Martial Arts and Culture
[ glossary · kōbusho topics · shugen topics · methodology · references ]
Inner Dharma is a writing project maintained by Mark Raugas concerned with traditional martial arts and culture. I want to thank all of its readers who provided their feedback and encouragement over the last twenty years.
Below you will find essays on the history and texts of several koryū, especially those related to Shinkage-ryū and Kashima-area traditions, as well as philosophical studies of Daoism, esoteric Buddhism, Shugendō (修験道) and mountain asceticism especially as they relate to martial culture from China and Japan.
Content related to Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu, including what resulted in a published book, can now be found at jikishinkageryu.org (opens in a new tab).
June 2026
The late-Tokugawa shogunal martial academy (1856–1867) with biographical sketches of its kenshi, the schools they came from, and the bakumatsu corps they later founded or joined.
January 2026
Details on my published work on Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu. That content can now be found at jikishinkageryu.org
July 2026
Analysis of the concept Shin-hen Bankyō (心遍萬境; the mind pervades all realms) found in a Kyūshū Shinkage-ryū densho.
June 2026
A brief discourse on the jūjutsu associated or affiliated with different branches of Shinkage-ryū.
June 2026
A short description of Kukishin-ryū history and its provenance, which is described as relating to Shugendō but is contested.
June 2026
Ming Chinese master of Taisha-ryū and Shugendō practitioner. Some contrasts between Hiko Shugendō and Dewa Shugendō and a digression to a famous school of sword smiths.
June 2026
The famous poem on the three mountain pilgrimage of Dewa Sanzan
June 2026
Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū descends from the Yōshin-ryū grappling stream, but its founding by Iso Mataemon at Kitano Tenmangū is a Tenjin-cult devotional act, not a mountain-Shugendō revelation like Kage-ryū's — the tengu and Kurama material survives only as okuden iconographic residue. Its Chinese-origin legend likewise collapses on inspection to a Nagasaki medical/kappō residue, while the actual technical lineage runs through the domestic willow revelation and the Kurama warrior substrate.
June 2026
Examining the Kashima Shin-ryū of Kunii Zen'ya. Early influences, Shintō education, military contributions, martial reputation and memorial tributes provide a rich view of this important budōka.
June 2026
Dewa area bujutsu and the Shugendō connections of the original iai ryūha. Tengu-related origins as told in several martial traditions, contrasting them based on their period of development and social perspectives. How attitudes towards China affected origin tales over time.
June 2026
How the nativist undertow inside Edo Sinophilia grew through kokugaku — Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane — into the kokutai/Kōdō ideology of Imaizumi Sadasuke and the early-Shōwa nationalist milieu of the Ketsumeidan Incident that the budō world brushed against.
June 2026
One thread that affects multiple articles here, whether on kobudō or Japanese religion, is the early Edo importance of Ming Dynasty culture in Japan as being desirable as an influence and the mid-to-late Edo scorn for Qing Dynasty China. This is only amplified in Meiji and beyond.
June 2026
We examine a densho from 1792 of Ōshima-ryū, a spear tradition stemming from Ōshima Hanroku Yoshitsuna who studied methods passed down from Yuasa Shinroku. Its signature weapon was a long suyari and it held a long-time rivalry with the Hōzōin-ryū.
☰ Kitō-ryū
June 2026
Kitō-ryū (起倒流) was taught at the Kōbusho (講武所) by Motoyama Shōō (本山正翁) and Iikubo Tsunetoshi (飯久保恒年) — the latter was later best known as Kanō Jigorō’s (嘉納治五郎) teacher.
June 2026
We discuss details surrounding the martial arts and competitive practices of Matsuzaki Namishirō, master of Katōda Shinkage-ryū kenjutsu.
June 2026
Extensive documents from Kyushu in 1766 and how they relate to the Edo area Yagyū and Jikishinkage-ryū densho contents. We find independent corroboration of common Shinkage-ryū influence in these arts at the same time of the writings of Naganuma Kunisato in 1768. Specifically, the gokui section of Jikishinkage-ryū mokuroku overlap substantially with the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū Okugi, suggesting a majority of those concepts were preserved in Jikishinkage-ryū.
May 2026
Some details on the Shugendō of Udo in Kyushu and how it might relate to the founding of Aisu Kage-ryū and the later influence of Shugendō on Shinkage-ryū.
May 2026
Details on choices of romanization of 直心影流 — this project uses Jikishinkage-ryū, but other choices are also valid.
May 2026
Last in a series. We examine a seal of transmission of self-protective methods dated 1675 and compare it against a different line of transmission from 1812.
May 2026
A brief discussion of the seasonal mappings of kata in Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu and how those relate to Daoist complementarity, five phase theory, and partially to Mikkyō concepts.
May 2026
Tracing the threads from the legendary Kyō Hachi Ryū and Kiichi Hōgen at Kurama, through the tengu pantheon of Mt. Atago, Kōyasan and Kotohira, to the eight cipher-names Sekishūsai used to hide the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū Tengushō kata in his picture catalog.
May 2026
Examining some evidence for the genesis of upper-level Shinkage-ryū teachings based on information available about Aisu Ikōsai's founding vision of Sarutahiko, Kamiizumi's early training in Kashima, and the arrangement of Shinkage-ryū kata over time.
May 2026
A poem by Fu Dashi (497-569).
October 2025
We examine some features of armed and unarmed grappling and small weapon styles from the medieval period to modernity and draw some parallels and distinctions between them, especially as related to combat sport and contemporary military practices.
April 2025
Last year I began additional training in the union of Yoga and Buddhism offered through Tibet House. As part of this training, an essay comparing the Astanga (8-limbs) of Patanjali with the Buddhist Noble Eightfold path.
September 2024
Link to an essay on kata, heiho and shugyo, where I compare and contrast different surviving lines of Shinkage-ryū and reflect on my own practice.
February 2023
An essay published at Kogen Budo, where I look at some older writings from Japanese koryū that reference classical Chinese military treatises, and then examine how practices described in those works may be represented in arts surviving today.
July 2017
Some notes on Japanese mountain religion from the Tōhoku region of Japan and its importance to practitioners of arts derived from the teachings of Takeda Sōkaku.
February 2017
Collected thoughts on the historical influence of Chinese martial arts on Japanese jujutsu and how they relate to the topic of aiki in Aikidō and Daitō-ryū. What interested me about internal martial arts and how I have related that experience to my practice of Japanese budō.