Bujinkan Hirameki Dōjō

A very interesting thing about Ish*tani Matsutarō has recently come to light. In a document from the Kuroda family archive (慶応三卯年日記), we find the following report:

“I, Ish*tani Matsutarō of my unit, was this time ordered as an official courier to Edo. On the ninth day, at the hour of the dog [around 8 p.m.], I departed, having been instructed to make haste and complete the journey within five days. However, at the Ōigawa River and the Arai checkpoint, night crossing was not permitted, and there were many difficulties with the relays (horses and post stations). As a result, my arrival was delayed by two days. I have now arrived and hereby submit this notice.”

This was written in the summer of 1867, when Ish*tani was around 23 years old, just as the Tokugawa shogunate was collapsing and the Akashi Domain hurried to reorganize its militia forces and was possibly rushing secret reports to Edo.

According to the text, Ish*tani served as an 'goshu [or ote] hikyaku' [御手飛脚], a hand courier of the authorities - apparently one of the most trusted messengers in the late Edo period. They carried official documents, orders, and intelligence between Edo, Kyoto, Osaka, and the domains. Unlike the regular hikyaku, which could be commoners hired as runners, the goshu hikyaku were often samurai retainers, armed with swords and personally chosen for their endurance, literacy, discretion, and discipline. They bore the hand of authority, with direct and confidential messages from a lord or high official.

A skilled goshu hikyaku like this required extraordinary stamina, capable of traveling up great distances per day on foot or horseback, often through storms and dangerous terrain. They needed a mastery of geography, knowing every post station, ferry crossing (like the treacherous Ōigawa river that Ish*tani needed to get past), and checkpoint procedure. Above all, they needed loyalty and secrecy - a single leaked message could cost lives. Armed with sword and resolve, they had to be able to defend the documents, or die protecting them.

According to Takamatsu sensei, four years earlier Ish*tani fought in the Tenchūgumi uprising (1863) and fled to Iga, where he studied koppōjutsu and ninjutsu. We have no idea when or how he returned to Akashi, and whether or not he returned to Iga after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. But one thing is for sure - his ninjutsu training made him ideal for urgent, confidential missions amid the chaos of 1867.

If nothing else, his courier ride to Edo was a perfect test of the skills that he would later pass on to Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu.

Sources:https://da.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/da/kernel/81009170/81009170.pdf

https://www.postalmuseum.jp/publication/research/docs/research_03_11.pdf

Big credit goes to Maier for finding the Kuroda clan document!

Ishizaki Yasutarō Yoshimitsu [石崎 安太郎 義光] left a great mark in the history of Takagi Yōshin Ryū. He was the teacher of Mizuta Yosh*tarō Tadafusa, who would later transmit his knowledge to the young Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu. And today his martial arts are practiced by people all over the world.

Ishizaki Yasutarō was born in 1854 in Akashi and his love for the martial arts apparently began in his early childhood. At the age of 17, he started learning Takagi Yōshin Ryū and Kukishin Ryū Bōjutsu in Akashi under Inoue Kumatarō [井上熊太郎]. Inoue was one of the successors to Yagi Ikugorō (who was also the master of Ish*tani Takeo as well as Fujita Fujigorō).

Ishizaki received the Chūgokui license after four years of training, and at the age of 25 he advanced to the Okugi level.

In 1882 he established a dōjō at his residence called the Aibukan [愛武館] where he taught many students, while also operating a bone-setting clinic. At the age of 31 (after fourteen years of training) he received menkyo kaiden from his master Inoue sensei.

In 1889 he travelled to Yagyū village to train under Nakamura Nikaku sensei, who has been called the "last famous swordsman of the Yagyū Ryū in Yagyū village" and eventually receiving a license in Yagyū Shinkage Ryū - apparently specialising in the use of two swords.

Five years later, in 1894, Ishizaki was appointed jūjutsu instructor to the Akashi Town Police Department, and in 1895 he opened a dojo in Kusunokichō in Kōbe. That same year, Takamatsu sensei started going to high school in the same neighbourhood.

In 1898 Ishizaki joined the Dai Nippon Butokukai, and moved back to Akashi, combining both bone-setting and martial arts teaching at his dōjō.

According to the Nihon Bujutsu Meikaden from 1902, he had more than 200 students at that time, and was renowned far and wide for his enthusiasm for the martial arts, his robust body, and lively spirit. Just a single glance was enough to convinces one of his skill, and I think this is visible in the one photo that is preserved of him.

This quote from the Nihon Bujutsu Meikaden sums up Ishizaki Yasutarō in a wonderful and inspiring way: "Ah! If Japan’s martial spirit is to be nourished, how could it be otherwise than through men such as him? Those weak and effete of the world should meet him just once, hear his words, and inscribe them upon their hearts."

Sources: 日本武術名家傳, 京阪神ニ於ケル事業ト人物, https://yagyushinkageryu.com/history/history4/

The first master of Takamatsu sensei in Takagi Yōshin Ryū was Mizuta Yosh*tarō Tadafusa [水田芳太郎忠房]. Some people have suggested that Mizuta sensei never learned the full style, claiming that his line of transmission didn’t include Kukishin Ryū Bōjutsu. However, in the Nihon Bujutsu Meikaden [日本武術名家傳] from 1902, it clearly states that Mizuta sensei was teaching both Takagi Yōshin Ryū Jūjutsu as well as Kukishin Ryū Bōjutsu in his dōjō in Akashi.

At that time, he was 35 years old and – like so many other jūjutsu masters of that era - also ran a bone setting clinic. According to the Nihon Bujutsu Meikaden he was a ‘commoner’ (as opposed to coming from a samurai family) and he later worked at the Kōbe newspaper.

The town of Akashi had a deep connection with Takagi Yōshin Ryū, ever since Yagi Ikugorō had established a dōjō in Uo no Tana (where you today find the famous fish market of Akashi) in 1842. Six decades later, there were several Takagi Ryū masters and dōjō in the area.

Besides Mizuta sensei’s dōjō, there was another big Takagi Yōshin Ryū dōjō in Akashi named Aibukan [愛武館]. It was run by Ishizaki Yasutarō Yoshimitsu, a master in every sense of the word who had several young shihan teaching in his dōjō.

According to the lineages provided by Takamatsu sensei, Mizuta learned from Fujita Fujigorō Hisayoshi [藤田藤五郎久吉], one of the original disciples of Yagi. However, as we now know from at least one preserved densho handwritten by Mizuta in 1898, he was also a student of Ishizaki Yasutarō.

The Takagi Ryū has had many names over the past centuries, including Yōshin Ryū, Hontai Yōshin Ryū, Takagi Yōshin Ryū, Hontai Yōshin Takagi Ryū, etc. The densho written by Mizuta in 1898 titles the style, as learned by Ishizaki Yasutarō, as “Hontai Yōshin Ryū”, whereas the style he was teaching according to the Nihon Bujutsu Meikaden (together with Kukishin Ryū Bōjutsu) was simply branded “Yōshin Ryū Jūjutsu”. So it is feasible that he kept the lineages he was teaching separate from each other – the line of Ishizaki sensei he termed “Hontai Yōshin Ryū” and the style of Fujita sensei as simply “Yōshin Ryū”. Both lines of course stemming from Yagi Ikugorō six decades earlier, and originating from the legendary Takagi Oriemon in the 1600s.

Takamatsu sensei wrote: “I was taught Takagi Yōshin Ryū by Master Mizuta Yosh*tarō Tadafusa exactly as it had been in the past, without alteration or judgement. Therefore, I entrust myself entirely to his teachings.”

After graduating from high school, Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu entered the Bunt English School [バント英學校] in Kōbe. It was run by George Bunt, who came to Japan in 1895 from Portsmouth, England. He established his school in Kōbe on Nakayamate-dōri in 1899. In 1903, around the same time that Takamatsu entered his school, his book titled "Mr. George M. Bunt's Best Middle Class Dialogues" (or ばんと中等会話編) was published nationwide in Japan, featuring a drawn portrait of himself.

According to the publication 神戸区教育沿革史, two blackboards were used during conversation practice in the school, and "books and lectures are used to train pronunciation, and students are required to memorize everything." Mr. Bunt had also apparently innovated his own phonetic system for teaching students to speak english in a few months.

This is a newly discovered photo of Takamatsu Yasaburō Gishin [高松彌三郎義心 ], the father of Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu. He was born in 1869 in Hiraoka Village, Hyōgo Prefecture. The eldest son of a farming household, he would grow into one of Akashi’s most notable citizens: a factory owner, religious leader, martial artist, and politician. His life was lived in the glare of respectability - yet in the shadows grew his son Tosh*tsugu, but their relationship would always be strained with conflict.

At the age of twenty, Yasaburō left the fields of Hiraoka behind and moved to Kōbe, a booming port city whose match factories were fueling Japan’s export economy. That same year he had a son, Jūtarō, with a woman named Moriyama Fushi. The boy would later become known as Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu, the last ninja. But his life did not begin too well. Apparently, Moriyama Fushi died soon after giving birth.

In 1890, Yasaburō started working at the Naoki match factory, working for minimum wage. But he stood out as loyal worker, tireless and ambitious. Over the next two decades, he became the trusted right-hand man of the factory owner, and finally started his own match Factory in nearby Akashi. As a father though, he may not have succeeded quite as well - apparently, Jūtarō was raised by his grandmother in Kōbe, while Yasaburō kept remarrying and possibly having more and more children.

But his factory saw success and was producing over two million boxes of matches per month, employing up to 200 workers, and exported to Southeast Asia. The trademarks he registered in 1915 reveal something about his character and his interests. One was emblazoned with 仁義道徳 (“Benevolence, Righteousness, Way, Virtue”), and yet another showed a mystical kuji mudra hand.

Already steeped in Shugendō and Shingon Buddhism, he devoted himself to spirituality and religion. He founded the Gishinkai (義心会), organized spiritual lectures, attracted over hundreds of followers, and published a journal simply titled “Gishin.”

He also stepped into politics. In 1920, he was elected into the Akashi City Council. But a technicality — failing to update his family register in time — led to his election being annulled. The council ruled him disqualified.

According to some sources, Yasaburō had received menkyo kaiden in Takagi Yōshin Ryū Jūjutsu from the renowned master Ish*tani Takeo. It was natural, then, that he wanted his son to be strong and learn martial arts. Little did he know that this would become not just a passion but an entire way of life for his son, who was never interested in taking over the family business. Instead, the young boy left for China after having received transmission in several martial arts, and this did not do well for the relationship with Yasaburō. In 1912, Jūtarō fell ill with beriberi in China and returned half-dead, and again stayed with his grandmother Nao in Kobe to recover. Enraged, Yasaburō sent a messenger warning that he would cut off Nao’s allowance if she continued to shelter him.

The following year, the conflict exploded into the open. On November 29, 1913, at Yasaburō’s own petition, the Kobe District Court declared Tosh*tsugu a spendthrift (浪費者) and branded him legally incapable of managing his own economic affairs.

The father and son could not have been more different. One brought out the brilliance of fire in the form of matches. The other embraced the darkness of hidden traditions, carrying them into the modern age.

History clearly remembers Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu as the “last ninja,” the man who through his successor Hatsumi Masaaki preserved and transmitted ancient martial traditions to the world. But behind him stood his father, Takamatsu Yasaburō - a man who strove to mold his son into a soldier of the empire, but instead fathered a legend.

The Life of Kumakura Tadayoshi - a forgotten swordsman

This photo, published in 1902, depicts Kumakura Tadayoshi [熊倉忠善君] who was born in Edo’s Ushigome district on a cold January day in 1847, the eldest son of a Tokugawa retainer. From the time he could walk, he seemed destined for the martial path. At the age of six, he entered the dōjō of his relative, Tsubouchi Chōsai, and began his lifelong pursuit of the sword in the Shingyōtō Ryū [心形刀流劍]. Soon after, he added the study of Kanjin Ryū Jūjutsu [肝心流柔術], and broadened his education with Chinese studies, as was expected of a young samurai.

By his teens, Tadayoshi was already moving among giants. He trained at the shogunate’s Kōbusho academy under such luminaries as Iba Gunbei and Chiba Shūsaku, and at only sixteen received his first license in kenjutsu. At eighteen he was awarded another, a testament to his dedication and skill. The collapse of the shogunate, however, abruptly ended the old order. Like many former retainers, he returned to the countryside to farm.
But the Meiji era soon opened a new role for men of sword and spirit. Tadayoshi entered the police service, where his martial skills found urgent purpose. His courage quickly became legend and he eventually became a high ranking inspector.

One case saw him pitted against a notorious robber-murderer named Mokichi, who roamed the countryside with pistols and swords, disguised as a woman to evade capture. Kumakura secretly investigated and learned that Mokichi was hiding in the house of a gambler boss named Kyūemon in Kannonji Village, Niigata. He reported this to his superior, who gave him the order to arrest. With subordinate Imanari Shinzōemon he set out for Niigata in June Meiji 5 (1872), conferred with the prefectural office, and raided the hideout. When Mokichi and his wife and accomplices resisted with drawn swords, Kumakura responded in kind and arrested Mokichi, his wife, and four others.

While transporting them back by palanquin, Kyūemon’s henchmen plotted an ambush. To avoid it, Kumakura secretly arranged boats to sail from Niigata to Kashiwazaki. But while in Kashiwazaki, the guards were attacked by gamblers who killed Imanari and freed the prisoners. Kumakura immediately pursued them. Tracing them into Nagano, he cornered Mokichi and his wife Soma in the mountains; when they resisted with blades, Kumakura cut Mokichi down, arrested Soma, and later apprehended the remaining gang members.

In another case, a cholera epidemic in Saitama sparked wild rumors among frightened villagers that officials had spread poison and were taking blood from the sick. An angry mob of more than three thousand, armed with bamboo spears, rose up, even seizing two police inspectors. Where others hesitated, Kumakura stepped forward. “If they persist in violence,” he declared, “we must act.” Leading a detachment of police into the village, he confronted the mob directly. When they advanced, Kumakura drew his blade, cut one down, and broke the riot’s momentum. The mob scattered, the inspectors were freed, and order restored. Over 130 were later arrested.

Through such deeds, Kumakura Tadayoshi embodied butoku [武徳]- warrior virtue. Though he rose through the ranks of the police and later served the Dai Nippon Butokukai in Aichi, he never boasted of his feats. When praised, he merely said, “It was the virtue of my martial training.”

By the turn of the century, Kumakura lived quietly in Nagoya, a respected elder, a man who had walked from the old world of Edo’s dōjō into the modern era of police and law, carrying with him the spirit of the sword. His life stood as a reminder that martial arts were not only for contest, but for courage, justice, and the preservation of peace.

Source: 日本武術名家傳, 1902.

Age of the photo is unknown, but it was apparently taken "in his prime".

One of many photos taken for Ishizuka sensei's book by Roberto Chaves, that were never used in the published edition.

Sōke Ishizuka Tetsuji
1948-2025

Photo by Roberto Chaves.

Ishizuka Tetsuji has passed away. His teachings and memories will live on in the countless hearts he has touched over the years.

He was the most senior disciple of Hatsumi Masaaki, and he was the Sōke of Gyokko Ryū, and held menkyo kaiden (full transmission) in the following ryūha:

Kotō Ryū
Shinden Fudō Ryū
Togakure Ryū
Kukishin Ryū
Takagi Yōshin Ryū
Gikan Ryū
Kumogakure Ryū
Gyokushin Ryū

Photo by Roberto Chaves.

Borrowed this one from the great Leo Tamaki. So good.

Gyokko Ryū Kosshijutsu - Ichimonji no Kamae.

In an interview published in 1963, Takamatsu Tosh*tsugu said: "The mindset of the ninja is to have the spirit of never yielding to or being broken down by anything or anyone that one is faced with." This fundamental philosophy, that can be found all throughout human history and is by no means unique to the warriors of medieval Japan, is what we all should strive for - whichever path we are on.

Life is difficult to navigate through, no matter which cards we are dealt by fate. Whether we are rich or poor, we face obstacles. The question is, how do we tackle them? With what mindset do we take the steps between being born and dying?

We cannot change things outside our selves, but we can learn how to control our mind. In today's society however, many people erroneously try to do the opposite - to control the outside and to create a 'safe' environment that doesn't require one to face obstacles. And when this empty strategy fails, it is seemingly acceptable to become upset, sad, or much worse - depressed. Because, after all, it is not your fault is it?

If you don't want to be a victim of circumstances, you need to cultivate the kind of spiritual and mental attitude that Takamatsu sensei mentioned in the article.

One aspect of this is "Fudōshin" [不動心], which means "immovable mind", and is the highest level to strive for. It is a term often heard in the context of Japanese martial arts, both classical and modern, but how can it be applied to one's daily life?

Even though the techniques of classical martial arts are about hurting an opponent, we practice in order to reach a level where we can protect ourselves without having to resort to this kind of violence.

We practice forms of physical altercations, repeat techniques meant to hurt or maim (or kill) an enemy, and we spar to see how we can apply these in an unscripted environment. But, paradoxically, we do so in order to not have to use them in real life – unless pushed to the absolute edge.

There is this saying in the transmission texts, densho, written by Takamatsu sensei: "Win without drawing your sword. But if you do have to draw it, no not cut with it. Just endure patiently, and keep in mind the significance of taking a life."

In the same way that we shape and forge our bodies for potential physical battles, we must prepare our minds for all obstacles that we will encounter in our daily lives.

The mind is programmable and will believe what you tell it with your inner voice. Like any other skill, it takes time to master but every time you practice it will yield results. Tell yourself that you will not be swayed by what happens around you; that you will not be affected by what other people tell you; and that you will not place your feelings in the hands of others.

Tell yourself that you have a spirit that will never yield to or be broken down by anything or anyone. That is the first step to reach the immovable mind. And every time you fail, you get up and keep practicing.

The immovable mind, fudōshin [不動心], is not the sole state of mind to strive for. In the school Takagi Yōshin Ryū, a koryū founded in the 1600s and one of the styles that Takamatsu sensei learned and passed on, there is the concept of yōshin [楊心] - the willow mind. The willow is a tree known for its flexibility, resilience and grace, and here it represents the ability to bend without breaking.

At first glance, it can appear impossible to bring these two mindsets together at the same time. But this is yet another practical example of inyō (yin yang), of two opposites in constant interchangement. And this interplay needs to be cultivated, to know when to stay firm and when to adapt.