The Truth of the Calm Spirit: The practice of Shinkage-ryū Heihō as Taoist Internal Alchemy (opens in a new tab) is a collected set of works that stem from martial arts essays centered around my practice of Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū and efforts to read its earlier writings. The work’s title is inspired from an earlier name of the art used by Ogasawara Genshinsai: Shin (True) no Shin (Spirit) In (Calm/Still/Yin) Heihō.
I began training in Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu in 2008. In 2025, my kenjutsu instructor passed away suddenly. Later that year, I started collating and expanding my writing on Jikishinkage-ryū (opens in a new tab) kenjutsu, which resulted in my first book, which I dedicated to his memory.
The Truth of the Calm Spirit (opens in a new tab), Inner Dharma, 2025. 368 pages. An examination of the practice of Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu through the lens of internal martial arts.
This work contains my research and notes on Jikishinkage-ryū through the end of 2025, including a summary of its early history, including the travels of Ogasawara Genshinsai to Ming China, its kata, and descriptions of its philosophical content drawn from available Japanese language scholarship and library holdings.
Contents Includes: Introduction (Origin Myths, Broader Context of Transitional Arts, Free Practice), Lineage, Philosophical Context (A-Un Kokyū and Shunkashūtō, Unpō, Kiai, Kuraidori), Kata (Hōjō, Tō no Kata, Kodachi, Habiki, Older Kata), Advanced Matters (Koto, Gokui), and the Ryū no Maki.
This work was revised in May 2026.1 In August 2026 I moved the bulk of my writing on Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu to jikishinkageryu.org (opens in a new tab). Much of my writing can now be found there, along with links to active groups practicing that art.
From the Kōbusho to the Butokukai is my companion volume on the late Edo period Kōbusho, where many Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmen taught, and the institutions that followed it.
End Notes
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The gokui list in TOCS originally included an entry called “nenshi” (thought/contemplation). This was a large annotation in one densho that summarized a two-link teaching poem called a rika. It has been removed from the list in the current version — the poem is now described in the section associated to one of the formal gokui called seikōsui. ↩