Shogen Okabayashi

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Okabayashi, Shogen (born 1949) is a well known Kansai based aikijujutsu teacher.

He was a founding member and one of the shihan or ‘senior teachers’ of the Takumakai Daito-ryu group, founder of the Hakohokai branch and later founder of the Hakuho-ryu which is based upon the techniques of Daito-ryu aiki-jujutsu and the Ona-ha Itto-ryu.

Okabayashi is unique in that he spent significant amounts of time training under both Hisa Takuma, the founder of the Takumakai Daito-ryu group and as a direct student of Daito-ryu's founder Takeda Sokaku, and his son Takeda Tokimune.

Contents 1 Background 2 Study of Daito-ryu 2.1 The Takumakai 2.2 The Daitokan 2.3 The Shoden Waza or 'Fundamental techniques' 3 Changes at the Takumakai 4 The Birth of the Hakuhokai 5 The Formation of the Hakuho-ryu Aiki Budo 6 References 7 External Links to Articles

[edit] Background

Born in 1949 in Ashiya city in Hyogo prefecture, Okabayashi Shogen developed an early love for the martial arts. His first exposure to martial arts was the Shito-ryu style of karate.^[1] In addition he is reputed to have been exposed to a style of kung-fu while living in Taiwan.

While still a young man he was attacked by a young yakuza weilding a bokken. Having developed strong abilities in striking based arts he felt hesitant to use these skills against his young assailant for fear of gravely injuring him and so blocked strike after strike on his arms eventually scaring his attacker away without retaliating. Having injured his arms in this altercation he began to feel the limitations of arts which relied predominantly upon striking.^[1]

[edit] Study of Daito-ryu

In 1972 he began studying with the group of students under Hisa Takuma who had run the Asahi Newspaper Dojo where both Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of aikido and Ueshiba's teacher Takeda Sokaku and the founder of the art, had taught Daito-ryu aiki-jujutsu. Hisa was one of only two people who had received a high level license in Daito-ryu called the menkyo kaiden.^[2] The Takumakai Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu was officially formed from this group of Asahi News group practitioners between 1973-75, depending on reference.^[3]

[edit] The Takumakai

This Kansai based group developed its own unique teaching curriculum based upon the teaching of Ueshiba Morihei, who taught them basic Daito-ryu techniques, and Takeda Sokaku who taught them more advanced techniques through a series of seminars which he did at the dojo over many years. Being a newspaper, the dojo members made use of the facilities to photograph the techniques they were taught after sessions and produced a photo document of the techniques to reinforce training which was called the "Soden" and still exists today. They also took a film of Ueshiba Morihei performing Daito-ryu techniques where one can already begin to influence of his more circular aikido style coming into play. Lost for many years the film was recovered and made available in 1990s by Stanley Pranin's Aiki News group now known as the Aikido Journal.^[4]

Although already an accomplished practitioner, in interview Okabayashi Shogen stated that he felt as if he had come to a technical road block in his training through which he could not pass. He could perform the techniques effectively but not at a speed necessary for them to be employed under the demands of real fighting. His teacher Hisa had become elderly and had suffered a dehabilitating stroke and so was moving to Tokyo to be cared for by his family. Okabayashi decided that he would give up the practise of Daito-ryu. Hearing of this Hisa encouraged him rather to go study with Sokaku's son, the current headmaster of the art, Tokimune Takeda, and gave him a letter of recommendation.^[1]

[edit] The Daitokan

In the Daitokan dojo in Hokkaido, where Tokimune taught, the art had been organized differently due to differences in the way that Sokaku had taught and changes which Tokimune had introduced into the system. Tokumine had systematized the art and given names to the techniques, resulting in a more rigidly organized curriculum. He had also pared down the wider sword system he had been taught by his father to concentrate on the Ona-ha Itto-ryu system, albeit modified by techniques that Sokaku had developed. Tokimune called this system Daito-ryu 'Aiki Budo' as it emphasized a more than just jujutsu and other weapons and that in this day and age it was not merely not an art of fighting but a means of self improvement or 'martial path'.^[5]

[edit] The Shoden Waza or 'Fundamental techniques'

Okabayshi Shogen introduced the 'shoden waza' or first level of techniques from the Headmaster's system to the Takumakai as these techniques were not taught as part of the Takumakai's system. Sokaku, knowing that they had received previous training from Ueshiba, announced that he would dispense with teaching the fundamentals to the Asahi News group and so they were never learned them in a systematic way. For this reason the Kansai-based group had preserved a great many high level waza, or techniques, but the basic techniques had not been preserved according to the original teaching method. (It is also possible that the Tokimune created this teaching method.)^[4]

Regardless, Okabayashi had been greatly impressed and influenced by the headmaster's approach to performing Daito-ryu techniques and felt that they provided much needed missing links in his own training. The Takumakai must have agreed as he received his kyoju dairi, or teaching license, from the Takumakai in 1980 and then received a menkyo kaiden in the sword or Ona-ha Itto-ryu portion of the headmaster's system in 1987, which the headmaster asserted contained the heart of the system.^[6]Out of convenience this system is sometimes referred to as 'Takeda-den' or 'Sokaku-den' Ona-ha Itto-ryu to denote its difference from the main-line Ona-ha Itto-ryu tradition. Reputedly only six people are said to have been taught this system by Tokimune.

[edit] Changes at the Takumakai

These changes in the traditional curriculum of the Takumakai system were accepted well by some of the older teachers in the Takumakai but were greeted with less enthusiam by others creating some tensions within the group. Ohgami Shikichi, a senior teacher of the Takumakai, knowing nothing of the new techniques brought over from the Daitokan and wishing to preserve the original curriculum he had learned under Hisa Takuma left the organization and established his own Daibukan organization after Hisa's death in 1980.^[7]

[edit] The Birth of the Hakuhokai

Wanting to implement further changes and add the weapons components he had learned under Tokimune to the Takumakai's largely weaponless system while leaving other Takumakai teachers to feel comfortable teaching in their traditional way Okabayashi Shogen formed a separate branch school within the Takumakai organization in 1994 which he named the Hakuhokai.^[8]

Of key important to Okabayashi's approach was a traditional concept of movement common to most koryu styles but not present in the teachings of most contemporary Daito-ryu teachers. This concept was called 'hitoemi', and describes an idiosyncratic movement, readily seen in any Japanese period drama or koryu art, where the warrior class walk and perform techniques while lining their bodies up 'on one line' as they move forward. Okabayashi during his lengthy morning sessions acting uke, or receiver of techniques for Takeda noticed that his movements always seem to conform to this priciple while other teachers, even those who had been taught by Tokimune did not always move so.^[9] When he asked the headmaster about this he reputedly replied obliquely saying "The secret of Daito-ryu is be found in our sword. Study the sword movements and you will find the answers. " As the koryu sword movements were based upon hitoemi Okabayashi took this to mean that he was moving in the right direction with his practise.

[edit] The Formation of the Hakuho-ryu Aiki Budo

Witnessing the growing pains and still feely constrained by the Takumakai system which had strict rules concerning what techniques could be shown to students of different levels Okabayashi decided to form his system in 2002 in which, unusually, he decided not to use the Daito-ryu name at all.^[8]

As there had been a power struggle over succession after the death of the headmaster between Kondo Katsuyuki and some of the Hokkaido based Daitokan teachers who had been present while he trained at the headquarters, ^{[10] [11]} and with groups like the Saigo-ha and Nakamura-ha, having questionable links to Daito-ryu making claims concerning the art, Okabayashi chose to avoid explanations and comparisons to other groups and just continue to teach the techniques he had learned from Hisa and Tokimune under a new name; the Hakuho-ryu or 'Phoenix School'.

Like an ancient Phoenix being reborn from the ashes anew, Okabayashi took the opportunity to reveal the koryu movements within the contemporary techniques of Daito-ryu. He also wished to introduce what were considered more advanced portions of the art at an earlier stage in training to foster quicker learning of essential concepts and to introduce a scientific method to explain how traditional techniques function.^[12]

[edit] References

[edit] External Links to Articles

• "Capturing the Absolute Moment" - The Itten Dojo
• A series of articles on Okabayashi Shogen and Hakuho-ryu