Talk:Tatsumi-ryū

Untitled
I suggest cutting the external links down to 2 or 3 (wikipedia is not a link farm) and to create some in line references. Please see articles like Aikido on how to do that.Peter Rehse 01:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Finished cleanup
I've just finished a major cleanup and revamp to get this article into shape. It is still unreferenced, and going by "oral tradition" of a ryu is far from acceptable material to put into an encyclopedia article. Furthermore, for future reference, the Neutral Point of View must be upheld. Fred26 13:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify. The article(s) needs written quotable sources, not simple reciting what a sensei says to his/her student. Fred26 15:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No longer Valid and is mislead
Be advised that information contained in this wikipedia post is not sanctioned because valuable information was removed rendering this post inaccurate. The description of the curriculum is in particular misleading. The disciplines taught are not understood either, Hojojutsu and Katsu for example are not standalone subjects but fall under Yawara, not yawarjutsu, no such thing in Tatsumi-ryu. Likewise Bōjutsu, Naginatajutsu, Hanbo come under Kenjutsu and again are not distinct disciplines. This is a case where outsiders having read secondary text posit themselves as authorities were in-fact they have failed to grasp even a rudimentary understanding of the ryu.


 * Well, lets discuss the problems, and try to fix them. I'm not clear on what you mean by the article no longer being "sanctioned". Bradford44 17:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Names Tatsumi-ryu's practices
A couple of points so we can reach a consensus here. If you really insist that Tatsumi-ryu calls its practice of the sword "iai" (presumably 居合) rather than "iaijutsu" (居合術) or "iaidō" (居合道), then I can't really argue with you. But I wanted to make absolutely sure that's the "official", full name, and not just a shorthand term often used in your dojo. The reason I'm concerned is that "iai" doesn't really mean anything by itself. The kanji mean "to be, exist, live" and "join, meet", respectively, and in combination are frequently interpreted to mean something like "being in the present and immediately reacting". So linguistically speaking, saying you practice just "iai", and not the "art of iai", or the way of "iai", or even "iai methods", is a little unusual. And regarding your edit summary, I believe you are incorrect about the meaning of "jutsu" (術). It simultaneously means "art" and "science" (I think the word "craft" expresses that combination nicely). It does not mean "method", which is usually "hō" (法), and also not "technique", which would be "waza" (技).

Likewise with "Yawara" (柔), which alone just means softness. It would be weird to say, "I practice softness". It's lacks context, and is not normally or historically how things are described Japanese martial arts. Just hoping we can get some stuff cleared up, Bradford44 17:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Message to Editors
This wikipedia post has been edited and posted with the approval of Liam Keeley, an authorized representative of Tatsumi-ryu, and cites published articles by Liam Keeley regarding Tatsumi-ryu in the series of books on the koryu edited by Diane Skoss. Liam Keeley is the only non-Japanese individual to have achieved an advanced license in Tatsumi-ryu. He is currently teaching Tatsumi-ryu in Melbourne, Australia.

He would appreciate it if people who are not members of the Tatsumi-ryu would kindly refrain from editing the article. As non-,members, it should be obvious they are not in anyway authorities on the ryu. If you wish to dispute anything contained in the article, then please direct all enquires to Hiroshi Kato Soke Tatsumi-ryu Hyoho (in Japanese only please) or contact please  Liam Keeley directly in English.

Readers should be aware that koryu are private organizations that strictly control the flow of information regarding their activities. Authoritative information is hard to find, and may not always be accurate. Liam Keeley has sanctioned this post as an authoritative statement regarding Tatsumi-ryu on wikipedia. It is asked that the integrity of the Tatsumi-ryu post on wikipedia be upheld as a mark of respect to Hiroshi Kato Sensei, 22nd Headmaster of Tatsumi-ryu Hyoho, and that it not be edited without his consent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.212.25 (talk • contribs) 2007-06-29T07:27:24 (UTC)


 * With your statement and the blanking of prior discussion on this talk page, it would seem that you have a huge conflict of interest in editing this article. If this article can only be edited by "approved" editors with possible close ties to Liam Keeley, then it will be hard to maintain a neutral point of view here. -- 健次 (derumi)talk 07:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification
I apologies for deleting the old discussions post's.

Regarding the claim of a "conflict of interest" the validity of the post cannot be disputed as all efforts have been made to publish an article with neutral point of view, being that all that is information is public knowledge available online and in the printed publications from multiple sources.

The bulk of the old post was preserved only minor grammatical changes were made to clarify some subtle points that the previous post did not make clear or understand.

Furthermore the information is mostly of a historical fact rather then being of a commercial, political or religious bases. Neither does the content seek to promote a faction or individual over another.

Instead the compiled information is clearly referenced through the use of in-text citations by referencing published articles (which was perviously missing) by recognized authorities on the topic of Tatsumi-ryu in the English and Japanese language.

As for having to close ties to Tatsumi-ryu, this is the nature of Koryu, their are only insiders, outsiders are simple not privy to knowledge, and often they misconstrue things because they do not understand the big picture having only obtained half truths and shadows from secondary sources. An analogy would be to expect a distant acquaintance to give you detailed account of your family and how it works. Only the members of a family, a tribe, or society can truly know the machinations of their group. This breaks down to the differences between Sociology and Anthropology as disciplines of knowledge. Koryu by their very nature are akin to tribes and do not by their very nature lend themselves to an impersonal scientific analyses by impartial by standers. Liam Keeley is referenced only as far as he is the only individual with permission to talk about Tatsumi-ryu in the English world by Kato Hiroshi if you wish to confirm the claims made by Liam Keeley please address them to Kato Hiroshi Menkyo Kaiden Tatsumi-ryu Heiho for clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.212.25 (talk • contribs) 2007-06-29T08:23:48 (UTC)

If you have justifiable grounds and can prove that their is a conflict of interest I invite you to do so. Otherwise it is asked that you withdraw your claims of a conflict of interest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.212.25 (talk • contribs) 2007-06-29T08:31:17 (UTC)
 * Some time should be allowed to let other editors more familiar with the article topic weigh in on this. My main grounds are that most edits are coming from one particular source, and that source says that all edits to this article must be approved. -- 健次 (derumi)talk 08:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you - I am sure we can come to an amicable agreement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crackleandpop (talk • contribs) 2007-06-29T10:42:28 (UTC)
 * I think we have come to an understanding. Thank you in kind. -- 健次 (derumi)talk 18:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Mr 58.107.212.25. I think I can understand and respect your viewpoint on this matter, but regardless if you are the official leader of Tatsumi-ryu himself you have no right to blank discussion-pages unless they are deemed "deletable" by a Wiki system-op. Doing so in the future may earn you a block from Wikipedia. Furthermore, although I fully understand and apreciate that Tatsmui-ryu, like Katori Shinto-ryu, belongs to its respective headmaster/soke, but just remember this is an online encyclopedia with information that is not classified nor censured and is positioned along the lines of a Neutral Point of View that requires adequate sourcing. I also find you to have a somewhat defensive attitude and taking flawed edits personal. Noone has ever claimed Liam Keeley is in charge of a "McDojo". You are not helping yourself either with your attitude of "It must be hard for outsiders who have never belonged to the ryu to understand. Few things exist in the modern world like a Koryu.". So for the sake of harmony I strongly urge you NOT to take this articles flaws, or the discussions with the contributors, as something personally directed against you, Tatsumi-ryu or anyone else. In other words, Assume Good Faith What we are doing is trying to put together the best possible articles within the Wikipedia ground-rules, not make the founder of Tatsumi-ryu spin in his grave.

This article exists only to be improved upon. I personally have no real source of information about Tatsumi-ryu and the only material I've ever used is the Skoss book. You are obviously close to the TR-tradition in the western world so you should have acess to solid information. I see no reason why this article cannot expand into a solid piece of Encyclopedia-goodness without compromising the Tatsumi-ryus content. However, please remember the sourcing policy of wikipedia. And last but not least: work together in order to improve it. Lets make sure there wont be too many chefs in the kitchen. :-). Fred26 10:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Fred26 - If you wish to help to improve Tatsumi-ryu on wikipedia while respecting the integrity of the tradition please direct all enquires to Hiroshi Kato Soke Tatsumi-ryu Hyoho (in Japanese only please) or contact Liam Keeley directly in English, before making any changes, as it would be much appreciated. We are willing to provide more detailed information over time in good faith. Crackleandpop 10:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC) I am Mr 58.107.212.25.


 * Good. Though I wont be the one doing the main contribs to this article as I have other commitments on Wikipedia. Fred26 18:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

A few constructive points
It seems as though things have gotten slightly out of hand here. I just want to make a few general points and then make some suggestions based on them. Hopefully we can then come to some sort of agreement. In any case, some general thoughts:

1. To the best of my knowledge, the only published English-language sources on Tatsumi-ryu are the essay "The Tojutsu of the Tatsumi-ryu, Murphy's Law and the K.I.S.S. Principle" by Liam Keeley in Skoss (ed.) Sword and Spirit, Liam Keeley's interview with Kato Takashi Sensei in Skoss (ed.) Koryu Bujutsu, and the field-note on Tatsumi-ryu in Sword and Spirit. There may be other sources, but it is not clear that they meet the verifiability criterion. There are, not surprisingly, some Japanese-language sources (see e.g. Nihon no Kobudo, ISBN 4583035861), but the verifiability criterion states that the English-language ones should be preferred.

2. There are at least four online sources in English (here, here, here, and here) and a few more in other languages (here and here). However, it seems as though the verifiability criterion tells us to treat these as less authoritative than the published sources (I am happy to be corrected here), so I would suggest we focus on those. In any case, at least with respect to the English-language online sources, almost all of the information is covered in the printed material).

3. Given the verifiability and No original research guidelines of Wikipedia, and given point 2 above, we should focus solely on the printed material in the Skoss (ed.) books. If we are working from the same texts, then hopefully it should be relatively easy to reach consensus.

Given these general points, I suggest that the following changes be made (or retained, as some have been changed at least for the moment) in the article.

I. That we not use the description Sakura-ha with reference to Tatsumi-ryu. There is no suggestion that I can see in any of the published sources that Tatsumi-ryu has ever been known under this description, and so it seems as though the verifiability criterion tells us not to describe it thus.

II. That we use the term iai rather than iaijutsu or iaido. In his article in Sword and Spirit Keeley is very clear that Tatsumi-ryu uses the term iai. To quote: "I say "iai" as opposed to "iaijutsu" deliberately, as in the earliest documents of the Tatsumi-ryu the -jutsu suffix was not used; this is the term members of the ryu tend to use today".

III. That we use the term yawara - again, all the published references use this term in the context of Tatsumi-ryu, so unless there is a published reference that indicates otherwise, the verifiability criterion dictates that we use this term as well. (Incidentally, the term yawara is also used as a general term outside of Tatsumi-ryu - see here).

IV. As to the status of bojutsu, naginatajutsu etc, I think we can at least agree that they do not have the same kind of status in the curriculum as the tojustsu or the sojutsu. To quote from Keeley's introduction to his interview with Kato Sensei in Koryu Bujutsu, "Secondary weapons include the short sword and the spear. The use of a number of other weapons is also taught, not as a specialty, but rather because these weapons were all potential opponents of the sword. Weapons falling into this category are the bo (six-foot staff), naginata (glaive), and hanbo (four-foot staff)". Clearly, this quote suggests that they have a subordinate role in the curriculum.

That is about all I have to say about the particular disagreements that have been taking place. I'm happy to listen to any suggestions and, if anyone else as other sources that I don't know about, I'd love to hear about them. A couple of general suggestions to finish off:

V. I agree with Peter Rehse that we could cut down the number of links. It strikes me that the general koryu links are a bit off the topic (although interesting in their own right), and that all of the koryu.com links (e.g. photos etc) should just be put as one (probably http://www.koryu.com/guide/tatsumi.html).

VI. The published articles section could be removed and any that are missing from the references section put in there. That will tidy things up a bit.

In any case, that's enough for now. If people have comments on my suggestions, please make them. If no one has any objections then I'll just go ahead and make the changes in the next few days. Hopefully we can make this an entry to be proud of! :)

Best, Simon

--Srt27 03:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Additionally, I would recommend that you keep in mind the following two points:


 * Members of Tatsumi-ryu are not only welcome, but in my opinion, encouraged, to contribute to this article, assist in minimizing errors, point out useful sources, etc..., and meaningfully participate in every conceivable way.
 * However, I strongly recommend that they first review and take to heart the wikipolicy at WP:OWNERSHIP.
 * My best as well,
 * Bradford44 21:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Tatsumi Shin-ryu
There is mentioning on a few sites that there was once a ryu called Tatsumi Shin-ryu, and that one of the last exponents was a certain Fukuzawa Yukichi. This ryu had some relation with the Tatsumi-ryu as featured in this article. I dont know anything about this branch, if it can be called such, but if anyone have any info it should be included here. Fred26 (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure I can be of much help here. In the Nihon Kobudo book by Yokose, it says that Fukuzawa Yukichi was a member of the Okudaira-han's Tatsumi Shin ryu. He is listed in the lineage for Tatsumi Shin ryu, but his name is in brackets, which presumably means that he was never a headmaster of the ryu. I'm not sure that any of this is relevant to this article, except perhaps there could be mention of Tatsumi Shin ryu as a descendent school of Tatsumi ryu. Srt27 (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes that would be the point. If the ryu is now dead as it is hinted then I doubt there is enough info left to make a whole new Tatsumi Shin-ryu article. So I guess can afford to put one or two sentences in this article instead. :) Fred26 (talk) 12:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:Japan Assessment Commentary
This article is pretty close to a B-class. Here are a few recommendations:
 * Expand the Lead section by a sentence or two, explaining briefly the focuse of Tatsumi-ryu, something like: "a comprehensive martial art, developed to be of practial use for the aspiring warrior. It focuses on use of dueling with the katana, but incorporates techniques for a variety of weapons used in medievel warfare, as well as techniques for grappling or un-armed combat."
 * Need a Reference for the section on Authorized teachers.
 * Any idea how many schools or practicioners there are world-wide? Is there a Tatsumi-ryu association?

Boneyard90 (talk) 00:05, 31 March 2011 (UTC)