Kenjutsu Training Background

My first exposure to koryū kenjutsu was in training with Kato Kazuo of the Yagyūkai in Port Washington, NY, in the early 1990s. I was quite allergic to the red lacquer of the fukuro-shinai and regret not continuing that training at the time, as I now know people can develop a resistance over time.

I was introduced to Dr. David Hall by Meik Skoss after visiting his NJ dojo in 2003. Dave was a Tendai priest and knowledgeable about Shugendō – my Aikidō instructor had made that mountain religion a major theme of his advanced teaching and historical narrative and Dave was a resource who helped me interpret the material from a more traditional lens. Dave was very helpful to me as I sorted out what religious content I had learned, just as others like Ellis Amdur were helpful in examining the weapons kata we had practiced. They helped determine our Aikidō school taught a blend of aiki-ken with movements copied from several koryū, and not something older.

It was later in 2005 when I formally visited David Hall’s Hōbyōkan dōjō at the NIH with an invitation arranged by a former Aikidō colleague from Pittsburgh, Michael Heiler, who was his student in Yagyū Shinkage-ryū.

David Hall was introduced to Namiki Yasushi by Donn Draeger and studied Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu under Namiki in Tokyo, and was given permission to teach kenjutsu (opens in a new tab) upon his return to the US to pursue his doctoral degree at UC Berkeley. David Hall had trained in Shindō Muso-ryū jo under Donn Draeger and later his senior student Karunakaran as well as briefly under Kaminoda after Draeger passed away. During his second time period in Japan, he entered the Yagyūkai of Yagyū Nobuharu, and similarly received permission to teach Yagyū Shinkage-ryū when he moved back to the US to raise his family.

I watched class at the Hōbyōkan several times but was not invited to train. This was frustrating but I think in retrospect David wanted me to have more time to process my first training, and my disillusionment, before diving into a new art. Thinking back, I should have just said I had trained with the NY Yagyūkai and things may have been easier. Eventually I did come full circle, but it would take another ten years.

My Gao bagua instructor at the time, Bob Galeone, was working with a Katori Shintō-ryū study group hosted at Capital Aikidō (later Capital Aikikai) and I wound up training there instead. I dove in, practicing Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō-ryū at Capital from 2005 to 2015, reaching the level of mokuroku in 2010.

In 2008 our study group lead was deployed to Afghanistan with the Army and I felt like I would benefit from regular instruction, rather than only continuing to practice with an annual visit from licensed instructors. I reached out to the Hōbyōkan again and in late 2008 or early 2009 I began practicing Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū (opens in a new tab) there. I was on probation for a long time, I believe I eventually was asked to make a kisshomon (oath or pledge) only in 2011.

All the same, Dave encouraged me to continue my practice of TSKSR, as Jikishinkage-ryū as it is arranged today has a limited number of tactics. He also was enthusiastic about my study of Taijiquan, as he had trained in Beijing Chen Style while in Hong Kong and afterwards. Several senior Jikishinkage-ryū members maintained a parallel practice of Taijiquan to balance out the harsh nature of Jikishinkage-ryū practice.¹

I did not do a second art lightly, but wanted access to more regular instruction and was curious what arts related to Katori’s sister shrine of Kashima were like, especially Jikishinkage-ryū as Takeda Sokaku of Daitō-ryū was said to have spent time at Sakakibara Kenkichi’s training hall. The Hōbyōkan was a good place to do this, being one of the few places at the time Jikishinkage-ryū was taught outside of Japan. David Hall had trained under Namiki Yasushi and Itō Masayuki while in Japan, and was given permission to teach by the late Namiki, 18th generation head of the Seito-ha.

I wound up traveling regularly for work to the Middle East and almost quit training in 2013 but Dave politely and wisely suggested he discard the resignation letter I sent him and that I continue to train on my own when I could, and attend practice when I was able. Around this time, I began sometimes meeting one of my sempai outside of Baltimore to work on kata and shiai, in order to have more opportunities to practice. I also began working with my sponsor Michael in Baltimore and DC. He learned Jikishinkage-ryū fundamentals from me and eventually joined the Jikishinkage-ryū class at the Hōbyōkan, while I learned the older kata of Yagyū, resuming my first practice some twenty years later (with bokken instead of red lacquer shinai).

This was fun, but maybe too much to do well. I continued to train at Capital until the end of 2014, when I decided to focus solely on Jikishinkage-ryū and Yagyū Shinkage-ryū as my formal practice. In 2016 I moved to Seattle and in 2018 I received a Hōbyōkan chuden menjo and permission to work on Jikishinkage-ryū kata with a small number of people to continue my practice.

When I first arrived in Seattle, I did not have anyone to work with, but was able to engage in pressure testing with another koryū practitioner at a HEMA cooperative called Lonin. Eventually I began working with a small number of people there to have a regular kata practice. During the pandemic the tameshi-ai fell out of rotation, but free practice is something I wound up working on with my few students.

I decided to focus on what I had learned at the Hōbyōkan as both arts were Shinkage-ryū. On my own I worked the older Shinkage-ryū kata such as sangakuen, kuka, empi, nanatachi, tengushō and empi oku. I have not taught much of those practices to my group at Lonin – instead I worked on a version of sangakuen with them, since those kata are what led to Hōjō, and aspects of kuka that were also taught at the time of Ogasawara and Kamiya.

I kept practicing Katori kata solo, but over time reduced the curriculum I maintained, to complement rather than be the core of my practice. I continued training, but adapted my body mechanics to be more akin to that of the older Shinkage-ryū kata, and used a heavier Kashima suburi bokutō instead of the lighter training weapons used in Katori.²

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