The Interview with the head of "Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu" Tokyo-school:which is one of the traditional swordsmanship in Japan

This article is about my participation in the training of Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu which is one of the traditional martial arts in Japan. The previous article is this:

This time, I post the interview with the head of the Tokyo school after the training.

1:Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Kohei Shiozawa, the head of NPO-Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu-Kenshokai(NPO法人薬丸自顕流顕彰会) Tokyo school.

I have trained Jigen-Ryu swordsmanship for 13 years.

Three years ago, I was appointed to the presidency of the Tokyo school from Yasuo Yakumaru, who is the 14th generation inheritor of Yakumaru-Jigen-ryu.

I have 30 trainees in the Tokyo school now.

The Tokyo school was established by the grand master Hiroharu Wada, who had been entrusted with full authority by Yakumaru family 15 years ago.

The grand master Wada passed 3 years ago, when I took over the presidency of the Tokyo school.

The training of the Tokyo school is held for 90 minutes on the outside fields every Sunday.

We also hold a real swordsmanship performance in public events several times a year.

2:Can you tell us about the history of Jigen-Ryu?

※Image from WikipwdiaCommons

Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu was born in Satsuma Domain (present-day Kagoshima ) which is in the southernmost part of Kyushu.

Ever since then, the tradition has been inherited through the "Yakumaru family".

Satsuma was known for its "Spartan" tradition.

The Satsuma samurais were called "Hayato", who were known as the bravest fighters in Japan and were feared by everybody.

Martial arts were regarded as their most important skill.

Hence there were many schools of martial arts in Satsuma.

The oldest school of the Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu dates back to the Heian period(794-1192).

It was chosen as the official martial arts of Satsuma by the feudal lord of Satsuma Domain in the latter half of the Edo period.

After that, the trainees of the school often appeared in important incidents in the history of Japan.

The Meiji Restoration, which was the modern revolution in the history of Japan, was led by some leaders from the JIgen-Ryu school.

So even now, in Kagoshima, we often say that "the modern revolution of Japan was led by the spirit of JIgen-Ryu.

3:What’s the difference between Jigen-ryu and other schools of samurai swordsmanship?

It's often said that there are over 200 swordsmanship schools in Japan.

The characteristic of Jigen-Ryu among them is its pragmatism.

We have the following features: 

1:We don't have any defense methods.

2:The priority of our skills is "killing the enemy with one attack".

3: The training is based on the assumption that one is surrounded by some enemies in a battle field.

We don't have any complex forms, since we regard the repetition practice of basic forms is the most efficient way to make our body and soul adjusted to real battles.

We have a word:"薩摩の鞘折れ"(Satsuma's samurai breaks his sheath once he draws the sword).

It means that once a Satsuma's samurai draws his sword, he fights until he dies.

Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu is based on such pragmatic warriors' thoughts.

4:I heard that there was a unique education system called "Goju-Kyoiku" in Satsuma. Can you tell us about the system?

Image:One of the famous heroes of the Meiji Restoration, Takamori Saigo(from WikiCommons)

GoJu-Kyoiku(郷中教育) was a unique education system that was held by the samurai class in Satsuma Domain.

The characteristic of the system was "An education without teachers".

"GoJu" is a name of a district of a town.

Children who lived in the same district composed a group as an independent society.

In the group, the elder teenagers (over 15 years old) were responsible to lead and teach their juniors (from 6 years old to 14 years old).

Children always helped each other, and spent time together all day long.

The subjects of GoJu-Kyoiku were as follows:

1: Reading

2: Martial arts training

3: Trekking

4: Debate

GoJu-Kyoiku should have been quite a strict education for little children.

However, this system left "Bands as brothers" with such children.

Throughout the Meiji Rstoration, the famous heroes from Satsuma Domain, such as Takamori Saigo and Toshimichi Okubo, were always supported by such a strong bands.

You might know that the samurai people in the Edo era were always carrying swords in their belts.

Therefore, how to use the swords was regarded as the most important subject in GoJu-kyoiku, for which they always trained their skills enthusiastically.

Especially, Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu was regarded as the symbolic style of Satsuma's swordsmanship, so every family had their own training tools and they trained themselves every day.

5:Like everywhere in the world also in Japan bullying is a problem. Do you think martial arts like Jigen-Ryu can solve such social problems in today's world?

Image:One of the famous heroes of the Meiji Restoration, Toshimichi Okubo(from WikiCommons)

Some of the traditional martial arts are introduced into the curriculum of today's schools in Japan.

For example, Kendo and Judo are introduced as compulsory subjects in some junior high schools.

Unfortunately, bullying at school has become a serious problem in Japan.

People learn manners and respect for others through practicing the traditional martial arts.

I hope that today's children in Japan will be able to learn such traditional manners through the traditional martial arts curriculum.

6:What is the today’s practicing requires?

The today's practicing of Jigen-Ryu is absolutely the same style of its ancient style. I believe that the practicing methods which our ancestors developed for a long time are most rational and efficient even today. In other words, if we change the practicing methods, we would lost many important spirits in this tradition and Jigen-Ryu would become a something different. 

Of course, there is the great difference between today and old days. During the Edo period, daily practice is one of the duty of Satsuma's samurais. 

Today, we lead the modern life, so we cannot have time for practicing everyday. We can gather for 90-minutes training only once or twice a week.

Hence I'm sorry that the time we can share to the training are less than old days.

7:Can an women attend?

Our school is also open to female trainees.

Actually, we have some women trainees in Tokyo School, even though the number is few.

For example, the youngest trainee of us is a 6-year-old girl!

Furthermore, we have a couple who got married.

Now, their kids have also joined in our training.

I think that women's participation is one of the most important factors to have this martial arts survive the modern times.

8:Is there a ranking system in Jigen-Ryu?

The original Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu don't have any ranking system.

As I mentioned before, the Jigen-Ryu has been quite pragmatic martial arts. So in the ancient days, masters said to their trainees that "when you join the real war and kill the enemy, it will be the time of your graduation."

According to such traditions, the important thing of the Jigen-Ryu style is "just concentrate your daily repetition practice for many years until you find something special by yourself. It was said that mastering the Jigen-Ryu style required 20-years daily practic.

However, today, we set a rank-system to keep our trainees' motivations.

We give the title called "Kai-Den" to the trainees who have completed the 10 years training.

In any way, the original style of Satsuma's way is "Do not need any teachers, everything what we do is on the mutual aid". 

9:This is a non-profit organization I presume. How can people support this art?

The Yakumaru-Jigen-Ryu-Kenshokai(薬丸自顕流顕彰会) have two schools, one is in Kagoshima, and the other is our Tokyo school.

The operating expense of our activity is partly from the revenue of performances at some events or lectures.

However, in fact, the base of our activity is on the trainees' volunteerism.

According to our policy, we don't beg any contributions to someone or some institutions. In spite of our such policy, sometimes, someone send us not money but items for training, wooden-swords, clothes, and so on. 

We willingly receive such gifts. I think that it's quite thankful thing to encourage us because ones who send such things might think money is not important thing for prevent such tradition.

10:Where people can watch your performances? Are you attending any events or festivals? Do you have a youtube channel?

We have following web-site and Facebook.

https://www.yakumarujigenryu.com/

https://www.facebook.com/yakumarujigenryu/

We also have this movie which made for Google's "Vice Japan Project".

If foreign people want to see our training, feel free to contact us. 

Our mail-address are on Web-site and Facebook.

I'm sorry that almost our performance are closed for ordinary people. However, we sometimes participate in an event in public places. If we have such a schedule, we announce the information on the web-site and Facebook.

Finally, we always hope to see many people who are interested in our activity and  tradition. Come to see us at an opportunity in events!

Thank you for reading!