Mae (Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu)

Quick Facts

About the kata

Mae is the first form of the Shoden set a student of Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu learns. The name 前 means "in front" and also describes the starting situation: per material from the Doshikai dojo, the opponent kneels in seiza directly in front of the practitioner and reaches for the sword. Per English Wikipedia, all the set's forms begin in that same kneel except Oikaze, which often starts standing. Per S. G. Drossoulakis, the forms done from seiza take the lower body almost entirely out of play, so the student first learns to control the sword, and only the tatehiza half-kneel sets add moving legs. Mae then returns later in the curriculum: the form Yokogumo from the higher Chuden set resembles it, per Doshikai, differing mainly in the sideways blade-cleaning, yoko-chiburi. In the Shoden forms, per the same source, the large cleaning o-chiburi is done standing, feet together. The Shoden forms belong among the so-called koryu kata, used per Doshikai in the gradings of the American federation AUSKF from 2nd dan upward. Do not confuse it with the form Mae from the standardized Seitei iai set: that one is separate, though the Japanese federation drew on Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu, among other sources, when compiling it.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The character 前 reads mae, meaning "in front, before"; Doshikai translates the name as "Front." Here the name denotes not a technique but the starting position: the opponent sits in seiza facing the practitioner. The following forms Migi, Hidari and Ushiro ("right", "left", "behind"), per the same source, change the practitioner's orientation to the opponent, Mae being the baseline case. Doshikai also calls it seiza Mae.

Creator and history

The forms of the Shoden set come from the Omori-ryu school and are still often called by that name. English Wikipedia attributes them to Omori Rokurozaemon Masamitsu, a Shinkage-ryu swordsman probably active in the second half of the seventeenth century. Omori studied under Hasegawa Eishin, was expelled by him for personal reasons, and, per Wikipedia, won back his teacher's favor with the eleven seated forms. He took their shape from Hasegawa but adapted them to the five drawing methods of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu. Sources differ on where the seiza seat comes from: Wikipedia and Drossoulakis cite the etiquette of Ogasawara-ryu, Doshikai the tea ceremony. Hayashi Rokudayu Morimasa, the ninth head of the line, who studied swordsmanship under Omori, brought the forms into the school. Oe Masamichi (1852-1927) later reduced roughly 160 techniques, placed the Omori-ryu set as the seated section (Shoden), and in the Taisho era (1912-1926) named the school Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu.

Differences between styles

The lineage split after the 11th head: the Tanimura-ha branch gave rise to Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu, and the Shimomura-ha branch, in the twentieth century, to Muso Shinden-ryu. In Muso Shinden-ryu the Omori-ryu set has, per English Wikipedia, twelve forms, the first called Shohatto (初発刀); whether it is the same form as Mae, we have not been able to confirm from the sources. Wikipedia notes two differences: in Muso Shinden-ryu the sword, on the raise furikaburi, stays above shoulder height rather than dropping behind the back, and the sheathing noto is done horizontally, edge out.