Yagyu Munetoshi
柳生宗厳
Japanese swordsman (c. 1527–1606) called Sekishusai, founder of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu school and creator of the muto-dori technique, fighting unarmed against an armed opponent.
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Yagyu Munetoshi, known by the nickname Sekishusai, was born in 1527 (according to another source 1529) in the village of Yagyu in Yamato Province, today Nara. He died in 1606 aged 76 to 77; some sources give 25 May, others 19 April. He bore the title Yagyu Tajima-no-kami and also used the names Shinsuke and Shinzaemon. He is regarded as the founder of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu school, though he himself considered himself a representative of Shinkage-ryu.
In 1544, at the age of fifteen, he defended Yagyu Castle. He served in turn the lords Tsutsui Junsho, Matsunaga Hisahide and Oda Nobunaga. In 1564 he met Kamiizumi Nobutsuna (one source names him Hidetsuna) at the Hozoin temple and received from him the highest license, inka-jo, and the scrolls of transmission; another source places the granting of the license in 1565. Kamiizumi then charged him with devising a technique of fighting without weapons.
He developed the muto-dori technique, fighting unarmed against an armed opponent. In the late 1570s he withdrew to Yagyu and devoted himself to teaching, leaving his students a number of lists of techniques (mokuroku) and certificates (inkajo). In 1594 he demonstrated muto-dori to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and in 1600, at the age of 71, he raised an army in Ieyasu's support. He wrote the family constitution Yagyu Kaken (1589) and in 1593 a work that some sources call Heiho Hyakka, others Heiho Hyakushu (One Hundred Poems on the Martial Art).
His youngest son Munenori became the heir. After Munetoshi's death the school split into the Edo branch, led by Yagyu Munenori, and the Owari branch, led by his grandson Toshitoshi.