Tennen Rishin-ryu
天然理心流A sword school of the late eighteenth century made famous by three members of the Shinsengumi. It trains with an unusually heavy bokuto and bets on strength, not finesse.
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About Tennen Rishin-ryu
Tennen Rishin-ryu is a school of swordsmanship founded at the end of the eighteenth century that only specialists would know today, had three men of the Shinsengumi not trained in it. Kondo Isami, Hijikata Toshizo and Okita Soji learned at the Shieikan dojo in the Ichigaya district of Edo, and from there went in 1863 to Kyoto, where they became the most feared police unit of the late shogunate. The school thereby gained a fame it would otherwise never have had, and it still appears in every film and series about the Shinsengumi. Technically it is interesting for what sets it apart from most sword schools: it does not bet on finesse and precision but on strength and durability. It trains with an unusually heavy wooden bokuto, the strikes are driven by the whole body, and the fight is sought at close range, where the sword is already half a lever. Kondo summed up the approach in the sentence that in a real fight resolve decides before technique. The founder is Kondo Kuranosuke Nagahiro, who established the school around 1789 in Kai province. It survives today in only a few lines, practised by dozens rather than thousands. Kondo Isami was the school's fourth headmaster, and Hijikata and Okita were his fellow students and pupils at the Shieikan; within the school's line this is not mere association but direct leadership.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.