Takenouchi-ryu Jujutsu
竹内流Japanese school from Mimasaka Province, the oldest documented jujutsu school, traditionally dated to 1532. Its core is short-blade fighting and binding, two family houses are in Okayama.
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About Takenouchi-ryu Jujutsu
Takenouchi-ryu is a Japanese old martial art school from Mimasaka Province, now Okayama Prefecture. Daijisen calls it the oldest surviving jujutsu school, Heibonsha and Britannica the oldest documented one, and Nipponica one of the source schools of early modern jujutsu, which besides jujutsu includes the spear, naginata and staff. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai describes it as a composite martial art with a core in grappling and in short-blade fighting and binding from the Sengoku period, and adds that it is said to be the source of jujutsu. Adachi 2020 shows in a peer-reviewed journal that the label oldest jujutsu appears in the school's publications from 1973 and source of jujutsu from 1979, and that Kano Jigoro says nothing of a direct relationship between judo and the house in Kakuishitani.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, Nipponica, Daijisen and Britannica the founder is Takenouchi Hisamori, according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai lord of Ichinose Castle in Hawa village (reading after the Kodansha biographical dictionary, which gives the years 1503 to 1595). The school's origin in Tenbun 1 (1532) is given by Daijisen, Nipponica and Britannica as tradition, Nihon Kobudo Kyokai without reservation. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai an old man appeared to Hisamori after prayers at a place called Sannomiya, broke his wooden sword 2 shaku 4 sun long into two short blades, saying that a long sword is useless, and passed on to him binding with a rope and five articles of capture with short-blade fighting, while Nipponica, after family tradition, speaks of a person dressed as a mountain ascetic in a dream. Adachi 2020 points out that the school gives the founding day as 24 June of Tenbun 1, but in June of that year the previous era still applied, so the date is wrong by the Japanese calendar. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the teaching was systematized over three generations: the second head set out at 23 on a journey in search of martial art, the third completed the school including short-blade fighting, and both received from emperors the title hinoshita hoshu kaisan (reading after Nipponica), which Muromoto loosely renders as the greatest wrestler of the country, together with the right to use the name Toichiro. According to Nipponica the third head served the lord of Tsuyama for 500 koku and died in 1671 at the age of 69. The school is passed down in the Takenouchi family to this day in two houses, which Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai both list as separate members: the soke house with the fourteenth head Takenouchi Toichiro Hisamune and the sodenke house with the thirteenth head Takenouchi Tojuro Hisatake (readings after koryu.com), both in Kakuishitani in the city of Okayama. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the sodenke house arose from the will of the eighth head so that the school's bloodline would not die out. The school's birthplace with the dojo and the cemetery of the family heads has been a prefectural monument since 1976. Koryu.com lists the disciplines jujutsu (torite, koshi no mawari, kogusoku), hade, staff, sword, iai, binding, naginata, iron fan and sakkatsuho. According to Muromoto on koryu.com several other schools came from Takenouchi-ryu, including Takagi-ryu, whose founder, according to the tradition Muromoto takes from Habu 1994, became the third head's pupil after losing to that head.
History
According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the school was founded in Tenbun 1 (1532) by Takenouchi Hisamori, lord of Ichinose Castle in Mimasaka Province (reading after the Kodansha biographical dictionary, which gives 1503 to 1595 and death at 93). According to the soke house website, after worshipping the god Atago Hisamori withdrew to pray at a place called Sannomiya in Hawa village, where an old man appeared and said he would show him one art. Hisamori struck with a wooden sword 2 shaku 4 sun long, but the old man put him under his knee without turning his heel, at the second clash it was impossible to hold out against him, the old man broke the sword in two halves, saying that a long one is useless and should be short, and from this the small blade is said to bear the name kogusoku to this day. Then he passed on to him binding with a rope, five articles of capture and short-blade fighting. Nipponica, after family tradition, speaks of a person dressed as a mountain ascetic who appeared in a dream and split the wooden sword in two. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai itself writes that the family document tells anecdotes glorifying the school's beginning. The same dictionary adds that Ukita Naoie later took Hisamori's castle and that in old age Hisamori found refuge in another castle.
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According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the teaching was systematized over three generations. The second head, the founder's second son, learned the five articles of the teaching at twenty, set out at twenty-three on a pilgrimage for martial art and summed up experience from real duels in eight articles, and according to Todo and Shinde 1996 in a peer-reviewed journal laid down the rules of the school and compiled a text called in the abstract Heiho-ka, in which this head taught pupils preparation for combat according to Zen. The third head, the eldest son of the second, attained the secrets on a pilgrimage and completed the school including short-blade fighting. According to Nipponica both heads went to Kyoto and received the title hinoshita hoshu kaisan (reading after Nipponica). Nihon Kobudo Kyokai has the second head receive it in Genna 6 (1620) from Emperor Go-Mizunoo and the third in Kanbun 3 (1663) from Emperor Reigen, with the right to use the name Toichiro permanently, and Nipponica has them create by the end of the Kan'ei era a teaching system of 25 articles of short-blade fighting, 65 articles of oral transmission and 5 articles of capture. The third head Hisayoshi (reading after Muromoto on koryu.com) served, according to Nipponica, Mori Nagatsugu, lord of Tsuyama, for 500 koku, taught in a dojo below the castle and died in 1671 at the age of 69. The fourth head became that head's third son, and from him all heads of the soke house bear the name Takenouchi Toichiro. Nipponica states that in the Kyoho and Tenpo eras the main line faced extinction and was saved by a vassal from Tsuyama and one from Sumoto on Awaji as guardians, and names branches in Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Sosuishitsu-ryu from Chikuzen. By the will of the eighth head, according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, that head's only son founded the side house Tojuro so that the bloodline would not die out, and from it came today's sodenke house. Adachi 2020 adds that in the first half of the 19th century the head of the house called the school kenjutsu and a list of 1829 has it so. Adachi 2020 shows that Kano Jigoro cited details about Hisamori from the family documents of the house in Kakuishitani, that Sakuraba 1935 called the school the oldest documented one without ascribing to it the origin of jujutsu, whereas Maruyama 1939 wrote in a history of judo that all Edo schools of jujutsu find their source in its short-blade fighting, and a book by Kodokan authors from 1970 called the dojo of the Toichiro house the home of judo. After a stone wall at the dojo collapsed in 1969, the school, according to Adachi, newly created in the reconstruction an image of the oldest jujutsu and source of jujutsu, the label oldest jujutsu appears in an association publication from 1973 and source of jujutsu for the first time in an official book from 1979. Adachi also documents that the stated founding day, 24 June of Tenbun 1, is wrong by the calendar, because the Tenbun era began only in July, and cites the view that a document with a future year is usually taken for a forgery, and of the cited authors only Oimatsu 1970 defended an origin in the previous era. The school's birthplace has been, since 27 March 1976, a prefectural monument of Okayama with the dojo, a wall recalling a medieval mountain castle and a cemetery with monuments to the family heads.
How it differs
Takenouchi-ryu differs from later bare-handed jujutsu schools, according to Nipponica, in that it arose to win battlefield grappling with a short blade, and Heibonsha characterizes it by binding. The two houses of the family are run separately, according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai, with the designation of the houses is swapped between the federations: the name with short-blade fighting goes at Nihon Kobudo Kyokai to the sodenke house, at Shinkokai to the soke house. Adachi 2020 states that the tradition in the territory of former Bizen-Okayama counts the founder's eldest son as second head, while the house from Kakuishitani counts his second son. The Japanese Wikipedia adds that there is no evidence that the school called itself jujutsu, and names as derived schools among others Sosuishitsu-ryu, Rikishin-ryu, Tennen Rishin-ryu and Takagi-ryu, while Muromoto on koryu.com names Araki-ryu, Takagi-ryu, Sosuishitsu-ryu and others. The English Wikipedia claims many techniques of judo and aikido can be traced to Takenouchi-ryu, Adachi 2020 however says Kano mentions nothing of a direct relationship to the house in Kakuishitani and that the reading of the school as the source of all Edo jujutsu schools comes from Maruyama's history of judo of 1939.
Technique
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai describes Takenouchi-ryu as a composite martial art with a core in grappling and in capture with short-blade fighting from the Sengoku period, and cites a poem attributed to the second head, according to which grappling is the heart of the school. In short-blade fighting, according to the tradition about the founder, a blade 1 shaku 2 sun long is commonly used. Hade puts strikes to lethal points first and only after them follow throws and immobilization. The soke house states the principle that Takenouchi-ryu is above all an art of self-defence, not of attack, but the final use of a technique for self-defence is permitted, that is against a sword with a small blade and against a weapon with bare hands. Nipponica explains the name kogusoku koshi no mawari as an art that arose to win in battlefield grappling, not as a later bare-handed grappling, Heibonsha writes of a school focused on binding.
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Koryu.com lists the disciplines jujutsu (torite, koshi no mawari, kogusoku), hade, bojutsu (rokushaku bo, jo), kenjutsu (odachi, kodachi, tanto, aikuchi), iaijutsu, hojojutsu, naginatajutsu, tessenjutsu and sakkatsuho, Daijisen jujutsu, torite, kogusoku, fist technique, staff and jo. The Japanese Wikipedia, after the school's book from 2019, states that in the founder's time the school contained only five articles of capture, 25 articles of short-blade fighting, seven articles of binding and one section without a count, the second head added five and eight articles and the third among other things a further 54, 15 and 5, and it lists the sets of short-blade fighting, hade in nine collections, staff in six, swordsmanship, iai, naginata, spear and binding of 48 articles, as well as kata with an umbrella, a pot lid, an iron fan and the jutte. Only the English Wikipedia mentions the kusarigama, the koryu.com guide and Nihon Kobudo Kyokai do not name it. The Japanese Wikipedia adds that the school calls what is usually termed jujutsu by the word hade.
Training
According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the main dojo of the sodenke house is in Kakuishitani in Takebe district of the city of Okayama, the school has branches in Okayama and Hiroshima including university clubs and a high school club, and the soke house is in the same place. For binding, Nihon Kobudo Kyokai says, a purple rope is used after the colour of the cap the second head received from the kanpaku regent of the Konoe family, the English Wikipedia gives a rope 2 shaku 5 sun long. Muromoto on koryu.com writes that after the age of life-and-death duels ended, the family made it a rule that no one fights matches against other schools without the head's permission or disparages other schools. The Japanese Wikipedia, after the school's book, divides binding into quick, half and full tying, seven articles of transmitted ropes and two further sections. Adachi 2020 states that the Tojuro house performed in September 2010 on the last day of the World Judo Championships in Tokyo with a half-hour demonstration of kata in armour and keikogi.
Ranks and progression
Todo and Shinde 1996 state in a peer-reviewed journal that the third head created a system of progress from admission through the grades tassha, mokuroku, jiro and menkyo up to inka, and taught kata from easier to harder accordingly. The Japanese Wikipedia, after the school's book from 2019, describes for the soke house the grades tassha, mokuroku, jiro, okuden, menkyo and inka, each containing certain sets: at the first grade 25 articles of short-blade fighting, hade and twelve articles each of staff, at the second 54 articles, swordsmanship and five more articles of capture, at menkyo among other things fist technique of twelve articles, body technique for men and women of seventeen, secret ropes, resuscitation of seven articles and 72 lethal points, and at the highest grade, inka, the teaching of resuscitation. The five articles of capture from the school's founding are, according to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, still passed on as secret teaching, and the school's technique and spirit are transmitted by the single-heir method.
Today
The school is led by two houses of the Takenouchi family in Kakuishitani in Takebe district of the city of Okayama: the soke house with the fourteenth head Takenouchi Toichiro and the sodenke house with the thirteenth head Takenouchi Tojuro (Nihon Kobudo Kyokai nos. 017 and 016, two listings of Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai, koryu.com gives the names Hisamune and Hisatake). Adachi 2020 writes that the two houses are jointly called Kobudo Takenouchi-ryu or, after the place, Kakuishitani Takenouchi-ryu. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai the thirteenth head of the sodenke house chairs the prefectural kobudo federation in Okayama, which holds a kobudo festival with a yearly performance by the school. Daijisen Plus gives the dojo and branches mostly in Okayama Prefecture. The school's birthplace has been a prefectural monument since 1976. The school published an official book in 1979 and an expanded edition with English translation in 2019, CiNii also lists several studies by Adachi on regional branches and an English translation of the school's texts from 2013. Green has no headword on the school.
Did you know
Muromoto on koryu.com relates, after school tradition, that the third head Hisayoshi defeated the giant Takagi Umanosuke on a journey, in front of the lord of Tsuyama, by binding with a rope, and he became that head's pupil and later reworked his style into Takagi-ryu. Nikkoku gives as the earliest documented occurrence of the word Takenouchi-ryu in literature a comic-poetry verse from a collection of 1781. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai says the purple colour of the rope recalls the cap the second head received from the kanpaku regent of the Konoe family. The Japanese Wikipedia states that Itagaki Taisuke obtained a licence of full transmission from one branch of the school. Adachi 2020 documents that the stated founding day, 24 June of Tenbun 1, is impossible by the calendar, because the Tenbun era began only in July of that year.
Frequently asked questions
Is Takenouchi-ryu really the oldest jujutsu school?
Daijisen calls it the oldest surviving jujutsu school, Heibonsha and Britannica the oldest documented one. The year 1532, however, is according to all these sources the school's tradition, and Adachi 2020 documents that the stated founding date is wrong by the calendar and that the label oldest jujutsu appears in the school's publications from 1973.
What does kogusoku koshi no mawari mean?
According to Nipponica it is an art that arose to win battlefield grappling with a short blade, not a later bare-handed grappling. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai relates that the name kogusoku comes from the old man who broke the founder's wooden sword into two short blades, and that a blade 1 shaku 2 sun long is used in it.
Where is Takenouchi-ryu practised now?
In Kakuishitani in the city of Okayama, where both houses of the Takenouchi family, soke and sodenke, are based, listed as separate members of both Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai gives branches in Okayama and Hiroshima including university clubs, Daijisen Plus dojo mostly in Okayama Prefecture.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.