Shukō
手鉤 · shukō
Literally: hand hooks
A metal band around the palm with a wrist strap and hooks on the inner side of the hand, documented only in the writings and teaching of the Togakure-ryū school and Bujinkan.
Quick Facts
JapanAbout the weapon
Shukō (手鉤, literally "hand hooks") is a metal band encircling the palm, complemented by a strap around the wrist and hooks on the inner side of the palm. It is recorded under this name and these characters in the transmission scroll (densho) of the Togakure-ryū school as passed down by Takamatsu Toshitsugu, and the same characters appear in Masaaki Hatsumi's book The Way of the Ninja. The widespread reading of the name as "tiger hands" (手虎) does not, according to the researcher Luke Crocker, rest on reliable sources. Everything we know about shukō comes from the Togakure-ryū and Bujinkan tradition. Historians question the claimed history of Togakure-ryū; Watatani Kiyoshi, in the lexicon Bugei Ryūha Daijiten, states that it was embellished to make the school look older. Crocker, himself a Bujinkan practitioner, derives shukō from the agricultural hooks asakagi and asanō of the Kofun period and the tool tekkō kagi of the Heian period. We have not found independent evidence of this developmental line. In the Togakure-ryū school, shukō serves three purposes: it reinforces unarmed combat (taijutsu), it is applied in the escape techniques Taijutsu Ukemi Gata, and in the forms Santō Tonkō Gata from the scroll Shinjin Ichinyo no Maki, meant for escaping captivity. Crocker notes that hooks designed for fibrous plant material can catch on bone in the human body and slow the user down. He considers the claims that shukō was exclusively a ninja weapon, or served mainly for climbing trees, unsubstantiated.
People
- Masaaki Hatsumi — Popularizer