Hontai Yoshin-ryu Jujutsu
本體楊心流Japanese old school of jujutsu from the 17th century based in Nishinomiya: three pillars of jujutsu, bojutsu and kodachijutsu, paired kata, twenty heads from founder Takagi Oriemon.
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About Hontai Yoshin-ryu Jujutsu
Hontai Yoshin-ryu is an old Japanese jujutsu school based in Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists it as a comprehensive martial art with three pillars, jujutsu, bojutsu and kodachijutsu, and writes that its techniques are generally simple, unadorned, direct and effective, and that an attack is answered with the same body movement unarmed and with a weapon in hand. The core is the six jujutsu roppo, which Buyens, a member of the school writing for koryu.com, interprets as joint locks, throws, strikes, chokes, capturing and resuscitation. According to him, kata are practised in pairs and the school has no free sparring.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the founder is Takagi Oriemon Shigetoshi (reading per Buyens, the koryu.com guide writes Setsuemon), born in the Kan'ei 12 era as the second son of a vassal family from the Shiroishi estate in the Sendai domain. Buyens gives the year 1635, Yamamoto 1984 in a university journal gives Kan'ei 2 (1625) and his death in 1711. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai he is said to have named himself after his father's admonition that the willow is strong while a tall tree breaks. The second head, Takagi Umanosuke Shigesada, recognised his own immaturity after taking over, joined Takenouchi-ryu and developed a technique independent of stature and strength, hence the reputed name Hontai Yoshin-ryu Takagi-ryu. The third head, Takagi Gennoshin Hideshige, served the Honda family in Himeji for 500 koku, when Kukishin-ryu bojutsu of its founder Okuni Kihei Shigenobu, who took over as fourth head, became affiliated with the school, and the tradition was handed down in the Ako domain until the end of the shogunate. Koryu.com places the school's origin in the early Edo period, around 1660, while Nihon Kobudo Kyokai gives no founding year. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists twenty heads: the seventeenth developed the school further, followed by Inoue Tsuyoshi Munetoshi and Inoue Kyoichi Munenori, who according to Buyens assumed the position of soke on 16 January 2005, and in 2026 the twentieth head from the Inoue family took over. The dispute over continuity remains: Nihon Kobudo Kyokai keeps an unbroken list of heads from the founder, whereas Japanese Wikipedia places the origin of Hontai Yoshin-ryu only in the Showa era as a split from Takagi-ryu, and Yamamoto 1984 treats the seventeenth head by the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai count merely as a pupil of the previous head, whom he counts as the fifteenth. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists Hontai Yoshin-ryu and Takagi-ryu side by side as two separate members with different seats and genealogies. The school is not registered as a cultural property, according to Buyens it was the subject of one episode of the Nippon Budokan documentary series on surviving old schools in 1980, and according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai it has branches in Japan and abroad.
History
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai states that the school's founder Takagi Oriemon Shigetoshi (reading per Buyens on koryu.com, the koryu.com guide writes Setsuemon) was born in the Kan'ei 12 era as the second son of a vassal family of the lord of Shiroishi castle in the Sendai domain, studied the kodachi and spear of two other schools, and after his father's admonition that the willow is strong while a tall tree breaks, he reportedly called himself Yoshin-ryu Takagi Oriemon. He was known as a strongman and legends of him survive in the former Shiroishi estate. Buyens gives 1635 as the year of birth and adds a tale in which Takagi killed his father's murderer and from then on followed his father's teaching about the willow. Yamamoto 1984, in the journal of Tenri University, writes that he was born in the Kan'ei 2 era (1625), died in 1711 at the age of 87, was a sword teacher of the Shiroishi family and in 1645 received the tradition from his teacher, added grappling holds to spear, naginata and shuriken, and set the body techniques in three sets of 12, 24 and 12 points.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the second head, Takagi Umanosuke Shigesada, recognised his own immaturity after taking over young, joined Takenouchi-ryu and developed a body technique independent of stature and strength, and the school reportedly began to be called Hontai Yoshin-ryu Takagi-ryu. Buyens writes that Umanosuke received Oriemon's teaching in 1671 at the age of sixteen and gave the school the name Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu Jujutsu. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the third head, Takagi Gennoshin Hideshige, served the Honda family in the Himeji domain for 500 koku, when Kukishin-ryu bojutsu, founded by Okuni Kihei Shigenobu, who succeeded as fourth head, became affiliated with the school, and the tradition was passed on in the Ako domain until the end of the shogunate. Buyens tells that Gennoshin and Okuni met in a bout, Gennoshin won unarmed and Okuni with a staff, they exchanged techniques and after Gennoshin's death Okuni became the fourth soke. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, many branches arose from the founder's time on, for example the Takagi-ryu spear, and the school spread from Banshu to other regions. Buyens names Owari, Tosa, Ako and Himeji and the later move of the main dojo to the Kobe area and finally to Nishinomiya. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the seventeenth head developed the school further, followed by Inoue Tsuyoshi Munetoshi and Inoue Kyoichi Munenori and in 2026 by the twentieth head from the Inoue family, with the nineteenth standing beside him as an adviser. Buyens states that the soke handover ceremony took place on 16 January 2005 and that the nineteenth head lives and teaches in Nishinomiya. The sources give the continuity of the line differently: Nihon Kobudo Kyokai keeps an unbroken list of twenty heads from Oriemon, Japanese Wikipedia writes that Hontai Yoshin-ryu split from Takagi-ryu only in the Showa era thanks to the later seventeenth head, who trained in seclusion at a waterfall on Mount Maya in Kobe and at first taught under another name, and Yamamoto 1984 treats this person merely as a pupil of the head whom Nihon Kobudo Kyokai counts as the sixteenth and he as the fifteenth, and names another pupil as his successor in Takagi-ryu. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists Hontai Yoshin-ryu (no. 013) and Takagi-ryu with Kukishin-ryu bojutsu (no. 014) as two separate members with different representatives, seats and genealogies. According to Buyens, in 1980 the school was the subject of one episode of the Nippon Budokan documentary series on 58 surviving schools of traditional martial arts.
How it differs
According to Buyens, Hontai Yoshin-ryu differs from modern sport budo in that it is not trained through free sparring and its kata are not limited to an aesthetic set of movements, as according to him happens in judo or karate before a tournament. According to him, the syllabus of schools of this type also includes techniques for capturing an opponent without killing, including rope tying, where any rope can be used, the sageo, the sword cord, is suitable, and in some schools also a belt. A related school is Takagi-ryu with Kukishin-ryu bojutsu: Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists both as separate members, Hontai Yoshin-ryu counts the founder Takagi Oriemon as the first head and stresses the three pillars and the six roppo, while Takagi-ryu counts from Umanosuke as founder and stresses the assumption of a real sword and fluid kata of even speed. Yamamoto 1984 traces both lines from the head whom he counts as the fifteenth, through different pupils. Japanese Wikipedia adds that today's Hontai Yoshin-ryu is not fully identical with the form of its later seventeenth head and includes some techniques of another line. According to kotobank, Akiyama Yoshin-ryu is a different school, and Yamamoto 1984 places Umanosuke next to Akiyama Yoshin-ryu as the one who perfected unarmoured jujutsu in times of peace.
Technique
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai describes the school as a comprehensive martial art with three pillars, jujutsu, bojutsu and kodachijutsu, and sees as its feature that the techniques are generally simple, unadorned, direct and effective and that an opponent's attack is answered with the same body movement unarmed and with a weapon in hand. The core is the six jujutsu roppo, which Buyens interprets as gyaku (joint locks), nage (throws), ate (strikes aimed at sensitive points), shime (chokes), toritsuke (capturing and tying with a rope) and katsu (resuscitation). According to Buyens, katsu appears in no kata and belongs only to traditional transmission.
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Buyens divides the kata into armed and unarmed: kata with the short sword kodachi, with the long staff chobo, with the short staff hanbo, unarmed against an unarmed opponent, against the knife tanto and against the long sword tachi, and finally rope tying. The koryu.com guide lists the systems of jujutsu, bojutsu (rokushaku bo, hanbo) and kenjutsu (kodachi, odachi). According to Buyens, the basis of jujutsu is kuzushi, unbalancing the opponent, often by amplifying his own force, which he compares to a willow bending in the wind, and in the secret teaching of hanbo the staff is used against a sword in five of the six roppo principles. According to Buyens, hanbo is the favourite weapon of soke Inoue Kyoichi Munenori, his footwork comes from kodachi, his hand work from chobo and his tactics from jujutsu. Skoss on koryu.com highlights the lightness of movement and the unusual jumping movement in hanbo attacks. Japanese Wikipedia lists six jujutsu sets of the school and further kata for kodachi, hanbo, staff and iai.
Training
According to Buyens, kata are practised in pairs: uke usually begins with an attack and tori responds, advanced students in the role of uke either ease the technique or at a later stage offer resistance or anticipate it, so the role of uke is not always passive. In koryu, according to him, kata is the only way to master dangerous techniques, and the only alternative to kata is real fighting, unlike modern budo with free sparring, such as randori in judo or ju-kumite in karate. Movements are carried out only as far as is needed to prevent injury, which according to Buyens is not the same as avoiding pain. The training uniform is plain white with a dark hakama and apart from the school name in kanji it has no badges or ornaments. Fabian on koryu.com describes that students begin and end paired practice with formal phrases at the kneeling bow.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the main dojo is in Nishinomiya and training takes place there basically every day except Monday. According to the same source, a children's class in traditional culture devoted to the kobudo of the Himeji domain, organised by the local association for the preservation of kobudo, runs in the prefectural budokan in Himeji as a project commissioned by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Japanese Wikipedia lists names in four jujutsu sets of ten each, in another five and in another thirteen, ten each for hanbo and staff and five kata for kodachi.
Ranks and progression
According to Buyens, the traditional grades of transmission are shoden, chuden, okuden and menkyo kaiden. According to him, few foreigners reach this system, as it is accessible only after years of practising various kata, from about fourth dan, and it is conferred only by the soke at the main dojo in Japan. Alongside the traditional grades, the dan scale is used too and the black belt is worn over the hakama. A student is called deshi, a beginner shoshinsha or poetically monjin, and a strict sempai-kohai system applies among students. Japanese Wikipedia lists six scrolls of the school, the same list is in the scroll block on the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai website.
Today
According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the school is led by the twentieth head from the Inoue family, based in Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture, and the main dojo is in the local municipal hall. According to the same source, the school's activity consists mainly of demonstrations at budo events, the school also teaches abroad and has organised an international tournament. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists domestic branches in Himeji, in Yamaza in Kumamoto Prefecture and in Oita Prefecture, and foreign branches in the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Estonia, Australia, Finland and Belgium, and Buyens in 2008 named overseas dojo approved by the main dojo in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Britain and the USA. The school is not registered as a cultural property and does not appear in the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai list. We have not found independent scholarly studies on it, and CiNii lists only two Nippon Budokan books about the school, one of which has its seventeenth head as co-author.
Did you know
Buyens tells that the second soke Umanosuke, a giant six feet eight inches tall, challenged the third soke of Takenouchi-ryu, Takeuchi Kagasuke Hisakichi, four feet eight inches tall, in front of the lord Mori Sadahisa and was defeated twice: first by the throw ganseki otoshi and bound with a rope, which he snapped, the second time he lost a sword duel, and afterwards he became Takeuchi's pupil and obtained kaiden. Yamamoto 1984 gives the same story with a lord of a different name and adds that Umanosuke answered the lord's question by saying that it was a small soldier whom he would easily capture. Muromoto on koryu.com says that the school still keeps an account of the bout, although the details differ. Buyens also says the third soke Gennoshin drew an unusually high salary of five hundred koku in the Himeji domain as an expert in the martial arts.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Hontai Yoshin-ryu and when?
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai names the founder as Takagi Oriemon Shigetoshi, born in the Kan'ei 12 era (Buyens: 1635, Yamamoto 1984: 1625). Nihon Kobudo Kyokai gives no founding year for the school, koryu.com writes the early Edo period, around 1660. The name Hontai Yoshin-ryu Takagi-ryu was reportedly given to the school only by the second head, Takagi Umanosuke Shigesada.
Which weapons are practised in Hontai Yoshin-ryu?
According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the pillars of the school are jujutsu, bojutsu and kodachijutsu. Buyens names kata with the short sword kodachi, the long staff chobo, the short staff hanbo, unarmed against a knife and a long sword, and rope tying, the koryu.com guide lists rokushaku bo, hanbo, kodachi and odachi.
Is Hontai Yoshin-ryu the same as Takagi-ryu?
No. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists Hontai Yoshin-ryu and Takagi-ryu with Kukishin-ryu bojutsu as two separate members with different representatives, seats and genealogies, yet both name Takagi Oriemon and Umanosuke in their genealogy. Yamamoto 1984 traces both lines from different pupils of the head whom he counts as the fifteenth.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.