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Katori Shinto Ryu: Yesterday and Today

By Brett Denison, Mizukan Dojo

Even though modern martial arts such as Judo or Aikido are gradually becoming part of our culture, very little of their background is commonly known. As these martial arts recall their origins in feudal Japan, they mostly derivate from classic Japanese swordsmanship as practiced by Samurai warriors.

All martial arts lovers may have the possibility of understanding the how’s and what’s of the martial training in their own styles when they approach the refined sword techniques of Katori Shinto Ryu.

Katori Shinto Ryu has been awarded special recognition of "national cultural treasure" by the Japanese government being the only sword-fighting style in the world to have being preserved for over 600 years and practiced without interruption since.

The founder of Katori Shinto Ryu Iizasa Choisai Ienao was born in Chiba Prefecture in 1387. He was a famous warrior and had outstanding sword and spear fighting skills. Ienao was involved in several duels and survived many days on the battlefield without being ever defeated. Later in his life he retired in a shrine and underwent a 1000 days and nights period of austere purification rituals combined with a harsh regime of martial training. Following this experience Ienao founded his own tradition, the Katori Shinto Ryu.

Katori Shinto Ryu is a complete way of the warrior, which differentiates from modern martial, as we know, where the training focuses on a sole area of interest. In Katori Shinto Ryu study is made of a broad range of martial skills with the curriculum containing the following:

Traditionally the student was also instructed in such arts such as Ju-jutsu (Grappling), Shuriken-jutsu (Projectile throwing) and also Field fortification, Tactics, Astronomy and Chinese Philosophy.

The philosophy behind training in Katori Shinto Ryu was based on the fact that it wasn't unusual for battles to last for days. To keep the opponents at a convenient distance, the warrior would start fighting with his spear. When the spear broke he would turn its shaft into a staff. Eventually the staff would wear out, leading the warrior to draw his sword and fight at a closer distance. When the sword became of no use as well, he would have to utilize Ju-jutsu to defeat the enemies. It is self-evident how well refined warriors had to be trained to fight handling all weapons against every sort of weapons.

Traditionally, every pupil that entered Katori Shinto Ryu had to make the following blood oath (keppan):

  1. When I become a member of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, which has been handed down by the Great Deity of the Katori Shrine, I therewith affirm my pledge of absolute secrecy about matters of this Ryu.
  2. I will not have the impertinence to discuss or demonstrate my martial technique to non-members.
  3. I will never engage in any kind of gambling nor frequent disreputable places.
  4. I will not cross swords with any followers of other martial traditions without a certificate of full proficiency in my art.
    Katori Shinto Ryu philosophy is best exemplified by the following teaching of the founder:

The arts of war are the arts of peace and all that claim to be men must learn the arts of peace.

To defeat enemies through combat is the last possible resort and it doesn't gain true victory. True victory is achieved without resorting to violence. Nowadays training in Katori Shinto Ryu must be faced as form of education and self-improvement. The real enemy to fight, the most dangerous one, is hidden within ourselves.

The Katori God's Way
The oldest recorded style of swordsmanship is Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu Heiho which translated means "heavenly truth, correct tradition, Katori god's way style warrior's law". If we extrapolate, we can determine that the style was created sometime in the middle of the 15th century (around 1460).

History
According to the recorded history of the style, the founder was a warrior named Iizasa Ienao (changed later to Choisai Ienao) who in his youth had a liking for spear and sword arts and studied earnestly. Born into a samurai family, he went to fight many times on the battlefield. According to one account, later as lord, he went against the shogun and due to this state of affairs; six whole villages and their inhabitants in his domain were destroyed in the ensuing battle. Due to his grief and remorse, he went up to the Katori Shrine and prayed for enlightenment. This was when he was 64. He locked himself inside for 1000 days and nights. Everyday, he prayed to the gods, he practiced and polished, he read religious works. According to legend, one night, a “great god” who said visited him to him: "you will be a teacher of every sword" and gave him the secret of the warrior's law.

In 1387, the founder of the Katori Shinto Ryu, Ienaoko, was born in the village of Iizasa. It is told that at an early age he was already a master of the sword and the spear (yari). As a samoerai (knight) of the daimyo (lord) of Chiba he took part in several battles. The ruling house of Chiba fell from power after a conflict with the Shogun. In this conflict the fortified homestead of the Iizasa-family was levelled with the ground, together with a number of villages in the family domain.

Sad and masterless, Ienaoko travelled to the Katori-shrine, hoping to attain satori (enlightenment) by a combination of prayer, meditation and rigorous training. At this time, he was 64 years of age. He went to live in a plain home at the gate of the Katori-shrine, near his present grave. He rose every morning before dawn, in summer and winter, and practised with sword, naginata (halbard) and yari untill late in the evening. Before he returned to his home he took for purification an icecold bath.After that he recited for an hour his prayers at the Katori-shrine. Coming home he studied, physical exhaustion notwithstanding, till late at night religious and philosophical scriptures. He lead this life for one thousand days.

Then one night there appeared to him in a dream the god to whom the Katori-shrine was dedicated: Futsunoshi no Mikoto. The god had taken the form of a young man and was sitting on a branch of an old tree near the place where Ienaoko performed his daily exercises. The vision beckoned Ienaoko to come near him and presented him with a scroll, the Mokuroku Heiho Shinsho, uttering the words: ‘Choisai, thou shall be the tutor of all the great swordfighters under the sun!’ After this utterance the young man jumped out of the trea and disappeared. As Ienaoko woke up he had the sroll clasped to his breast. The Mokuroku contained the divine descriptions of martial techniques and strategy. Following this revelation Ienaoko changed his name in ‘Choisai’ and founded his school of sword fighting. He named it Katori, after the Katori-shrine. To honor Futsunoshi no Mikoto he added the words Tenshin shoden (transmitted by the Gods). He added further the word Shinto: immaculate (pure) sword.

The present headmaster of the Katori Ryu has in his possession a large number of manuscripts, mostly written by Choisai, that show how he studied and elaborated in an exhaustive way the techniques given to him. When the Gods let him pass away, in the second year of Sho-Kyo (1488), at the fifteenth day of the fifth month, Choisai had reached the high age of one hundred and one year. Starting with Choisai’s eldest son, Wakasaka no Kami Morichika, his descendants continued for generation after generation the school. After the foundation of the school by Choisai it became tradition that it only served the emperor, or the country in situations in which it was in danger. Each person who wanted to practice the martial arts in a serious and devoted manner could be admitted to the school. In the registers in the archives of the Katori Shinto Ryu are the names of famous sword fighters in Japanese history, such as Nobut-suna, the founder of the Kage Ryu, the renowned Tsukuhara Bokuden, founder of the Kashima Shinto Ryu, the famous generals Oda Nobuna-ga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Takenaka Hanbei Shigeharu and many others. Even the legendary Miyamoto Musashi visited the Katori-shrine in his quest for enlightenment. Till the present day there is held every year at the fourteenth of April a memorial service in the Katori-shrine. This service inclu-des a gohei: a Shinto-ritual in which the Gods are invoked with a holy staff, embellished with strips of paper folded in a complex way. Every twelfth year, the Year of the Horse, a great feast is held for two days, the Jinko-Sai. In the 35th year of Showa (1960) the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu was declared to be an ‘intact (i.e., authentic) national cultural treasure of Japan’, as the first and only one of the martial disciplines.

Major Figures
There have been many excellent swordsmen produced by this school throughout its illustrious history but two major figures stand out.

Tsukuhara Bokuden was perhaps the most famous product of this school. He has been hailed as the greatest swordsman in Japanese history and as folklore goes, the one that is born only once every 500 years. He has been documented as participating in 37 battles (his specialty was singling out enemy commanders and slaying them) and more than 100 duels. He eventually created his own style, Kashima Shinto Ryu.

Kamiizumi Nobutsuna was another legendary pupil of this school. He was an excellent soldier and leader of the famed "16 Spears of Nagano". He gave up military life to research and form his own style of swordsmanship, which he named, Shinkage Ryu. He is best known as the progenitor of the Yagyu school.

Significance
Originally, Katori Shinto Ryu was created from the standpoint of fighting on the battlefield. The weapons used, techniques and philosophy of the style reflect this orientation. It is a battlefield art, created at a time when the country was embroiled in civil war. Weapons studied include: sword, spear, staff, halberd, and shuriken among others. There is an unarmed aspect to the art as well as a ninjutsu (espionage) section and there are also even more purely military studies such as encampment and field fortification strategies. The overall philosophy seems to revolve around the concept of producing well-rounded and balanced soldiers, proficient in a variety of battlefield weapons. In this sense, Katori Shinto Ryu is a military art.

This style is also heavily influenced by Buddhist concepts and thought. It is the most religious of the major styles. It is a well-balanced style due to the study of a diversity of weapons and the tactics involved with each different weapon. The major technical philosophy of the style is that to know and be able to use the sword well, one must also understand the use of other related weapons.

This school has produced many exceptional swordsmen. Swordmasters such as Tsukuhara Bokuden and Kamiizumi Nobutsuna went on to create their own styles. But these styles have part of their roots in the concepts taught in this school. So, in this way, Katori Shinto Ryu came to influence many of the major styles, which were developed later.

(Please, visit the website of Denison sensei on http://www.mizukan.org/)