Takagi-ryu Jujutsu
高木流柔術Old Japanese school of jujutsu and Kukishin-ryu staff, which Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists as a separate member beside Hontai Yoshin-ryu. Counts from Takagi Umanosuke, based in Amagasaki.
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About Takagi-ryu Jujutsu
Takagi-ryu is an old Japanese school of jujutsu, which Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists under the name Takagi-ryu Jujutsu and Kukishin-ryu bojutsu (No. 014) as a separate member beside Hontai Yoshin-ryu (No. 013). The two schools share the same first heads in their lineage but differ in counting them, in representatives and in seat: Takagi-ryu counts Takagi Umanosuke Shigesada as the founder (reading after Buyens on koryu.com), whereas Hontai Yoshin-ryu counts his teacher Takagi Oriemon Shigetoshi. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, Takagi-ryu is practised on the premise that the opponent comes with a real sword, and the kata are performed smoothly, without force and at the same speed without changes of tempo.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the founder was born in the Meireki 2 era in Nobeoka in Hyuga province and as a child was discovered by a travelling warrior Takagi Oriemon, from whom he learned the short sword, shooting and the spear. He excelled in an art that Nihon Kobudo Kyokai explains as a mixture of sumo, kempo and karate, in old age his strength declined, and so he is said to have sought an art that would give victory even to the old and to women, and after a hundred days in the shrine of his clan deity he received a sign in the form of a willow branch under snow, from which he developed jujutsu and named the school Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu. On 15 August of the Genroku 8 era a member of the Konoe clan is said to have appointed him teacher of the six martial arts, Yamamoto 1984 in the journal of Tenri University converts this year to 1695, elsewhere gives 1693, and according to him the formal founding of the school is counted from this appointment. Yamamoto also writes that Umanosuke was born in 1656 as the son of a samurai from the Tsuyama domain, in 1671 at the age of sixteen received the secrets of the school from Oriemon, died in 1716 at the age of 61 and with the Akiyama Yoshin-ryu school is counted among those who completed unarmoured jujutsu in peacetime. From the third head Okuni Kihei Shigenobu, according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, Kukishin-ryu bojutsu is handed down with the school, and according to Yamamoto the school spread in the fiefs of Shiroishi, Tsuyama, Owari, Tosa and Ako. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists a lineage of eighteen heads and a current nineteenth head from the Kusuhara family based in Amagasaki, demonstrations at the Ikuta, Minatogawa, Itsukushima and Kashima shrines and at the Nihon Kobudo Taikai. Yamamoto 1984 traces three branches from the twelfth head, expelled from the domain in 1841, through his students in Akashi, of which the thirteenth head had a dojo in Himeji, Okayama and Kobe, and names as the sixteenth head and the then soke a student of the fifteenth. Japanese Wikipedia says that the nineteenth head took over leadership in 2012 and teaches in Kobe. The school is not registered as a cultural property, does not appear in the list of Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai, in kotobank or in the koryu.com guide, and the CiNii index records a single scholarly article about it, Yamamoto's 1984 study.
History
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai names as the founder of Takagi-ryu Takagi Umanosuke Shigesada (reading after Buyens on koryu.com), a man from the circle of the Shiroishi fief in Oshu, born on the 12th day of the 1st month of the Meireki 2 era in Nobeoka in Hyuga province. As a child he was discovered by a travelling warrior, Takagi Oriemon Shigetoshi, from whom he learned the short sword, shooting, the spear and other arts. He excelled in an art that Nihon Kobudo Kyokai explains as a blend of sumo, kempo and karate, in old age his strength declined, and so he is said to have sought an art that would give victory even to the old and to women, after a hundred days in the shrine of his clan deity he received a sign as a willow branch under snow and developed jujutsu, which he named Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu for the heart of the willow. On 15 August of the Genroku 8 era a member of the Konoe clan is said to have appointed him teacher of the six martial arts. Yamamoto 1984 in the Tenri University journal converts the appointment to 1695, elsewhere gives 1693 and the title from the Konoe clan, and writes that the school's formal founding is said to be counted from then. On Umanosuke's origin, Yamamoto says it is disputed whether he was a peasant or a samurai of the Tsuyama domain, and he himself considers the samurai version acceptable: he was born in 1656 as the son of a samurai from Tsuyama, in 1671 at sixteen received the secrets of the school from Oriemon and founded his own house, died in April 1716 at the age of 61 and is buried in the Myoshin-ji temple. Yamamoto places him with the Akiyama Yoshin-ryu school among those who completed unarmoured jujutsu in peacetime and adds that he was famed for his great sword.
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The second head Takagi Gennoshin Hideshige was born, according to Yamamoto, probably before 1670, became a ronin after the financial cutbacks of the Sakai clan, later served in the Himeji domain for 500 koku, began to call his body technique jujutsu after a conversation with a Kukishin-ryu master and died in 1702. The third head Okuni Kihei Shigenobu came, according to Yamamoto, from Izumo, was born in 1684, died in 1735 and was the 29th successor of the founder of another old school, from which he received the tradition. The meeting of Gennoshin and Okuni was, according to Yamamoto, not a hostile duel but a contest in their own techniques, in which Gennoshin was somewhat better in body technique and Okuni won with the staff, and the fruits of the exchange are the body technique of Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu and the staff, spear and naginata of Kukishin-ryu. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai says that from the third head Kukishin-ryu bojutsu is handed down with the school to this day, and Yamamoto adds that Kukishin-ryu bojutsu continues the stream of an older school and was incorporated into Takagi-ryu because Okuni was also its head. English Wikipedia cites a story from the Takamatsu line, according to which Okuni met the son of Gennoshin in Ako, which reverses the family relationship given by Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Yamamoto. According to Yamamoto the school spread in the fiefs of Shiroishi, Tsuyama, Owari, Tosa and Ako. After the eleventh head, according to him, there is no successor from the Okuni family, and the twelfth head was expelled from the domain in 1841 after the trial called Bansha no goku and settled in Akashi, where three branches of the tradition arose from his three students, that survive today. The thirteenth head was born in 1845, had dojo in Himeji, Okayama and Kobe and in 1897 wrote a list of the school's techniques. The fifteenth head according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Yamamoto (Japanese Wikipedia counts it as the sixteenth) was born in 1875, created his own branch, on 11 July 1935 demonstrated the forms of the school at the Kashima shrine and the next day at Katori, and died in 1939. His student, born in 1906 in Kobe, received in January 1939 a licence in Takagi-ryu and Kukishin-ryu bojutsu and in March that year took over leadership as the sixteenth head, made his living as a bonesetter and died in 1983. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai further lists the seventeenth and eighteenth heads from the Kusuhara family and as the current nineteenth head another member of it, Japanese Wikipedia says that he took over leadership in 2012. The numbering of heads differs within Nihon Kobudo Kyokai: Takagi-ryu (No. 014) counts from Umanosuke, Hontai Yoshin-ryu (No. 013) from Oriemon, and from the fifteenth head of Takagi-ryu the two schools have different successors.
How it differs
A related school is Hontai Yoshin-ryu: Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists both as separate members with different representatives, seats (Amagasaki and Nishinomiya) and lineages. Takagi-ryu counts from Takagi Umanosuke as the founder and stresses the premise of a real sword and smooth kata at the same speed, Hontai Yoshin-ryu counts from his teacher Oriemon and stresses the three pillars of jujutsu, staff and short sword and the six roppo. The Nihon Kobudo Kyokai page on Takagi-ryu does not mention Hontai Yoshin-ryu as a separate school and uses only the name Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu, chosen by the founder. Yamamoto 1984 traces both lines from different students of the same head. Akiyama Yoshin-ryu, beside which Yamamoto places Umanosuke, is a different school, and the exchange with Kukishin-ryu gave, according to Yamamoto, the body technique the name Hontai Yoshin Takagi-ryu and the staff, spear and naginata the name Kukishin-ryu. Japanese Wikipedia states that Takagi-ryu had three lines, jujutsu with Kukishin-ryu, spear and body technique, and that today only the first exists.
Technique
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai says that Takagi-ryu jujutsu is practised on the premise that the opponent comes with a real sword, and that without this awareness the school's kata would change and die out. The kata are to be performed smoothly, without force and at the same speed without changes of tempo: when speeding up the whole speeds up, and when slowing down the whole slows down. Yamamoto 1984 states that the basis of the school is the strike, without which, according to him, no technique stands, even with a weapon, and that by its own list of techniques the school is not yawara but torite, capturing. He divides the techniques by situation into twelve sets, from the basic set through unarmed capture against a sword and sets with long and short sword, the short sword kodachi, the staff and the short staff hanbo up to revival, and the school, according to him, follows a principle for everyone, including the old, women and men. Yamamoto adds that the founder himself taught mainly body technique, staff, spear, naginata and other arts. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai shows in photographs a Kukishin-ryu bojutsu technique at the Ikuta shrine and a jujutsu technique from one of the sets.
Training
Yamamoto 1984 gives, from the 1897 list of techniques, sets of Takagi-ryu with 52, 15 (left and right), 30, 21, 30 and 14 techniques, further three scrolls of higher grades and a scroll with 23 techniques of Kukishin-ryu bojutsu and the short staff. The first set has, according to him, 13 techniques, each with three variants, 52 in total, is the basis of the other techniques and its aim is to receive or deflect the opponent's attack and only then pass to attack. Among the other kata he names the short sword, the short staff and the staff six shaku long. Yamamoto adds that the thirteenth head's 1897 list of techniques agrees with the fifteenth head's 1935 list and the list written by the sixteenth head in 1964. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, training takes place in Kobe in the municipal hall and in the dojo near Shin-Nagata station on Sunday afternoon, and the eastern branch in Kokubunji in Tokyo trains once a week. Japanese Wikipedia describes for another line of Takagi-ryu, led in Ako, progression through several grades up to the licence of full transmission.
Ranks and progression
Yamamoto 1984 writes that after mastering the basic set, mokuroku is awarded in turn, then two further grades and finally menkyo kaiden, and only then are Kukishin-ryu bojutsu and the short staff taught. The school's list of techniques was written in 1897 by the thirteenth head in his dojo and, according to Yamamoto, agrees with the lists of the fifteenth head (1935) and the sixteenth head (1964). The sixteenth head received in January 1939, according to Yamamoto, a licence in both Takagi-ryu and Kukishin-ryu bojutsu.
Today
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists as the current nineteenth head a member of the Kusuhara family based in Amagasaki in Hyogo prefecture, Japanese Wikipedia says he took over leadership in 2012 and teaches in Kobe's Nagata ward. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the school gives demonstrations at the Ikuta, Minatogawa, Itsukushima and Kashima shrines and at the Nihon Kobudo Taikai, trains in Kobe and has an eastern branch in Kokubunji in Tokyo. It is not registered as a cultural property. It does not appear in the list of Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai, in kotobank or in the koryu.com guide, and Green does not write about it, the CiNii index records a single scholarly article, Yamamoto's 1984 study in the Tenri University journal. English Wikipedia lists Takagi-ryu among the schools practised today, under the nineteenth soke Kusuhara Juhei, beside Hontai Yoshin-ryu.
Did you know
Yamamoto 1984 tells that Umanosuke was to face the third head of Takenouchi-ryu in a tournament before the lord of the domain, a man four shaku eight sun tall against his six shaku eight sun, answered the lord's question that this was a small soldier he would easily capture, was then defeated twice, the first time by a throw and bound with a rope, which he however snapped, and finally became a student of Takenouchi-ryu. Buyens on koryu.com gives the same story with another name for the lord. Yamamoto also cites from a book of 1861 that on a journey Umanosuke moved a stone with which villagers were vainly trying to weaken the water's flow, and is therefore called a man of enormous strength, and from another work of 1768 that a fourth-generation master of the Shibukawa school praised his great sword.
Frequently asked questions
How does Takagi-ryu differ from Hontai Yoshin-ryu?
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists both as separate members: Takagi-ryu (No. 014) counts the founder Takagi Umanosuke and is based in Amagasaki, Hontai Yoshin-ryu (No. 013) counts his teacher Oriemon and is based in Nishinomiya. Yamamoto 1984 traces both lines from different students of the same head.
When did Takagi-ryu arise?
The sources do not give an exact year. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai says that on 15 August of the Genroku 8 era the founder was said to have been appointed teacher of martial arts, Yamamoto 1984 converts this to 1695, elsewhere gives 1693 and counts the formal founding of the school from this appointment. According to Yamamoto, Umanosuke received the secrets of the school from Oriemon in 1671.
Does Takagi-ryu include staff work too?
Yes. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lists the school under the name Takagi-ryu Jujutsu and Kukishin-ryu bojutsu and says that from the third head Okuni Kihei Kukishin-ryu bojutsu is handed down with the school to this day. According to Yamamoto 1984, the short staff and Kukishin-ryu bojutsu are taught only after the menkyo kaiden licence.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.