Jittejutsu (Art of the Jitte)
十手術Japanese art of fighting with the short iron rod jitte, with which Edo-period guards caught a sword blade and restrained an armed man without killing him.
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About Jittejutsu (Art of the Jitte)
Jittejutsu is a Japanese art of fighting with a short iron rod called jitte. It arose for the needs of officials and guards of the city administration in the Edo period, who had to restrain an armed person without killing him. The weapon has no edge; a side hook near the hilt allows the blade of a sword to be caught, wedged and the opponent disarmed, while the body of the rod is used for strikes to the wrist, forearm and head. The techniques therefore do not rely on the force of the blow but on the timing of the entry and on control of the joint once the weapon has been caught. The best-documented lineage is Ikkaku-ryū juttejutsu. According to sources it was created by Matsuzaki Kinu'emon Tsunekatsu at the end of the seventeenth century; he was the third head of the school Shintō Musō-ryū, and his system has been passed down within it ever since, today in the form in which the two largest surviving branches were joined and unified after the Meiji reform. It contains twenty-four forms divided into two series called omote and ura, both bearing the same names. The local jitte measures about forty-five centimeters and weighs around five hundred fifty grams; in part of the forms an iron fan called tessen, about thirty centimeters long, is used alongside it. Outside this lineage, jittejutsu has survived more as a supplement within other schools than as an independent art in its own right.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.