person can still cause enough damage for it to be very effective.

yoshida sensi was very old older than hatsumi is now when i met him. but from what i was told as thats all i can go by. his grandfather taught him the system. this was not the complete and original mochizuki ryu as his grandfather didnot know the entire system so he had mixed it with another system which also has alot of bone attacks. i think a system of kohtsu po. not sure what system was blended in i was just always told mochizuki ryu. there was a refrence to a koga man named mochizuki in a book i think by hatsumi in which the guy used his sword to break the legs of his opponent, i don't know if this is in connection but that is something that we would do in this system. this may be pure coincidence. but to answer where it was from i was told it was from koga region. again this maynot be entirely true especially since it was mixed with something else and i have no way to know how much of each of the two systems went in to it.

as for my ranking, when we were training there was no ranking structure what so ever no belts no menkyos. i asked just before he passed away if i had the knowledge of a blackbelt, because i was going to try to teach at the time, he said i have the knowledge of 8 blackbelts. i took this as him saying i was an 8th dan. just for comparative reasons a friend of mine who is a 5th dan in the bujinkan said he would easily say i was of shihan quality.

for me i don't know what to think about the rank, i don't feel like it should be this way but others do. another friend of mine is a 6th dan in shito ryu karate and he also agrees with the 8th dan. not that either of these matters as only yoshida senseis words matter to me. just thought i would throw that out there.

and no he is not a photographer or baseball player, although those are new ones. the last i heard was a soccer player. i think that is great. he had no family as his wife and son passed a long time ago.

if you would like to know a little more about what i do in these systems you can pm me. i have actually taken up some other arts at the moment and am heavily focused on them right now. pradal serey and lethwei. pradal serey is cambodian and lethwei is burmese.

 

[tenzen]

chris i see that you are in australia. i have a question, the iga ryu guys over there that claim to have come from okuse's line, are they any good? i mean i see the one guy does alot of chanbara is this what they focus on or can they fight? and what do you think of them. you can pm me with this if you don't want it in the open as i know how people are about opinions, and not taking them so well.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

And afaik not even Meik thinks that Togakure ryu was created from a child's game. He has many objections, but this is not one of them. I have never seen anything indicating that Togakure ryu was a fabrication from Takamatsu. On the contrary, I have read a very well thought out essay describing the reasons for deducing that Togakure is a genuine system.

Bruno - is that essay available online anywhere?