While researching my first book, The Truth of the Calm Spirit, I became intrigued by the late Edo period Kōbusho, the martial academy of the Tokugawa that several prominent Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmen taught at. My research wound up growing to become a substantial part of this site and I have now made the content available as a companion volume.
From the Kōbusho to the Butokukai: Swordsmanship in Transition (opens in a new tab), Inner Dharma, 2026. 360 pages. The late Edo period Kōbusho, the martial academy of the Tokugawa, its swordsmen and their styles, and the institutions that followed it into the modern era.1
The work covers over 20 traditions and 45 practitioners from this time period.
In this work, I examine details of many late Edo practitioners of Jikishinkage-ryū, the bakumatsu Kōbusho many of them taught at, and important traditions that had lasting impact as Japan modernized, including important 19th and 20th century Japanese martial figures.
The Kōbusho itself ran roughly a decade. Preparations began in 1854 (Ansei 1) under the rōjū Abe Masahiro after Perry; it was formally opened as the Kōbusho in the 4th month of 1856 (Ansei 3) at Tsukiji Teppōzu, with master-instructors and kyōju-kata appointed in swordsmanship, spearmanship and gunnery, and with archery, jūjutsu and swimming also being taught. Kōbusho trainees were selected from skilled martial artists drawn from the hatamoto, gokenin, and the domains.
A selection of the practitioners and the schools I discuss in the book can be read here: selected kenshi and selected ryūha. The records for all of them are also available on GitHub as the kobudo-register (opens in a new tab), for ease of access and search, instead of maintaining complete indices here.
Essays and Articles
Excerpts from the book and my later research on the Bakumatsu martial world, can be found below.
Selected Ryūha
Schools of sword, spear and jūjutsu taught at the Kōbusho or carried by its men into the modern era: the fuller records from my register of schools, with pointers to the rest.
Selected Kenshi
Swordsmen, spearmen and jūjutsu teachers of the late Edo, Meiji and early Shōwa periods: the fuller records from my register of practitioners, with pointers to the rest.
The Zoku Tokugawa Jikki and the Kōbusho
The Zoku Tokugawa jikki, the day-by-day chronicle of the last shoguns, records Kōbusho appointments by name. We list the instructors, assistants and trainees made okuzume in 1861, and note how the chronicle treats men taken into shogunal service from the domains.
Finding Jikishinkage-ryū Swordsmen in the Bakufu Registers
Three documents for Odani Seiichirō and Amano Shōshō, and a worked example of finding Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmen in the printed bakufu registers of 1860 to 1864 held by the National Diet Library.
Late Bakumatsu Military Units
Some details on the Yūgeki-tai, Seiei-tai, and Shōgi-tai, late Bakumatsu military units that some Kōbusho figures were attached to.
The Kenpō Ryakki of Kubota Sugane
We provide a translation of eight technical sections detailed from the Kenpō ryakki of Kubota Sugane (1839), with an extended note on the nagamaki.
A Kōbusho roster from the Rikugun rekishi (1889)
We then provide details from a Kōbusho (講武所) discipline roster from the Rikugun rekishi (陸軍歴史 下), koma 96–108.
Matsuoka Yorozu
Matsuoka Yorozu (松岡万, 1838–1891): shogunal retainer, sonnō-jōi activist, and swordsman who led the Seiei-tai guarding the retired Yoshinobu.
From Kokugaku to the Ketsumeidan: Nativist Shintō and the Budō World
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.
From Ming to Meiji: The Declining Status of Chinese Influence in Japanese martial culture from 1600-1900
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.
End Notes
-
These volumes attempt to be precise but are not academic histories. Instead they are close readings of historical sources. In doing so, we relate the statements made about many older martial traditions by their witnesses and practitioners, but each surviving faction or group will have their own in-tradition orthodoxy ↩