Komagawa Kaishin-ryu
駒川改心流A sixteenth-century Japanese sword school of the Shinkage-ryu line; only the headmaster may teach, so the kata do not drift.
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About Komagawa Kaishin-ryu
Komagawa Kaishin-ryu is a Japanese school of swordsmanship founded by Komagawa Tarozaemon Kuniyoshi in the late Muromachi and the Azuchi-Momoyama periods, that is in the second half of the sixteenth century; the sources give no exact year and this page therefore states none. The line descends from Shinkage-ryu. A story the school itself transmits is attached to its name: Kamiizumi Nobutsuna is said to have told Komagawa that he had a bad habit, and Komagawa in time understood that what was meant was his left-handedness. Recognising his own natural disposition and rebuilding his technique around it gave the school its name, kaishin, the renewed heart. The curriculum consists of the long sword odachi, the short sword kodachi and both swords used together, along with the naginata and the iron truncheon jutte. The school follows an unusual rule: only the headmaster, the soke, may teach, and no one else. Teaching therefore stays narrow, but the kata are handed on unchanged, which is rare among the classical traditions. In 1767 a political trial nearly destroyed the school when one of its practitioners, Fujii Umon, was executed on a charge of lese-majesty; most fiefs closed their branches afterwards. Today the school is led by Kuroda Tetsuzan as the fifteenth headmaster.
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