Written by Kagita Chûbê, 20th sôke of the Hôzôinryû

Historical traces of the Hôzôinryû

As I already wrote in the previous issue, the Hôzôin was still in existence at the end of the Edo period and sôjutsu was still taught there then. But during the anti Buddhist movement at the beginning of the Meiji period its buildings were torn down and its land was expropriated. At that time regrettably its dôjô was lost as well as the archives of its writings. Thus there are only very few historic monuments related to the Hôzôinryû that are left today, which I would like to introduce below.

The best of course would be to train in Japan. There are three dôjôs, one in Nara, one in Higashiôsaka and one in Nagoya, where training is held regularly. Addresses, training hours and contact data can be found at the Japanese site of the Hôzôinryu.

Outside Japan the only place offering Hôzôinryû Takadaha Sôjutsu training on a regular base is located in Hamburg/Germany:

Mr. Mima, Kagita Sôke and Nishio Sensei (from left to right)

Instead Maeda Sensei now told me that Kagita Chûbê Sôke , the 20th headmaster of the Hôzôinryû, had time and would like to visit us in his place in September together with a couple of other members of the school.

A one man kata of the Saburiryû

All photos in this article:
© 2010 K. Stolzke

There the Hôzôinryû Takadaha, the Fûdenryû and the Saburiryû showed their spear-techniques. Our comrade is pleased to share videos of these demonstrations with everybody interested in the following.

If you tell a Japanese person you are practicing sôjutsu he will usually ask you "soj… what?" If you then say "yari" (spear) he will usually respond by saying "I see! …Spear." illustrated with a throwing gesture.

No wonder. Even in Japan almost nobody knows what sôjutsu is or that sôjutsu still exists nowadays. And if people have an idea at all what sôjutsu is, it is usually informed by TV series and movies which often draw a picture of the use of spears that has absolutely nothing in common with reality.

At best people remember scenes from the films of Kurosawa Akira showing platoons of spearmen working as units with long spears, very long spears.

1: Saya - The scabbard covering and protecting the blade, when the spear is not in use. There has been a great variety of designs for yarizaya, especially during the Edo era, that went much further than functional necessity demanded for at that time the yari was not only a weapon but also a symbol of status and rank.

Keikoyari

Keikoyari (training spears) are not obtained easyly even in Japan. The author saw a kamayari for sale in a budô equipment shop in Tôkyô just once. And there is only one maker/distributor of wooden weapons who sells kamayari and suyari (but only 9 shaku long) through his webshop. Recently he ships the spears to destinations outside Japan as well, but I fear the transportation might be even more expensive than the spear itself.

So in the end you have to ask a carpenter to build a spear to your specifications. Or just do it yourself. Don't worry. Building a spear isn't that difficult. On the contrary it is a lot of fun, at least for me.

Hôzôin Kakuzenbô Inei

About the life and doings of the founder of the school on the other hand only relatively litte is known for sure. And the little information that you can find often is contradictory or belongs to the realm of legends.