Nen Ami Jion
Japanese Zen monk and swordsman of the 14th century, born Soma Shiro Yoshimoto, who founded the Nen-ryu school in 1368, the predecessor of Maniwa Nen-ryu.
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Nen Ami Jion, born Soma Shiro Yoshimoto, was a Zen monk and swordsman of the Nanboku-cho period and the founder of the Nen-ryu school, the predecessor of Maniwa Nen-ryu. His dates, given as 1351–1409, are disputed.
His father Tadashige was a vassal of Nitta Yoshisada and was killed when Jion was five years old; according to the sources, he turned to swordsmanship to settle this debt.
He founded the Nen-ryu school in 1368 in the area of today's Nagano Prefecture. Its principle is "strike with the left arm extended". In his lifetime, according to the sources, he taught only fourteen students and assigned each of them a different domain so that the teaching would spread as widely as possible. The twelfth of them was Tsutsumi Hozan, trained in jitte techniques. According to English-language sources, swordsmen such as Kamiizumi Nobutsuna and Yagyu Muneyoshi also studied his teaching.
As a Buddhist monk he founded, under the name Nendaiosho, the Chofuku-ji temple in Namiai-mura in Shinshu Province.