Jikishinkage-ryū

Jikishinkage-ryū (直心影流) was the name chosen by Yamada Heizaemon Ippūsai Mitsunori (山田平左衛門光徳) to refer to his inheritance of the teachings of Takahashi Jikiōsai (直翁斎), whose Jikishin Seitō-ryū he practiced and possibly updated or merged with his practice in a branch of the Edo line of Yagyū Shinkage-ryū.

Jikiōsai had studied the kenjutsu of Kamiya Denshinsai, who was the successor of Ogasawara Genshinsai (said to have refined his art during years spent in Ming China). Ogasawara was a student of Okuyama Kyūgasai, an early disciple of Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami.

The school’s now-familiar Kashima-shinden origin story — Matsumoto Bizen-no-kami as founding ancestor, a dream-transmission from the Kashima deity Takemikazuchi — was a mid-eighteenth-century documentary addition by the eighth head, Ippūsai’s successor Naganuma Kunisato.

By the late early-modern period the school had divided into three branches: the Naganuma-ha (長沼派), the orthodox trunk that carried the bōgu-and-shinai reform; the Fujikawa-ha (藤川派); and the Odani-ha (男谷派), which embraced competitive matches and became closely tied to the Tokugawa Kōbusho. This chapter follows the Edo dōtō of the Odani line — from Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi and Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke through Danno Gennoshin to Odani Seiichirō (opens in a new tab) — the line that absorbed the Fujikawa house and issued, in the twentieth century, in Yamada Jirōkichi (opens in a new tab)’s Seitō-ha.

It was in this line that swordsmanship crossed the Restoration. Odani Seiichirō, foremost swordsman of the Tenpō era, headed the Kōbusho and trained Sakakibara Kenkichi (opens in a new tab), who — remembered as “the last swordsman” — kept the art before the public in early Meiji through his gekken-kōgyō exhibitions; Yamada Jirōkichi preserved and codified that transmission as the Seitō-ha; and, on the Naganuma side, Tokunō Sekishirō (opens in a new tab) carried Jikishinkage-ryū into the Metropolitan Police and became the first recipient of the Butokukai’s hanshi title. The Edo heads of that Odani line are followed here in succession.

Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi

Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi (藤川弥司郎右衛門近義; 1726-1798), the tenth-generation head of Jikishinkage-ryū, whose Edo town-dōjō at Shitaya Chōjamachi (下谷長者町) opened in Hōreki 6 (1756), was reputed to have three thousand students and to have produced Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke alongside Sakai Ryōsuke (Nakabayashi Shinji, n.d.).

Nakabayashi’s encyclopedia treatment frames him as the senior disciple of Tsunasato who continued the orthodox Naganuma line. In the dōtō register his formal style is Fujikawa Yashirōemon-no-jō Fujiwara Chikayoshi (藤川弥司郎右衛門尉藤原近義) (Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū Isseikai, n.d.).

Karukome (2013) details the formation of the Fujikawa-ha, noting that Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi entered Naganuma Kunisato’s school and then after Kunisato’s retirement trained under Naganuma Shōbei. When he died, his adopted son Chikanori took over the dōjō, but died shortly thereafter.

The adopted son-in-law Chikanori married Chikayoshi’s daughter, so two young heirs were left after Chikanori’s sudden death — Chikatsune and Seisai. They were not yet adult at the time, so Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke served as guardian to the brothers.¹

Fujikawa Seisai (藤川整斎) is the author of Reiken ryakukai (1857, Tokyo National Museum) and Seisai zuihitsu (整斎随筆, National Archives). Karukome notes that the Seisai zuihitsu records, as a kikigaki, a description of a match by Seisai’s grandfather Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi, through which the character of Fujikawa-ha matches can be glimpsed.

Sakai Ryōsa / Ryōsuke (酒井良佐 / 酒井良佑) was a Fujikawa-ha swordsman whose match is described in Shimizu Rekishū’s Ariya nashiya, giving the actual line: “Ryōsa, with a great shout, [struck] from jōdan toward the crown of the head…” — i.e. the same upper-stance, striking-from-above style the school is known for. The essay is reprinted in Zoku Nihon zuihitsu taisei, vol. 8.²

Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke

Akaishi Gunjibei (赤石郡司兵衛), honorific -no-jō (尉), honsei Fujiwara (藤原), imina Fusuke (孚祐), gō Hanryūken (斑龍軒), was the eleventh-generation head of Jikishinkage-ryū in the Kashima-shinden reckoning, standing between Fujikawa Chikayoshi (10th) and Danno Gennoshin (12th) in what became the Odani-ha. His placement is consistent across the school’s own dōtō register and the Kobudō Kyōkai succession lists (Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū Isseikai, n.d.; Nihon Kobudō Kyōkai, n.d.).

He studied under Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi, the tenth-generation head (Nakabayashi Shinji, n.d.). His recorded students are Danno Gennoshin (団野源之進; the twelfth-generation head), Ishikawa Seheiji (石川瀬平二) (Nakabayashi Shinji, n.d.), and Toda Einosuke.

The Jikishinkage-ryū densho-shū (直心影流伝書集) lists Toda Einosuke (imina Ōban Yoshishige〔大判良茂; imina reading uncertain〕, styled Isshinsai) as one of Akaishi’s students:

At the age of twenty-four he came to Kyoto and opened a kōbujō, and his name became greatly renowned. Those who received instruction from him numbered several thousand in all, and those who attained the true transmission were likewise many. He died in Meiji 4 (1871), the kanoto-hitsuji year, in the twelfth month, aged sixty-six.

In Meiji, Ōishi Susumu (大石進), Okumura Sakonta (opens in a new tab) (奥村左近太), Takayama Minesaburō (opens in a new tab) (高山峰三郎), Koteda Yasusada (籠手田安定), and Abe Morie (阿部守衛) later visited the school he founded in Kyoto. Unlike the ninth-generation Naganuma line (Numata-han service), Akaishi sits in the Fujikawa Edo town-dōjō tradition; no domain appointment is attested.

Danno Gennoshin

Danno Gennoshin (団野源之進; gō Shinpansai 真帆斎)³ was the teacher of Odani Seiichirō; his birth and death are not easily fixed, though Odani inherited his dōjō after Danno’s death, c. 1857.

Danno was the twelfth-generation head of Jikishinkage-ryū⁴ in the Kashima-shinden reckoning that counts from Matsumoto Bizen-no-kami, and the teacher of Odani Nobutomo (男谷信友).⁵ His imina is given as Yoshitaka (義高), with the variant 義孝 in at least one lineage register.⁶

He studied under Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke (赤石郡司兵衛孚祐), the eleventh-generation head, and maintained a dōjō at Honjo Kamezawa-chō (本所亀沢町) in Edo (Nakabayashi Shinji, n.d.). The Kobudō Kyōkai registries place him in the orthodox line between Akaishi and Odani — Akaishi Fusuke — Danno Shinpansai (Yoshitaka) — Odani Seiichirō Nobutomo (Nihon Kobudō Kyōkai, n.d.).

His principal recorded student is Odani Nobutomo (tsūshō Seiichirō, gō Seisai), later “the sword-sage of the Bakumatsu.” Odani received the tekiden (的伝; the orthodox inner transmission) from Danno in Bunsei 6 (1823) (Nakabayashi Shinji, n.d.). On Danno’s death Odani was given the Kamezawa-chō dōjō, relocating there in Ansei 5 (1858) — the only indirect anchor available for the period of Danno’s death.⁷