What occurred to preserve daito-ryu

 

 

 There are many stories concerning Daito-ryu, the most common is that when Tanomo Saigo, the 29th head of the art of the Minamoto and Aizu (Matsudairi)clan died, one Sogaku Takeda became the headmaster, but that is incorrect for several reasons: the most obvious is Sogaku only trained in Daito-Ryu under Tanomo Saigo for 1 ½ years, and there are no scrolls of succession that denote he inherited the system.

 

Some tried the rationalization that his grandfather who was Tanomo’s teacher taught him the system, but, the problem is that his grandfather died when Sogaku was just 3 years old.

 

When Gunshi met Pok Shen, there was no mention  of the term Daito-Ryu, or Aiki, or Takeda, just the term jujitsu was used! Shen was very secretive about what he was teaching, and Gunshi was nothing more than a training partner for the top student M Chiang from Korea, but, by a twist of fate, Chiang was lost in Vietnam, and only Gunshi was left, so Shen took him under his wing and taught him all about the system.

 

But, Gunshi did not reallly like Shen because he smoked. never trained and weighed around 125 ounds, hardly any type of athlete to look up to.

 

But, it gave him a chance to master wrist and finger locks which few knew at the time, later, he would be sent to Chinatown in Boston to learn northern Shaolin kicks and sleeveless throws from Chinese Chenna by some of Shen's Wushu friends and to compete is full contact contests against kung fu fighters which was popular at that time.

 

Of course! he was not taught all the techniques! There were over 3000 of them, but he was taught the principles that made these techniques work, and the order in which they were taught, as well as the history of the school.

 

According to Shen, and verified by several experts, in the late 1800’s, the shogunate was abolished along with the samurai class, so, many of the heads of these systems became teachers, and remained in the Dai Nippon Butokukai after 1900’s, around that time, the Black Dragon society was created, and these masters often joined, which permitted their systems to be protected, Tanamo Saigo was a member, as was his son Shiro since the founder of the black dragons was heavy into judo too, Shiro recruited Nishio Takeda first (he was a great grandson of Tanomo Saigo’s teacher, Seomon Takeda, ) He in-turn recruited several people, including Lin Po, a Chinese merchant who operated brothels all over Asia, So successful were these prostitutes, that Lin Po was soon part of the Dai Nippon Butokukai, and given a Japanese name, he married a Japanese lady and had several kids.

 

   When Shiro died in 1922 , the art was divided into two parts, (actually it was divided in 4 parts)one was headed by a military officer called Houeii Yamashita, and the other, by Toshio Takeda, but To Nishio Takeda was a blood ancestor to the Minamoto and Aizu clans, so the scroll of succession was passed to him, and his main student was  a Chinese named Lin Po (Po Lin)

, so, the art was then passed to him upon the death of Nishio in WWII, But, Lin Po’s kids died in the fire-bombing of Japan by the USA, so the only family member qualified to inherit the system was his cousin Pok Shen, every one of these headmasters enjoyed the protection of the Yakuza who had ties to the black dragon society from the beginning.

 

Was Pok Shen also a member of the black dragon society? its not likely because it was disbanded after WWII, but it is highly probable he had ties to the Mafia/ Yakuza, because of his connection in Formosa, but he refused to allow pictures taken of him during this period, and the only one Gunshi has , asides from one of him prior to their training days is one taken by a neighbour of him sitting on a park bench in Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That shouldn'be surprising because Gunshi trained with many people without getting pictures taken with them, or of them, Ishida, Kanata, Xyan,and George Maldonis, of Fitchburg, Ma are prime examples, Gunshi trained under hundreds of teachers and never took a picture with them, nor was there any with Ron Barube of Waltham, Leo Bouque, and many others, remember, back then, nobody knew that pictures might be usefull down the road.

 

Research done by the late Shogo Kuniba, Richard Kim and John Denora substantiated most of what was told to Gunshi, and the letters from these three masters to that effect will be published here later,but the key to this is the white hairs in the cedar box that were said to be those of Tanomo Saigo, taken after his death in 1903, which were passed on from one headmaster to another and are now in Gunshi's possession.

 

 

Although Gunshi has studied aikido, the aiki bujutsu he teaches as Daito-Ryu does not look like aikido or the other versions of aikibudo, there is no grabbing the wrist like they use, no strange turning, or short staff, instead, there are no stances, and  nothing is big circles

 

What you have are all use of principles to defeat and attacker !  Lots of strikes, pressure points and pain for each technique.

 

There are hundreds of throws, and hundreds of counters, and over 3400 techniques which includes weapons as well as empty hands.

 

The concept is everyone can be more effective with techniques that are natural for them, Different body types, physical abilities  and other factors determine what one can be most effective using, so, after mastering the basics, each student choses a path that they feel best suited for and train on mastery of that part of the system