Hokushin Ittō-ryū
北辰一刀流A school of swordsmanship that cut its ranks from eight levels to three and opened training to the poorer. In 1853–1867 it was among Japan's three largest.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Hokushin Ittō-ryū
Hokushin Ittō-ryū is a Japanese school of swordsmanship founded around 1820 in Edo by Chiba Shūsaku Taira no Narimasa (1794–1856). Its main dojo was the Edo-Genbukan, led by successive heads of the Chiba family until it closed in the Meiji period. The most interesting thing about it is not its technique but an organisational decision. Older schools awarded up to eight mokuroku levels — eight paid certificates on the road to mastery. Chiba reduced them to three: shoden, chūden and okuden. That made training cheap enough to be within reach of poorer farmers and lower-ranking bushi. The school stopped being a privilege and began to grow. The second change was in how one trained. At first kata were practised with onigote, padded gloves. Towards the end of the Edo period these were displaced by gekiken — full-contact bouts with the bamboo sword shinai and in protective armour, bōgu. That transition is the direct ancestor of today''s kendo. Between 1853 and 1867 the school ranked among the three largest and best-known ryūha in all of Japan. A great many figures of the end of the shogunate passed through it, including commanders of the Shinsengumi, and its influence on the shape of modern kendo is documented.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.