Tessenjutsu
鉄扇術Japanese fighting art with the iron war fan tessen — a weapon a samurai could keep where he was forbidden to carry a sword.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
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.
About Tessenjutsu
Tessenjutsu is the Japanese art of fighting with the iron war fan. The weapon's name, tessen, means literally iron fan and refers to three different objects. The first is a rigid fan carved from hard wood or forged from iron in the closed shape of a fan; it is durable, cheaper to make, and more effective in combat than a folding version. The second is a folding fan with iron ribs, which also served as a badge of rank. The third covers small folding and rigid versions used simply as a self-defense weapon. The whole discipline grows out of one practical fact: a samurai had to set his sword aside. When visiting another household he left his katana, and sometimes his wakizashi too, outside with the servants, and did the same when meeting a superior, doing housework, or at leisure. A fan, however, could stay tucked into his obi sash, so in practice he was never truly unarmed. The tessen was used for blocking, for striking, and for passing on commands: senior commanders signaled to their units with it. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of his line, is recorded as having used one in combat and regarded it as a noble object capable of catching an opponent off guard; the 16th-century swordsman Ganryu reportedly defeated even heavily armed opponents with it. Only four classical schools taught tessenjutsu — Echigo-ryu, Miyake-Shingan-ryu, Uesugi-ryu, and Yagyu-ryu — and of these only Miyake-Shingan-ryu and Yagyu-ryu survive today in their original form and lineage.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.