The Hōzōin-ryū at the Kōbusho was the Takada-ha (高田派): the line running from the founder In’ei through his disciple Nakamura Naomasa to Takada Matabei Yoshitsugu, who served Kokura-han, after which a high disciple, Mori-hira Masatsuna, and two others went to Edo and spread the method — which is why the bakumatsu Kōbusho era had many Hōzōin-ryū shihan. They shared the Takada-ha transmission as a common ancestry.
In’ei learned the sword from Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami alongside Yagyū Munetoshi before working out the cross-spear he became famous for. So, the dominant Kōbusho spear school traces, at its root, straight into the Shinkage-ryū lineage that is the main research interest of this site in Japanese martial arts.
It is not clear if the Kōbusho sōjutsu instructors had a single immediate common teacher as the Kōbusho Hōzōin instructors aren’t individually listed as commonly as the kenjutsu instructors.
Curriculum
Hōzōin-ryū Takada-ha is a living school with a published curriculum. Hōzōin-ryū’s weapon is the jūmonji kamayari (十文字鎌槍; cross-bladed sickle-spear) and its use is based around the school’s “cone, entering, sickle” (円錐・入身・鎌) triad through a signature vocabulary of maki-otoshi (巻落し), kiri-otoshi (切落し), and suri-komi (摺込み), a battlefield art assuming armor, a low stance, and fighting against the sword, plain spear, bow, and naginata.
The lineage runs from the founder Hōzōin In’ei (胤栄), a Kōfuku-ji monk who studied the sword under Kamiizumi alongside Yagyū Munetoshi, through Nakamura Naomasa to Takada Matabei Yoshitsugu, who — originally from Iga, and also trained in Gotsubo-ryū spear, Anazawa-ryū naginata, and Shinkage-ryū sword — entered Ogasawara Tadazane’s service in 1623 and carried the school into Kokura-han, distinguishing himself at the Shimabara siege
Its present curriculum is the paired-spear set (槍合せの型, yari-awase no kata) in three sections — Omote (表) 14 forms, Ura (裏) 14 forms, and Shin-shikake (新仕掛, “new techniques”) 7 forms, totaling 35. Those 35 are what Ishida Kazuto restored out of a historical set of fifty (槍合わせの型五十本), the line having nearly lapsed before being preserved through the First Higher School kendō club under Yamazato Tadanori and then returned to Nara in 1976.
Ishida is known to have transmitted only the kata and was not given inka, and did not call himself sōke. This distinction was lost over time as later sōke titles in the Nara revival were adopted. These are a 20th-century continuation rather than unbroken lineage — in contrast to the documented Kokura-han transmission of the school’s earlier centuries. This is similar in spirit to Yamada Jirōkichi declaring there was no longer an Odani-ha and founding a new Seitō-ha of Jikishinkage-ryū in the early 20th century, and then formal Jikishinkage-ryū lineage being revived by Ōnishi after Kawashima Takashi refused Yamada’s request to lead he art.
