Kan Chû Kyû
by Leif Bagge
Kan Chû Kyû
The power to penetrate and
hit continuously -
The motto of Heki Ryu Insai Ha
Below follow the first part of the history of Heki Ryu Insai Ha. I have not had any expert on the English language to check this text so I hope you bare with the faults that appear.
The bow is almost as old as the human. Drawings in caves shows that bows have been used already 30.000 years ago. Almost every culture has had their own bows. So also Japan. It is not known when the asymmetric bow was developed nor why. The oldest found asymmetric bows are from around 300 BC.
In the 7th and 8th century AD the Japanese society took a lot of impressions from China. The capital Nara was built according to Chinese models etc. Also a bowmanship called Jarai came to Japan. This was a religious and ceremonial form adopted only by the royal court. This form was far too complicated for the ordinary Japanese, who knew the bow as a weapon for combat and hunting.
The credit for founding the first Kyudoschool goes to prince Shotoku Taishi (574-622), who found the Taishi Ryu. Yet the first one to actually systematize the training of bowmanship was Sadamune Ogasawara in the 13th century. When Kublai Khan tried to invade Japan (twice) the bowmen and the Kamikazes are said to have stopped him and his men.
The history of Japan is, for the main part of it, the history of the warrior class, the Bushi or the Samurai. One special thing with the warriorclass was that its members were the only ones who were allowed to carry and use weapons. The bowmen were specially appreciated. Partly from the Kublai Khan incident but also because they were using an armor and they were shooting from horseback. This made them rather difficult to kill. The code for warriors was called The Way Of The Horse And The Bow. That shows how popular they were. This code later on became the famous Bushido
Through the centuries from the beginning of the feudal society structure in the late 1000 AD the rulers, Shoguns and the Daimyos have been ranging from good leaders to tyrannies. In the 15th century the situation in the country was very poor. Many of the weapon experts were also unpleased with their leaders, so they started to help the peasants to build up a revolt. They started to teach them the use of weapons. One Bushi was Heki Danjo Masatsugu (died 1502). He found the Heki Ryu school of bowmanship in the 1440:ies.
As stated above, bowmanship was mainly conducted from horseback in full armor. With this armor was a helmet -Kabuto- that had decorative "wings" sticking out to the sides. As a result of this the drawlength was restricted to when the string touched the wing. The arrows were shorter than now and not so thick. Thus the bowmen then had to develope a very strong Tsunomi No Hataraki, twisting of the bow, to increase the velocity and the penetration ability of the arrow.
The peasants were usually not equipped with horses and even less with armor. Thus Heki Danjo developed a technique for shooters standing on the ground. This included a longer draw with longer and thus thicker arrows. This new form also brought with it the development of the right hands Hineri.
The history of Heki Ryu is more than 500 years old. Recent studies-presented to me by prof. Toshio Mori and Hans Gunderman- of the life and times of Heki Danjo Masatsugu (1443-1502) indicates that he taught Yoshida Shigekata the skills of bowmanship. Then he vanished!! Yoshida Shigekata taught other shooters and so the knowledge spread. Since Heki Danko was enourmesly famous and as was customary then, and why not still, everybody (that is soldier) wished to bath in his glory. At this time, 16.th century there appeared a lot of "new" schools and in particulary in the province MIE, where Heki Danjo is known to have lived. The new names usually came from the places (provinces, villages and shrines) where they were taught. At the time of his death in 1502 it appeared that he had been living in a shrine in the neighbour province. Even the chief of that shrine started to teach bowmanship and gave it his own name.
This situation shows that beside the fact that Heki Danjo Masatsugu taught Yoshida Shigekata bowmanship everything after that is speculative.
Yoshida Shigekata wrote the book MOKUROKU (contents). This guidebook for bowmen contained 120 headings. The successor to Yoshida Shigekata was his son Yoshida Shigemasa, who reduced the Mokuroku to consist the 60 headings that it does today. Only advanced shooter get lessons from Mokuroku.
At about the year 1600 Yoshida Genpachiro Shigeuji with the monk name Insai Issuiken (1561-1638) found the Insai Ha branch in Kyoto. He was asked by the Shogun to teach him bowmanship. As he was rather old at that time he send his son Yoshida Shigenobu. Shigenobu had to prove his skill. The Shogun put a MAKIWARA in the middle of the room.
The
Makiwara was in those days a strawbundle that was kept upright to look
like the chest of a person. Nowdays the Makiwara is kept lying. Well Shigenobu
shot and the arrow passed through the Makiwara, yet stoping so that it
ended up hanging from its nock. The Shogun found this to be a very weak
shot. Shigenobu explained that he did this purposely since he did not want
to break the thin paperwall in the room. The Shogun did not quite believe
him so he put up a mato in the middle of the room and asked Shigenobu to
repeat that. And so he did. The arrow stoped hanging from its nock on the
backside of the Mato. He got the job!
The younger brother of Yoshida Genpachiro moved to Okayama and was teaching the local Daimyo. Inagaki sensei used to say that Heki Ryu Insai Ha exists where he is teaching and in Okayama.
The other underbranches of Heki Ryu were found by:
According to Inagaki sensei Chikurin Ha is practised in a monastery in Wakayama. They declare that they are the right successors to Heki Danjo Masatsugu but this is not proved.
According to the magnificent book of Hans Gunderman - living in Tsukuba, the line of Heki Ryu Insai Ha that was conducted by the late Inagaki Genshiro Yoshimichi (1911-1995) derives from the Tokuyama branch. Urakami Naooki (d. 1905) was one of the successors to Tokuyama Bunemon Takanori (d.1898). He moved to Tokyo. His successor was Urakami Sakae (1881-1971) and his successor was Inagaki Genshiro.
Untill Urakami Naoke the UCHIOKOSHI was where SAN BUN NO NI is today. He developed the method of lifting Uchiokoshi over the head and stoping for a couple of seconds with the arrow at the height of the eyebrow.
In Osaka is a group of Heki Ryu Insai Ha kyudokas deriving from the Ensyu branch. Their master Kawashima found a group called Settsu-kei (Settsu is the old name of the area around Kawanishi-city) that has about 500 members now. Their speciality is Uchi ne, the use of a short arrow either to be thrown from a short distance or tied to the end of the bow and used as a spear when all arrows were shot.
In the next part I will tell about Inagaki sensei, his life and work.