Sekiguchi-ryu Jujutsu
関口流柔術One of the oldest Edo-period jujutsu schools; its founder is credited with introducing the systematic practice of ukemi.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Sekiguchi-ryu Jujutsu
About Sekiguchi-ryu Jujutsu
Sekiguchi-ryu jujutsu is one of the oldest and most influential Japanese jujutsu schools to appear at the beginning of the Edo period. It was founded by Sekiguchi Ujimune, known as Sekiguchi Jushin (1598-1670), a samurai in the service of the Tokugawa branch that ruled the Kishu domain from Wakayama. The school took shape in the first half of the seventeenth century; the sources give no exact year, and this page therefore does not state one. Its technical system rests on absorbing the opponent's force rather than opposing it: breaking his balance, hip and shoulder throws, elbow and wrist locks, strangles and the pinning work that follows on the ground. Sekiguchi Jushin is credited with introducing the systematic practice of ukemi, breakfalls, as a separate part of the syllabus, which made it possible to train throws at full speed without injury; that innovation influenced practically every later school. Besides the unarmed curriculum the school teaches the short sword and the art of drawing, preserved as the related line Sekiguchi-ryu battojutsu. The founder's sons carried the tradition into several domains, and the line has survived in Wakayama to this day under the name Sekiguchi Shin Shin-ryu; it belongs to the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the body that gathers verified classical traditions.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.