Masaki Toshimitsu Dannoshin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Masaki Toshimitsu Dannoshin a famous swordsman of Japan following the Edo period of the 17th century. Dannoshin served as a guard of the Edo Palace. Dannoshin considered killing people on the ground of the palace to be rather sacrilegious. Due to this fact, Dannoshin tried finding a more peaceful way of punishing intruders. After some time, Dannoshin produced a two foot long chain that would be attached to two weights (which would be on either end) and divised a series of very skillful ways of disarming and subdueing an armed opponent. Dannoshin's unique weapon soon became known as the manriki-gusari (in which manriki meant '10,000 power', and gusari meant 'chain'). This was through the fact that Dannoshin believed that the weapon contained the power and the ingenuity of 10,000 people. This weapon fighting style soon evolved into the famous Masaki-ryu style.

Dannoshin's style mainly became very popular through the fact that students had the capability to fight against various armed opponents (or unarmed) simultaneously. The weights of the chains also gave the capability to whirl around ominously as they weaved in and out among the opponents, stunning them with very accurate blows. The manriki-gusari also had the capability of bringing a man crashing down to the ground when being twirled around the ankles.