Evolution and Overview of the Katana

 Below is a video on the evolution of the katana. Enjoy.

 

 

Gene LaBell and Donn Draeger

Over at Ellis Amdur's wonderful Kogen Budo blog, there was a guest post by author Mark Jabobs on the relationship between the legendary martial artists Gene LaBell and Donn Draeger. Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here. Ellis Amdur's many books may be ordered here.

Some time ago, Ellis Amdur asked me if I’d be interested in contributing a guest post for the site. Knowing of my friendship with the renowned grappling expert, “Judo” Gene LeBell, and aware of Gene’s past relationship with the famed budoka, Donn Draeger, Ellis thought I might be able to offer some of Gene’s recollections to provide a different-than-usual take on Draeger, and the martial arts of a bygone era.

While Gene’s memory for details has faded a bit with time, I’ve had a number of extensive conversations with him in the past for various magazine articles, not to mention an aborted collaboration on his first attempt at an autobiography years ago. So I’m probably as qualified as anyone to share his impressions on these matters.

As far as Draeger goes, Gene always spoke very highly of him. “A great judo man” and “the best with weapons” was how he described Draeger to me on one occasion, opinions which probably won’t surprise anyone familiar with Draeger’s career in the martial arts. A generation older than Gene, Draeger came out of that pre-war school of judo which the early Japanese instructors in the West employed. My sense of that type of judo, both from talking to Gene and my own research, is that it was a somewhat more combative style, one laced with a bit more groundwork than would come to be the norm in the postwar years. That’s the style Gene appreciated, and I think he respected that “hardcore” approach in Draeger’s style.

The admiration was apparently a two-way street as Draeger expressed his respect for LeBell’s skills in letters to his longtime collaborator, Robert W. Smith. On one occasion, when Gene was scheduled to come into Tokyo to referee the infamous boxer vs. wrestler match-up between Muhammad Ali and Antonio Inoki, Draeger wrote to Smith that, while he thought the bout itself would be a farce, he was looking forward to getting a chance to visit with LeBell.

Draeger went so far as to offer the opinion that the best man in the ring that night would be Gene, who could take either of the two headliners in a fight. As an interesting aside, one of Inoki’s cornermen for the match was legendary catch wrestler, Karl Gotch, known in Japanese pro wrestling circles as Kamirasu, “the god of wrestling.” Years earlier, Gotch had been one of Gene’s main grappling coaches and, while Draeger thought Gene could take either Ali or Inoki in a fight, Gene once commented to me that what no one watching the match realized was Inoki’s cornerman, Gotch, could have taken both men at the same time!

 

Ki Ken Tai Ichi in Budo

Over at The Budo Bum, was a very good article on a key concept in Budo training: Ki Ken Tai Ichi.

Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here.

気剣体一致

Ki ken tai ichi. A student recently asked me about the relationship of ki ken tai ichi to seitei iai and jo. It’s a fundamental concept in Japanese budo but it’s not difficult to be confused by it. It breaks down as:

• Ki 気: Yes, that ki. The one that folks argue about endlessly. In this case it is will, intent and energy.

• Ken 剣: This ken is read tsurugi when it stands alone. It’s the same ken found in “kendo”, and it traditionally refers to a straight, double-edged sword common in Japan from about 450 to 950 c.e. that was superseded by the curved tachi. In this usage it represents any weapon you might use. 

• Tai 体: This character is read karada when it stands alone, and it means body.

• Ichi 一致: Ichi is the difficult bit in this little 5 character phrase. It means “to agree, to conform, to be congruent, to be in concert, to be united, to cooperate, to be in accord”.

Intent, sword and body as one. Ki ken tai ichi.

Will, sword and body in accord. Ki ken tai ichi.

Intent, sword and body in agreement. Ki ken tai ichi.

Because the English and Japanese words only overlap as very poor Venn diagrams, there are  numerous translations. None of them are 100% right, but each captures some of the spirit of the Japanese. There is no fragmentation;here can be no divisions. Your kokoro (heart/mind), your body and your weapon must be combined into a single unit. 

When you move, do you do it with hesitation or doubt? Is the sword a tool in your hand, or is it an extension of your body? Can you feel what is going on in your partner’s body when you cross swords? Does your body move as a coordinated whole? Does your will and intent express itself instantly in your body and the sword?

My student is quite familiar with ki ken tai ichi from his deep experience with koryu. However the Kendo Federation has ki ken tai ichi broken down almost to a science. There are particular markers to look for when someone does seitei iai or jo that indicate whether or not the will, the body and the sword are in accord. 

Does the whole unit reach the conclusion of the movement together without any separation? This is the central clue. Teaching this concept to students starts with the mechanics of how to swing the sword. From there teachers have to backward engineer the timing from the point where mind, body and sword all arrive at the completion of the movement together and become as one.

Moving backwards, the student has to consider that the hands are faster than the body, but for a sword cut the hands and sword have further to travel than the body. If the body and the hands begin their movement together, the body will finish its movement and come to rest followed by the sword. If the body and the sword are united, the full power of the body will be transmitted through the sword. If they are not united then the sword has only the power of the hands when it makes contact. For the full power of the body to be transmitted through the sword, the sword tip has to begin moving first and the body begins moving next so they will complete their action together, united in power and timing. 

Breaking down the timing of a sword cut into fine segments makes it a little easier to explain and teach the outer aspects of ki ken tai ichi. A little. Students can start work on training their hands and body to move in accordance with the timing of the sword to transmit the maximum power through the blade. However, just because a student has mastered the timing of their movements doesn’t mean they’ve achieved ki ken tai ichi. This is much harder than simply copying the timing.

 

Shadow Boxing for Fitness

Over at the Art of Manliness was an article on how to shadow box for fitness. Below is an excerpt. The whole post may be read here.

Shadow boxing is a fundamental boxing skill. It provides an opportunity for boxers to fine-tune their technique and mentally prepare for a workout or fight.

For non-boxers, shadow boxing can be an excellent warm-up for a workout or even a workout in and of itself — you’ll be amazed at how quickly it revs up your heart rate. This low-impact cardio can be done pretty much anywhere —the gym, your garage, a hotel room. You can even shadow box in the dark after you’ve rambled in the park. (Only real ones know that reference).

To get the lowdown on how to shadow box like a champ, I talked to boxing coach Aaron Sloan, owner of The Engine Room — a boxing gym here in Tulsa, OK.

How to Shadow Box

To get set for a shadow boxing session, get in a proper boxing stance, with your hands up. You don’t need to wear gloves, but you may want your hands wrapped if you’re going to be moving right from a shadow-boxing warm-up to doing something like hitting the speed bag.

Stay focused.

The biggest mistake Aaron sees boxers make with their shadow-boxing work is that they just go through the motions. “Shadow boxing is an important part of your development as a fighter,” Aaron told me. “It’s the only time you get to really practice your technique perfectly. The boxers who just go through the motions are missing out on becoming a better fighter.”

So the first tip for effective shadow boxing is to stay mentally focused during your entire session.

Only use a mirror if you’re a beginner working on technique.

Despite its name, when you’re shadow boxing, you’re not really going to be sparring with a shadow on a wall. Aaron doesn’t like to use mirrors for shadow-boxing work either. He wants his boxers to feel a correct punch being thrown, not just see it. With that said, he’ll sometimes have his beginning boxers stand in front of a mirror while shadow boxing to help them fine-tune their technique.

Vividly visualize a boxer in front of you.

Even when you’re not using a mirror, you should be sparring with an opponent in your mind. Visualize him: How far is he from you? Where is his body relative to you? At what height is his head? “I have my fighters imagine a boxer in front of them in the middle of the ring, but it has to be vivid. It requires mental focus,” Aaron says. “To make sure my fighters have a vivid imaginary boxer in front of them, I’ll ask them, ‘What color are his shorts?’ If they can’t answer right away, it means they’re not focused on the practice, and they need to get their head back in the game.”

Don’t throw full punches.

You don’t want to throw full punches while you’re shadow boxing. “You’ll just give yourself tennis elbow,” Aaron says. Go hard, but don’t extend your arm all the way when throwing straight punches.

 

 

Heavy Bags and Taijiquan

Below is an excerpt from an article that was posted at Thoughts on Tai Chi. It has to do with practicing actually striking things as part of one's taijiquan practice. Whether you agree or not, it is a thought provoking topic. The full post may be read here.

There are many different opinions about hitting objects in Tai Chi Chuan, and especially about punching heavy bags. Some people absolutely do not believe in them and say that punching a bag goes against Tai Chi principles. Others say that if you are not allowed to punch a bag, how would you be able to punch an opponent? So what should we think about all of the contradicting views?

Why would punching a bag be wrong?

The most common objection is probably that you should not use external strength when you punch, and this is perfectly true, in the sense of that you should not use the type of power, that is common in most so called “external styles”, a type of strength that relies on tensing up the limbs and the body. People who have this kind of objection have never been introduced to the type of strikes we actually use in Tai Chi. And some people don’t even believe that strikes and punching exist in Tai Chi.

Another thing that I have heard Tai Chi stylists speak about, is the common idea that you never attack in Tai Chi. Many believe that you should never initiate an attack and only respond to what the opponent does. Some of those people don’t believe in punching at all as a separate practice, and believe that the mind-set of punching itself is a contradiction to tai chi principles.

Even if they recognise punching as a part of Tai Chi, they mean that a response as a palm strike or punch should happen naturally, and use borrowing energy from the opponent. As an example, imagine if someone punches or pushes at your shoulder. Then the movement of evading or following the opponent’s attack on one side of the body should be enough to power up a punch using the other side of the body. This would work as wind and rewind, or storing energy and releasing it. But you use the opponent’s attack to store and release your own movement – or specifically in this case – a punch.

I can easily dismiss some part of this problem of mind-set by reminding you of what I said in the earlier post about punching without the mind-set of punching. But even if we leave this aside, we still have a problem. That is: you won’t understand how your body reacts when it meets another body until you meet a real punch. Will you be able to respond in such a way, that you can keep your body aligned, and support a fist upon contact? First, in order to gain confidence of your evasion skills, you would need to practice some sparring against people who actually know how to punch, right?

But to return to the original question about punching “dead stuff”, as hitting a punching bag, there’s a whole other issue: If you haven’t practiced punching at some kind of surface, how will you know what it means to meet a target with your fist? Will you understand how to use it to penetrate the target and do enough damage? Or will your fist just bounce off? You always need to do something to know it. To learn something, you need to gain practical experience. “Thinking” that you can punch something is not enough, you need to experience it with your own body in order to know. This is the plain truth.

A realistic and scientific approach

So, regardless type of punch you want to use, or if using any kind of offensive technique, you really need methods to first measure and evaluate what you do, to really know that you can actually do something. When you practice other types of techniques as pushing, throws, takedowns, qinna etc, those techniques and methods are all very easy to practice against a partner. You can throw each other around, and practicing joint-locks without hurting each other.

But this kind of realistic training is much harder with striking as you can’t really do a realistic punch against an unprotected partner. Strikes and punches are meant to break and damage things, right? So if you don’t have any way to measure what happens when your palm or fist meets a target, then how do you know that you could hurt a real opponent? How do you know if you have a method to actually finish someone off?

Yes, on the other hand, I get what some people are saying; that in Tai Chi, you should achieve so much control that you would never need to really hurt someone. Generally, I would agree with this assessment. This is very much the real strength of Tai Chi as a combat method. The control you gain with Tai Chi practice means that you can often find ways to use your methods in fighting so that you don’t really need to hurt someone very much at all. (In fact, I truly believe that the focus on a high level of control in Tai Chi Chuan might be a heritage from the Buddhism idea to never hurt and never kill.) And of course, if you can avoid lawsuits, going to jail or pay fines, by not hurting your opponent, this is obviously the wisest thing to strive for.

But, FFS, this is still a martial art we are practicing! The point of training “how to fight” is not about being able to count how many arms or noses we have broken, but about knowing that we have what we need in every kind of situation. Our practice should lead us to build confidence in what we do. And if we want to have real confidence, we need to know that we have things in our toolbox that actually work. And if we want to know that they work, well, then we really need methods to measure and evaluate what we do.

This is exactly the advantage with practice on heavy bags and similar. We can use them in our training to measure and evaluate what we do. If we know that we can use a strong punch, when it is needed, we can gain confidence by this knowledge, by knowing that we have a finishing strategy that works when it counts. Hopefully we will never need to use this capability against a person, but we can face someone with much greater confidence if we know that our tools really work.

Karate Foot Sweeps

A friend of mine got jumped in the men's room of a bar years ago. He was studying karate at the time. He foot swept the attacker and walked away.

 

The Progression of Fu Style Internal Martial Arts

Below is an excerpt from a post that appeared at Slanted Flying, which describes the evolution and development of Fu Style Internal Martial Arts. The full article may be read here.

The Progressive Forms of Fu Style Tai Chi – Grasp Bird’s Tail
By Tommy Kirchhoff
Translation by Gordon Yung

Most experts believe there are only five major styles of Tai Chi Chuan, which are derived from five families: Chen (陳), Yang (楊), Sun (孫), Wu (吳) and Wu/Hao (武/郝). These critics proudly purport that all the rest are just lesser sub-sets of the big five.

It is much less known but still a fact that around 1928 the Chinese Central Government named Fu Zhen Song (傅振嵩) as the chief instructor of BaGuaZhang (八卦掌) for the entire nation of China. Fu originally learned Chen Style (陳式) Tai Chi from Chen YenShi (陳延熙), the lineage holder of that epoch and the father of Chen FaKe (陳發科); Fu learned BaGuaZhang from most of the inside students of Dong HaiChuan (董海川). Fu traveled the country and exchanged martial information with many of the best practitioners, and eventually became very close friends with both Yang ChengFu (楊澄甫) and Sun LuTang (孫祿堂).

Fu Zhen Song and Sun LuTang were both grandmasters of the Wudang Fists (武當拳): Tai Chi, BaGuaZhang, Hsing-I Chuan (形意拳), and Wudang Sword (武當劍). Both were great innovators of these arts, as well as superb teachers. Fu and Sun each combined elements from BaGua and Hsing-I into their respective Tai Chi styles, and they enjoyed collaborating ideas, techniques and methodologies with one another. Even now in 2019 many Sun Style (孫式) practitioners teach Fu Style (傅式), and vice-versa.

It is said that the name “internal martial arts” has several meanings, but Neijia (internal arts, 內家) comes first from inside families. Fu ZhenSong’s martial heir was his first-born son, Fu WingFay (傅永輝). Although Fu ZhenSong was one of the greatest innovators of the Wudang arts, his son Fu WingFay grew up learning from many of the greatest grandmasters in addition to studying under his father for 40 years. Fu WingFay was also an innovator and a great teacher. Fu ZhenSong did not appreciate many of the changes Fu WingFay made to the Fu Style Wudang Fist system; but Fu WingFay earned the inheritance of the Fu Style system, so it became his to modify.

Fu WingFay’s first major change to the system was developing “Waist Skills.” He integrated bending forward, backward and sideways to step, move, slip and to control one’s self and his or her opponent. He also made the system much softer by eliminating iron body training, and also by developing a recoiling fajin (power emission, fājìn, 發勁). He worked for many years to develop a system of teaching with clear levels for beginner, intermediate and advanced study. He changed some of the postures so they made more sense for applications, and smoothed out many details and fine skills. He also omitted some of the old forms, such as the myriad of Fu Style BaGua spear forms.

To get an idea of the excellence of Fu WingFay’s tutelage look no further than his student Grandmaster Bow Sim Mark (麥寶嬋) and her illustriously famous movie-star son, Donnie Yen (甄子丹).

 

The Origins of Budo

Below is an excerpt from an interview with martial arts historian Guillaume Erard regarding the origins of Budo, which appeared at the Aikido Journal. The full interview may be read here.

 ...

Guillaume Erard (born April 13, 1981) is a French biologist and budo instructor living and working in Tokyo, Japan. He began practicing judo at the age of six, then started aikido at fifteen in the group of André Nocquet, who was the first non-Japanese uchideshi [live-in student] of O-Sensei. He has attained the rank of 5th dan in aikido at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo and 3rd dan in Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu. He is a well-known historian and researcher of budo and served as the Director of Information for the International Aikido Federation from 2015-2018. He travels frequently to teach, research, and practice all over the world, and he has been featured on television, in various podcasts, and in online/print stories about martial arts. He also publishes informational videos about aikido on YouTube. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Aikido Journal (Josh Gold): Let’s talk a little bit about the idea of budo in Japanese culture. This is a topic where Westerners sometimes have a slightly different view than you’ll find in Japan; since you’re a Westerner living in Japan who is a budo practitioner and researcher, I think you can help us find perspective on it.

Guillaume Erard: Budo is a term that everybody knows about, but I feel that there are some elements of it which are, perhaps, a little bit misunderstood. Note that my opinion in this area is very much based on that of the prominent researchers on the topic. The high-level concept around this is budo as a ningen keisei no michi, which roughly means “the way of human development.” In Japan, this connection is quite obvious, and many people study budo, and perhaps even more so aikido to become better human beings. Perhaps many Westerners decide to study martial arts to become better at physical self-defense, but the desire to study budo for self-defense purposes is not as widespread in Japan. Because Japan is such a safe country, having to defend oneself is probably a lesser consideration.

Yes, I can see how that would be a much lower priority in Japan.

To clarify, I will never judge somebody who goes into martial arts to learn how to defend themselves because they’ve had bad experiences or because they live in places of the world which are not as safe as Japan. I don’t want others to think that I’m judgmental of those people or that I feel that motivation is beneath me — I’m just not in that situation. I would say, however, that the budo arts were not primarily intended for combat, and there is plenty of evidence for this when looking at their origins.

Let me first address the elephant in the room. People who are really into martial arts for self-defense purposes are very critical of what they call traditional arts. I think there is good reason for this, technically speaking, as many traditional techniques are either obsolete or not optimized for this purpose. On the other hand, and in the case of aikido especially, I think the argument is fallacious because a great many aikidoka never make such a claim. The official definition of aikido, as formulated by aikido’s own World headquarters, does not even mention efficacy. The burden of proof therefore does not lie on the entire aikido community, but only on those who claim that aikido is adequate as a street fighting system. It’s not one or zero though, and some things in aikido may be applicable, but it’s undeniable that there are far superior and more up-to-date systems that exist for that purpose.

More generally, and without going too much into the origin of the term, budo implies first and foremost an idea of a lifelong journey. Therefore, it’s just not a rational choice for someone looking for immediate efficacy. Budo arts were created as educational systems. This did not always serve very noble causes though. For instance, budo were at a time instrumental to getting the Japanese population to support Japan’s efforts during World War II. The idea was to foster a sense of nationalism and to forge a strong group dynamic, and it played on the sense of pride of the Japanese because it felt like part of their unique culture. At that time, kendo and judo were used not so much for teaching martial techniques, but almost as a sort of brainwashing system.

People who are really into martial arts for self-defense purposes are very critical of what they call traditional arts. I think there is good reason for this, technically speaking, as many traditional techniques are either obsolete or not optimized for this purpose.

Additionally, when budo arts were utilized as educational systems for the greater Japanese population, the techniques were modified across the board to be safer because they had to be taught in schools. Of course, you couldn’t include lethal techniques or those designed to cause serious injury in that context. If you start modifying techniques to make them safer so they can be taught in schools, you’re no longer teaching battlefield technique. Budo are also anachronisms; if one looks at kendo or jukendo for instance, the techniques contained in their respective formal curricula are completely out-of-date. Nobody nowadays walks around with a sword or a rifle mounted with a bayonet. To a large extent, this remark applies to the curricula of many other empty-handed budo, including aikido.

Even looking further in history, before budo were budo, some researchers such as Dr. Karl Friday have actually argued that the old koryu [pre-Meiji martial arts] schools also taught some techniques that were actually no more aimed to be used on the battlefield than today’s budo. He also analyzed historical evidence, particularly the remains of people who died in battles and found that, for example, the sword was actually rarely used in battle. People died from being hit by stones, stabbed with spears, pierced by arrows or bullets later on, but sword wounds were relatively rarely found, especially lethal sword wounds. So when you think about the fact that the sword is so central within the technical curricula of many old schools of martial arts and how little it seems to have been used on the battlefield, you’ve got something to explain here.

Right. So not only were budo arts modified and popularized for non-combat purposes in the 20th century, but this was a trend in Japanese martial arts even before that?

These older koryu martial arts were probably, to a large extent, educational systems and social organizations where practitioners studied very refined techniques, outside of the framework of the battlefield. It’s also worth noting that many of these older schools were founded after the start of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868 C.E.) when, basically, most large-scale wars were over. And those schools, of course, were small. They couldn’t possibly have had the capacity to instruct large numbers of soldiers. The guys on the ground who were in actual combat would have been taught very differently, very different material.

Today’s budo is a product of that, and if you realize that, you can find some fascinating aspects and benefits of budo which go beyond just fighting wars, and that’s quite interesting.

And in addition to the idea that budo is perceived very different inside and outside of Japan, there’s also a similar difference in perspective on aikido’s philosophy of harmony, right?

Yes. I don’t think you necessarily have to understand the Japanese take on this to be a great aikido practitioner, but if you want to understand the motivation of the founder and the reason for the art’s existence, I think it’s important. The idea of harmony in aikido is very important, but it is also such a can of worms in the Western context because we are using our own Judeo-Christian perception of what harmony is, and Japan has a different philosophical tradition.

In Japanese, this sense of harmony is known as wa [kanji: 和]. We talk about wa no budo [“budo of harmony”] but the actual meaning of wa is not really harmony in a sort of tree-hugging way. Harmony in this sense is more related to group cohesion and functionality. It’s about accepting a set of social rules within a group so that relationships can flow and be simple. So for example, I don’t have to like you and you don’t even have to be a particularly good person, but if you and I accept the same set of rules we’re going to get along just fine. We’re going to be in harmony.

And I think, to a great extent, that’s the way Japanese think about wa. So wa no budo is about a way of having, in my view, a common practice, a set of techniques, terminology, and protocols, like wearing a hakama and so on. Budo arts provide methods for training together in the same place so that people can actually interact in a productive way, with people they might not have communicated with otherwise.

The idea of harmony in aikido is very important, but it is also such a can of worms in the Western context because we are using our own Judeo-Christian perception of what harmony is, and Japan has a different philosophical tradition.

Based on my research, it’s probable that the founder of aikido had this concept of wa no budo in mind when he was active before the war and in close contact with prominent members of the government and of the military. This interpretation of harmony is quite compatible with the nationalistic expansionist policy Japan was pursuing in WWII, in a way that was similar to the ancient Roman Empire. You could get on very well with the Romans even if they invaded your country as long as you became a Roman and followed Roman rules. In Ueshiba’s time, the Japanese idea was something like, “Let’s let us all be in harmony the Japanese way, and I’m going to beat you over the head to make you understand that, and once you’ve understood it, we’ll be in harmony.”

Is Budo for Everyone?

Below is an excerpt from a post that appeared at The Budo Bum. The author asks the question, "Is Budo for everyone?"

The full post may be read here.

Is budo for everyone? I don’t know. Some of the great proselytizers of budo certainly seemed to think so. Kano Jigoro worked hard to get his Kodokan Judo into the national educational curriculum in Japan, and sent teachers all over the world to popularize it. Funakoshi Gichin brought Ryukyu Te to the main islands of Japan and created modern karatedo. Ueshiba Morihei wanted to spread his art of peace all over the world, and sent out teachers wherever there was interest. Kendo has a regular world championship. 

Is budo for everyone? Should it be for everyone? I and an army of others have written endlessly about the benefits of martial arts training and often suggest that some sort of martial arts training would be good for pretty much everyone. Besides the arts above, there are countless commercial martial arts schools that are premised on the assumption that everyone can, and should, do martial arts. I started out in a Kodokan Judo club at a university. We never considered that judo wasn’t for everyone.

After a few decades of practice, as well as having encountered many other budo forms, I have begun to wonder about this assumption. Classical budo were clearly not for everyone. Many ryuha had requirements that students bring recommendations, and then if the teacher accepted them, they still had to prove themselves. Students who couldn’t follow the rules or didn’t fit the particular budo culture were out. Students often had to sign lengthy pledges, keppan, promising to follow the rules of the school (see the chapter on keppan in Ellis Amdur’s Old School). These arts had, and still have, an innate assumption that they are not for anyone who walks up with tuition money.

Classical ryuha exist for themselves. A few were otome ryu, schools that were officially attached to local daimyo and were tied to the political scene, but most were not officially linked with any political organization and flourished or perished on their own merits and the ability of the teacher(s) to bring in enough students. The Bugei Ryuha Daijiten lists thousands of individual ryuha that existed over the centuries in Japan. Most didn’t survive any great length of time.  The ones that have survived the longest are famous; Kashima Shinto Ryu, Katori Shinto Ryu, Kashima Shinryu, Maniwa Nen Ryu. 

They are also famous for their pickiness when accepting new students.Their founders and members have never dreamed that these arts are meant for everyone. Just the opposite. These arts are treasures to be guarded jealously and not just shared with anyone. Until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, a person’s martial skills could be drawn upon in duels and fights. For the samurai classes, this was a matter of honor and legitimacy. With the very real possibility that they might have to use what their ryuha taught them, it became  vital that not everyone knew its secrets. A samurai might have had to rely on those secrets to survive.