Register record
Identity & authority
- Disambiguation
- Takahashi Hatsuji (高橋初次) — NOT Takahashi Deishū (高橋泥舟); NOT the Mugai-ryū and Tsuda Ichiden-ryū kendōka Takahashi Kyūtarō (高橋赳太郎, 1859–1940, imina Takakazu 高運), who sat on the 1911 kendō-kata committee and took the Butokukai hanshi title in 1919; nor the several other Takahashi named across this register.
- Attestation
- corroboration: —
Names
| type | kanji | romaji | reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| myoji | Takahashi | ||
| tsusho | Hatsuji |
Dates
- Born
- (1838)
In the 1899 Hamada-kan (浜田鑑), edited by Fujii Muneo (藤井宗雄) and published by Adachi Kyōeidō (安達共栄堂), we find details of Takahashi Hatsuji (高橋初次) (Fujii Muneo 1899):
In this town [Nishikimachi 錦町] there is a man called Takahashi Hatsuji, a former domain retainer. A senior disciple of Fukui Ichirōemon, master of Araki-ryū jūjutsu, he served as a patrolman in the time of Hamada Prefecture; subsequently he served as patrolman and concurrently as instructor in jūjutsu and tōjutsu, resigning in February 1890. In September 1897, at the age of sixty, he presented himself at the Butokukai in Kyoto and, fighting bouts with several men, won against them all. He was thereupon granted a certificate, reading:
Dai Nippon Butokukai Bujutsu Shōjō
One: Araki-ryū jūjutsu — Mr. Takahashi Hatsuji, sixty years
The above certifies the refinement (seiren 精錬) of his technique among the participants of the Third Butokukai Demonstration.
7 October 1897
President: Grand Cordon, Golden Kite Second Class, Prince AkihitoHe was also granted a cup by the Butokukai, and received an iron fan from the Governor of Kyoto Prefecture. The foregoing is a summary account of Hamada town.
Imperial Prince Komatsunomiya Akihito (小松宮彰仁親王), an army general, was the Butokukai’s founding president; the chairman was Watanabe Chiaki, governor of Kyoto, and the vice-chairman Mibu Motoosa, head priest of Heian Jingū. So the “Prince Akihito” of the certificate is Komatsunomiya Akihito, and the decorations match — Grand Cordon of the Chrysanthemum, Golden Kite 2nd class. Note also that the Kyoto governor who gave Takahashi the iron fan held the Butokukai chairmanship ex officio, so that gift is an institutional one rather than a separate civic courtesy.
His sword art is listed as tōjutsu (刀術) not kenjutsu (剣術). He taught jūjutsu and tōjutsu. Given the Araki-ryū context — where the printed compilations classify the school under torite/kogusoku and where a 1699 densho bundles torite (捕手), kogusoku (小具足), and nawa (縄) — tōjutsu here may well be Araki-ryū’s own sword component rather than a separate school. That would make him a transmitter of the full Araki curriculum, not a jūjutsuka who also happened to fence.
He was a patrolman under Hamada Prefecture (浜田県, which existed only until its 1876 absorption into Shimane) — so he entered police service in the early Meiji; he then served as patrolman and instructor, resigned in February 1890, and appeared at Kyoto seven years into retirement. Takahashi provides an example of a domain retainer’s martial competence absorbed into the new prefectural police, formalized as an instructor post, and then validated a second time by the Butokukai after he had already left service.
