is a traditional (ko-ryū) school of the Japanese martial art of jōjutsu, the art of handling the Japanese short staff (jō). The art was created with the purpose of defeating a swordsman in combat using the jō, with an emphasis on proper distance, timing and concentration. Additionally, a variety of other weapons are also taught.
The art was founded by the samurai Musō Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi (夢想 權之助 勝吉, fl. c. 1605, dates of birth and death unknown) in the early Edo period (1603–1868) and, according to legend,Matsui, Kenji. 1993. The History of Shindo Muso Ryu Jojutsu, translated by Hunter Armstrong (Kamuela, HI: International Hoplological Society): Krieger, Pascal – Jodô – la voie du bâton / The way of the stick (bilingual French/English), Geneva (CH) 1989, first put to use in a duel with Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, 1584–1645). The original art created by Musō Gonnosuke has evolved and been added upon ever since its inception and up to modern times. The art was successfully brought outside of its original domain in Fukuoka and outside Japan itself in the 19th and 20th century. The spreading of Shintō Musō-ryū beyond Japan was largely the effort of Takaji Shimizu (Shimizu Takaji, 1896–1978), considered the 25th headmaster. With the assistance of his own students and the cooperation of the kendoTsueno, Nishioka. Nishioka Tsuneo and the Pure Flow of the Jo community, Shimizu spread Shintō Musō-ryū worldwide.
Timeline of the Shintō Musō-ryū
Musō Gonnosuke - Founder
Japan's Warring States period (1467–1615), which had scarred Japan for almost 150 years, came to an end with the establishment of the authoritarian Tokugawa shogunate. This in turn ushered in an era of peace that would last for over 260 years and ended with the overthrow of the shogunate in 1868. The relatively peaceful Edo period took away the means of the samurai to fully develop and test their skills in actual battlefield combat. The role of the samurai would eventually change from being warriors, constantly fighting battles for their liege lord (daimyō), into the role of providing internal security with increasingly more bureaucratic duties. Instead of fighting the frequent wars and battles of the old days, with the exception of the siege of Osaka in 1615 and the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637, many samurai resorted to duelling other samurai with others going on the road as a wandering swordsman to test their skills against other swordsmen such as bandits and rōnin, and some would train in far away schools (ryū) to hone their skill.
One of the men who went on a warrior's pilgrimage (musha shugyō) was Musō Gonnosuke, a samurai with considerable martial arts experience. Gonnosuke used his training in the arts of the sword (kenjutsu), glaive (naginatajutsu), spear (sōjutsu), and staff (bōjutsu), which he acquired from his studies in Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū and Kashima Jikishinkage-ryū, to develop a new way of handling the jō in combat. Gonnosuke was said to have fully mastered the secret form called The Sword of One Cut (Ichi no Tachi), a form that was developed by the founder of the Kashima Shinto-ryū and later spread to other Kashima schools such as Kashima Jikishinkage-ryū and Kashima Shin-ryū.Muromoto, Wayne. Muso Gonnosuke and the Shinto Muso-ryu Jo His experiences, which would climax in his duels with the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, led him to create a set of techniques for the jō and establish a new school which he named Shintō Musō-ryū. The techniques were intended to be used against an opponent armed with either one or two swords. Among the advantages of the jō is its superior length when matched against a sword. The extra length enables the wielder to keep the swordsman at a disadvantage and this is frequently applied in SMR.
The legend states that Musō Gonnosuke fought two duels with Miyamoto Musashi and was defeated in the first but victorious in the second, using his newly developed jōjutsu techniques to either defeat Musashi or force the duel into a draw. The first duel is described in the annals known as Niten Ki, which is a list of anecdotes told about Musashi and compiled by Musashi's followers after his death.: Lowry, Dave The evolution of classical jojutsu, 1987 The Niten Ki describes the first duel to have taken place c. 1610. One of several legends states that after his defeat Gonnosuke withdrew to the Homan-zan mountain in the northern part of Kyūshū, spent his days meditating and training, and underwent austere religious rituals. While resting near a fire in a certain temple, Gonnosuke heard a voice say "Be mindful of the strategy 'the moon reflected in the water' (suigetsu)". The tradition states that was his inspiration to develop his new techniques and to fight Musashi a second time.
After the creation of his jō techniques and his establishment as a skilled jōjutsu practitioner he was invited by the Kuroda clan of northern Kyūshū (in present-day Fukuoka Prefecture) to teach his jōjutsu to their warriors. Gonnosuke accepted the invitation and settled there.
The secret art of the Kuroda clan (1614–1871) After Gonnosuke's death, his jōjutsu would become a closely guarded secret (oteme-waza) of the Kuroda clan, and forbidden to be taught anywhere but within its domain and only to specially selected people within the warrior-class. This was not an unusual practice in the Edo period. For example, in the 17th century, the Kage-ryū school of swordsmanship (battōjutsu) , used swords which were longer than the length legally permitted by the Tokugawa shogunate. Since these longer swords were forbidden by the government, Kage-ryū went "underground" , but was kept active in strict secrecy until the Meiji Restoration hundreds of years later.
The main students of Gonnosuke's art were the men charged with policing the Kuroda clan's domain (Kuroda-han). During this period other schools (ryū) were created and taught in the Kuroda-han and in the various branches of the Shintō Musō-ryū system. During this period, two newly created schools which included the art of the police baton (jūtte), (among other weapons) and the art of restraining a man with rope (hojōjutsu), were taught within the branches of the Shintō Musō-ryū as a complement to the arresting (torite)-arts.
After Gonnosukes death the art was mainly transmitted by the "Dangyō-shiyaku" (men's arts instructor), though not all branches of the Kuroda staff-traditions used the title of Dangyō-shiyaku. The Dangyō-instructor position was, unlike the swordsmanship instructor (kagyō) a non-hereditary position within the hierarchy of the Samurai. The Dangyō-instructor in the Kuroda-domain was the charged with teaching the lower ranking warriors (ashigaru) in the arts of the staff (jō), capturing/seizing/escaping (torite), gunnery (hōjutsu) and rope (nawa) among other arts. The position of Dangyō-instructor lasted until the abolishment of the Samurai and the feudal system in the 1860s-1870s.
Over time there would arise seven different lineages from the main Shintō Musō-ryū system. These are collectively known as "The Staff of Kuroda" (Kuroda no jō). Of these seven branches of Gonnosuke's jōjutsu, only two would survive the ending of Japan's feudal system in 1867 and the resulting socio-economic modernization, to be informally merged into a single line that is today the modern .
The first split in the SMR occurred after the death of the fourth headmaster Higuchi Han'emon. The split was the result of one of his licensed (menkyo kaiden) students, Harada Heizo Nobusada, breaking away to establish the (later informally known as Kansai-ryū), while another licensed student of Higuchi Han'emon continued the original "True Path" line (later known as Moriki-ryū).
For several years Gonnosukes art was passed on by these two lines. The "New Just" line continued until after the death of its headmaster Nagatomi Koshiro Hisatomo in 1772. Afterwards, the "New Just" line branched off into two separate traditions. The primary reason for this branching, though indirectly, was the result of a restructuring of the living and training quarters of the warriors at the Chikuzen castle. The low-ranking foot soldiers (ashigaru) and the junior officers (kashi) were relocated to two separate areas of Fukuoka, partially due to the difference in the social status of the two groups. Each group would create new centres of training in their respective areas. This led to the establishment of two new branches from the "New Just"-line of Jōjutsu, each under their own respective head instructor. These new lines were named haruyoshi, led by Ono Kyusaku, and the other jigyo, led by Komori Seibei, respectively. The two branches were named after the two respective areas of the castle in which they trained.
These new branches, jigyo and haruyoshi, were a reality by the early 19th century, but even though separate, all three lines appear to have been very similar in terms of techniques. This was demonstrated when the jigyo Branch was broken with the death of its head instructor Fujimoto Heikichi in 1815. Because of this, the jigyo found itself without a fully licensed headmaster, and without a successor from within its own organisation the line would have died out. However, Hatae Kyuhei, who held a full license in the haruyoshi branch, would eventually revive the jigyo branch and allow it to continue into the Meiji period (1868–1912).
Meanwhile, the "True Path" had also fallen onto hard times as the tradition was broken with the death of Inoue Ryosuke in 1831. The similarities between the various "Staff of Kuroda"-traditions were again made clear when Hatae Kyuhei (who was an exponent of the haruyoshi-branch and had also helped revive the jigyo branch of the "New Just line") revived the "True Path". The "True Path" would, however, become extinct in the Bakumatsu era (1850–1867). It was not until 1871 that the ban on teaching outside the Kuroda clan was lifted.
Shiraishi Hanjiro and the Post-Kuroda-period (1871–1927)
With the abolishment of the shogunate in 1868 and easing of bureaucratic restrictions, Shintō Musō-ryū (and all the other martial arts of the land) was allowed to be taught outside the traditional family lands. Despite this new-found freedom, however, it meant that the numerous economical benefits and patronage, which was a part of the traditional clan system, were abolished along with it. Because of this the numerous menkyo holders of SMR who had depended on the old system for financial support had no choice but to adapt themselves to this new Japan. Many of them left the traditional clan holdings, where their ancestors had lived for centuries, and made new lives and livelihoods for themselves. The final abolishment of the warrior-caste and the feudal-system also led to a rapid modernisation of Japan. During this era many of the old bushi (Samurai warriors of all ranks) had no choice but to abandon the old (and considered by most of the Japanese population of the time to be all but obsolete) martial arts altogether. Throughout Japan most of the surviving traditions were kept alive, if only barely, by the former samurai and other enthusiastic individuals, the former which now had to find a new place (and a new source of income) in the new Japan which frowned upon the old samurai way. Some of the old ryū, who were not as dependent on old samurai government sponsorship as others, fared better than others in the transition from samurai to the Western-style government.