Toyama-ryū

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Toyama-ryū (戸山流) is a modern form of iai created by the Japanese Army in 1925 at the Rikugun Toyama Gakko, or "Toyama Army Academy" in Toyama, Tokyo, Japan. Today, Toyama-ryū is primarily located in the Kanto Region. It does not have a single headmaster.

[edit] Background

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

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 sabres once their enemy reached them.

Thus, Japanese army officers were later issued New Swords shaped more like katana. However, not all officers had sufficient background in kenjutsu to deploy these weapons in combat. Consequently, in 1925, a 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 practised from a standing position. (Koryū schools included a number of techniques executed from seiza.) Also, this modern ryū has an unusually strong emphasis on tameshigiri, or "test-cutting." Swordsmen involved in developing this military system included Nakayama Hakudo and Sasaburo Takano.

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 Greater Japan Toyama Ryu Iaido Association (established by Morinaga Kiyoshi); and the All Japan Toyama Ryu Iaido Federation (established by Nakamura Taizo). Each of these organizations was autonomous and retained its own set of forms; the Hokkaido branch even included sword versus bayonet exercises. Today, there are also at least half a dozen active instructors of Toyama-ryū outside Japan, most of whom are in California.[1]