Talk:Toyama-ryū/Temp

Toyama-ryū (戸山流) Established in 1925, Toyamaryu Iaido is based on Gunto Soho, a consolidated and officially adopted katana swordsmanship of the Toyama Military Academy of the Imperial Japanese Army. After the Second World War, it was referred to as "Toyamaryu", "Toyama-Ryu" or "Toyama Ryu" and established as schools of traditional Japanese swordsmanship or Iaido.

Since the process of consolidation and establishment of Gunto Soho took approximately twenty years, from the beginning of the first World War until the end of the Second World War, several sword masters from different schools were involved in its development by stages. Thus, Toyama Ryu can not be attributed to a single founder.

Background
After the Meiji Restoration, officers in the Japanese army were required to carry Western-style sabers. However, this caused problems during battles against rebels in Satsuma (now Kagoshima Prefecture), since soldiers equipped with single-shot rifles and sabers were frequently overwhelmed by samurai who knew Jigen-ryū (示現流)and could charge much faster than the non-Samurai soldiers.

During the Russo-Japanese war (1904–05), the Cossack cavalries frequently charged against the Japanese infantrymen and again, it was extremely difficult for the Japanese to defend themselves using sabers once their enemy reached them.

The Japanese studied the First World War with great enthusiasm, hoping to learn more about fighting modern warfare. They discovered that close quarters combat was still occurring in trench warfare, often with heavy swung weapons such as entrenching tools. This likely prompted the Japanese to tighten up their close quarter combat training. The katana was therefore readopted as the Japanese could access domestic sword masters more easily than European ones. Jūkenjutsu (銃剣術) was also developed at this time, being based on the use of sōjutsu (spear) techniques. This later became the rarely practiced sport of jūkendō, after the war ended.

In 1925, Lieutenant Colonel Morinaga Kiyoshi, who was the head of sword fighting at the Toyama Military Academy, officially adopted five Kata (forms) of tachi-waza, the sequences of movements starting from standing position, devised from traditional (koryu) Iai and formulated to modern warfare by Nakayama Hakudo. In 1934, the Imperial Japanese Army officially switched its fighting sword from the western style saber to the traditional Japanese one with the model 94 military sword becoming the first Japanese katana style military sword, or Gunto.

Thus, Japanese Army officers were later issued new swords, --- the katana. However, not all officers had sufficient background in kenjutsu to deploy these weapons in combat. Consequently, this simplified form of sword technique was devised that emphasized the most essential points of drawing and cutting. For instance, the army iai-battō kata differ from those of many koryū sword schools in that all techniques are practiced from a standing position due to no combat actually occurring in seiza or kneeling position in the battlefield. (Koryū schools include a number of techniques executed from seiza.) Also, this modern ryū has a strong emphasis on tameshigiri, or "test-cutting" with the Katana in order to prove the ability to cut accurately with the sword.

In 1940 the Toyama Military Academy, after revising and adding more Kata with the cooperation of Mochida Seiji, Saimura Goro, Tokutomi Tasaburo, Nakayama Hakudo, Kunii Zenya and Nakamura Taizaburo officially adopted seven tachi-wazas.

At the end of World War II, the Toyama Military Academy became the U.S. Army's Camp Zama. Nonetheless, the military Iai system was revived after 1952. By the 1970s, three separate organizations represented Toyama-ryū Iaido: in Hokkaidō, the Greater Japan Toyama Ryu Iaido Federation (established by Yamaguchi Yuuki); in Kansai (Kyoto-Osaka area), the Toyama Ryu Iaido Association (established by Morinaga Kiyoshi); and the Zen Nihon Toyama Ryu Iaido Federation or ZNTIR (established by Nakamura Taizaburo and Tokutomi Tasaburo). Each of these organizations is autonomous and retains its own set of forms. Today, there are also at least a dozen active instructors of Toyama-ryū outside Japan, many of whom are in California, Florida and New York. Although there are also various international schools in Poland, Spain, Taiwan and Australia.

The adoption of the katana by the Westernized Japanese army was also part of a Nationalist trend in Japan. During the 1920s Japan went through a phase of Militant Nationalism that lasted until defeat in the Second World War. By adopting the katana, the traditional sword of the Samurai the Japanese were allying themselves with the Samurai military tradition. Adopting the Katana also served to calm discontent among the more politicized sections of the army who had been outraged at mechanization (another lesson learned from World War I) which had de-emphasized the role of infantry and cavalry.

The Treaty of Peace with Japan (San Francisco Peace Treaty) was signed in 1951 and came into force in 1952. As Japan regained its independence and the martial arts ban was lifted, Morinaga Kiyoshi, the former director of sword fighting at the Toyama Military Academy, Yamaguchi Yuki, Nakamura Taizaburo, and others started to call the swordsmanship based on Gunto Soho ‘Toyamaryu’, disseminating it all over Japan and Internationally.

TOYAMA MILITARY ACADEMY

The Toyama Military Academy started with the establishment of the Toyama Branch of the Army Cadet School in June 1873. The school was built at the site of the former home of the daimyo of Owari-han, in present-day Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. In February the following year, it was renamed to Toyama Gakko (Toyama Academy) for officers training for the Imperial Japanese Army. The intention of establishing the academy was due to an urgent need by the Imperial Japanese Army to pursue standardized education in order to unify the learning process of the entire armed forces. It was essential to train the officers based on the same curriculum so that a trained officer could return to his regiment with this knowledge and disseminate the instruction in order to assure a standard process. The academy was closed at the end of the Second World War in 1945.

GUNTO SOHO

As stated above, Morinaga Kiyoshi, who was the head of the sword fighting division at the Toyama Military Academy, adopted five Tachi-wazas in 1925. These Katas were devised from Koryu Iai and formulated for modern warfare by Nakayama Hakudo and would become the origin of Gunto Soho.

In November 1940, Kata techniques were revised and additional forms added in a leaflet called ‘The Techniques and Tameshigiri of Gunto (military sword)’ published from Kaiko-sha and distributed to all army officers. This document was recreated as closely as possible to the original Gunto Soho, which is also called the ‘Kata of the Imperial Japanese Army’, with some references made to ‘Gunto Soho no.2’ in ‘Gunto Soho and Tameshigiri’ published by Kokubo Budo Association in 1944. However, there are some unclear descriptions in the movements and explanation sections, and the interpretation of these parts differs slightly by each teacher. The reason for this is thought to be that there were several teachers who interpreted parts of the manual slightly differently from one another. After the Second World War, several ex-Toyama Academy teachers and others started popularizing swordsmanship, now renamed as Toyama-ryu from Gunto Soho, but because of this difference in interpretations, a certain variety in style and tradition has arisen and still prevails. These small differences are accepted as they follow the general movements described in the above mentioned texts.