Just a quick question, and this may have been answered before and if so I apologise. According to the Bugei Ryu Ha Daijiten Shinryuken Masamistu Toda passed away on the 14th year of the Meiji period aged 90 years. The Meiji period is 1868 to 1912 which according to my maths would make the year of Todas death to be 1882. Now Takamatsu was born in 1887 so technically there is a 5 year gap between the death of Toda and the birth of Takamatsu. However some sources, (Bujinkan ones) claim that Toda was born in 1824 and died in 1909. However Todas father/teacher Toda Daigoro Chikahide (1764-1804) couild not have been his father if Toda was born in 1824, as his dad/teacher had died 20 years earlier. Now Toda Daisaburo Chikashige (1804-1818) who could also have been his father, only lived for 12 years according to the Paul Richardson website, although could be an erro as other sources say different. So we seem to have a discrepency. Either Shinryuken Masamitsu Toda did learn from Chikahide, and could not have taught Takamatsu or Toda taught Takamatsu but if the lineage is correct who taught Toda, as Chikashige only lived to the age of 12 and even he died before Toda was born as with Chikahide. Now theres a possibility that these lineages could present periods when they were soke and not the periods they lived, so i'm open for help on this, but its strange that with Toda that we are looking at his birth and death and not the time he was a grandmaster. By the way i'm kind of dyslexic when it comes to maths so i could be way off base here with the calculations.
Thanks PAsmith, I have this terrible condition where i start to add up then completely forget the first sum I started with, even with small sums. My son suffers from Dyspraxia and due to his condition wonder sometimes if i've actually got it. It gets me in trouble here sometimes when I fail to notice how people spell their names.
Is this confusing dates of being soke of the ryu with dates of actually being alive? Edit: Misread it. You already asked that question.
Gary, You say "according to the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten", are you getting this directly from it or is it from someone else's notes, comments etc?
"Toda Daisaburo Chikashige (1804-1818)" I think these dates are not when he was alive but the dates of the Bunka era itself. So this is saying he was soke (or maybe alive, but not necessarily born or died) during that time. The same for "Toda Daigoro Chikahide (1764-1804)" may not of his birth/death. These are the dates of the eras: Meiwa An'ei Kansei Kyōwa
Gap jumper posted Yes strange that, why have a lineage chart that shows a period as opposed to his sokeship or his birth/death dates. Unless of course he was only soke during the Bunka era and then it passed to someone else.
Now lets move this on a bit whilst we are talking of lineages. dr Hatsumi claims to be the grandmaster of Gyokko Ryu as the 28th Grandmaster. OK heres the list 1/ Tozawa Hakuunsai (1156-1159) 2/ Tozawa Shosuke (1161-1162) 3/ Suzuki Saburo (1171-1180) 4/ Suzuki Gobei 5/ Suzuki Kojiro Mitsu 6/ Tozawa Soun (1288) 7/ Tozawa Nyudo Geneai 8/ Yamon Hyoun 9/ Kato Ryu Hakuun (1394) 10/ Sakagami Goro Katsushige(1532) 11/Sakagami Taro Kunishige (1532-1555) 12/ Sakagami Kotaro Masahide (1532) 13/ Sogyokkan Ritsushi 14/ Toda Sakyo Isshinsai (1532) 15/ Momochi Sandayu (1542-1555) 16/Momochi Sandayu II (1573-1591) 17/ Momochi Tanba Yasumitsu (1595-1615) 18/ Momochi Taro Saemon (1615-1624) 19/ Toda Seiryu Nobutsuna (1624-1644) 20/ Toda Fudo Nobuchika (1658-1681) 21/ Toda Kangoro Nobuyasu (1681-1704) 22/ Toda Eisaburo Nobumasa (1704-1711) 23/ Toda Shinbei Masachika (1711-1736) 24/ Toda Shingoro Masayoshi (1736-1764) 25/ Toda Daigoro Chikahide (1764-1804) 26/ Toda Daisaburo Chikashige (1804) 27/ Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu (1824-1909) 28/ Takamatsu Toshitsugu (1887-1972) 29/ Masaaki Hatsumi (1931-Current) Ok not counting the first Soke perfect. But wait what happened here... Thats a gap of 138 years. Who was soke then, or wasn't there one, and if there was one then surely Hatsumi is the 29th, or 30th soke depending on how many there were and i suspect there must have been more than one for such a time period. However if this is a lineage chart, theres still something wrong... 10/ Sakagami Goro Katsushige(1532) 11/Sakagami Taro Kunishige (1532-1555) 12/ Sakagami Kotaro Masahide (1532) 14/ Toda Sakyo Isshinsai (1532) and possibly also 13/ Sogyokkan Ritsushi all holding sokeships from 1532. Ok not a problem but what it means is that we dont have a clean lineage but one where several people held the sokeship at the same time. I hope you following this so far... Which means actually from 1/ Tozawa Hakuunsai (1156-1159) to Hatsumi (1972) we have a line of not 29people but 24, which means that as an average each soke should have been soke for 34 years. And this is another problem as some soke only hold sokeships for a few years Tozawa Hakuunsai (1156-1159) Tozawa Shosuke (1161-1162) Suzuki Saburo (1171-1180) Three grandmasters but only covering 24 years, and this impacts on how long the others must have held sokeships. for example if we go from Suzuki Saburo (1171-1180) Suzuki Gobei Suzuki Kojiro Mitsu Tozawa Soun (1288) Tozawa Nyudo Geneai Yamon Hyoun Kato Ryu Hakuun (1394) Sakagami Goro Katsushige(1532) 1180 to 1532 we get 352 years but only 6 grandmasters which isn't a problem as long as each lives for 58 years. Add on to that say 12 years for childhood as people grew up quickly back then and we have each living for 68 years. This is a huge period of time to live in the medieval period where in Europe the average age was in the 40s and I have seen some sources that say as low as 20 for a peasant in Japan. OK i'm just playing with this really but trying to get some debate going. I'm useless as i say with numbers.
I think that a lot of people look at these things as being parallel to a sort of royal succession I know many disagree with me on this, but I don't think that this is about passing a crown from one person to another. I feel that it's about learning martial arts and probably has many parallels to how humans learn martial arts today. These lineages are more akin to lists of notable names that preceeded you in your style and that were remembered There will be times when there were no notable names, several notable names, records were lost, things were written down and have been kept, things weren't written, and so on
Garth, There are several versions of the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten. The earlier one had the dates wrong. This was corrected in later editions. In the 1963 and 1969 editions it says Toda died at the age of 73 years in the 13th year of meiji (1881/1882). In 1969 edition it also states this was 4 years before Takamatsu was born. In the 1978 edition the dates have been changed. Todas death is now at the age of 90 years in the 41st year of Meiji (1909/1910). As for the lineage, it does not give any birth/death dates for the previous soke. Regarding the different dates for Toda, this has been discussed before and an explanation I have heard is that the author of the encyclopedia mistakingly thought Toda Shinryuken was the same as a Toda Isshinsai (it even says (isshinsai) next to his name) who came from the Jikishinkage ryu. Garth, there have been threads about this before. You even made replies in it so you should know this all ready?! Regards / Skuggvarg
Regarding the Soke before Toda Shinryuken, this is something a lot of people mix up simply because they do not have access to the information. They most likely only have the succession lists at hand. These are after all people who lived some 150-200 years ago so it doesnt really influence our training. I have heard some pretty cool anecdotes (from reliable source) that at the same time explains a bit about who taught who and what. Nothing that I´d fancy sharing on MAP though... Regards / Skuggvarg
So are you saying that information is best kept for people in the bujinkan, who have teachers with a connection to the current soke, and have most likely stuck it out with said teacher for long enough to build a trusting relationship? As opposed to someone whom, lets say for example can't stand to be corrected on their hypothetical extremely poor form, and lets say, jumps around not only from teacher to teacher, but between organizations like a frog on 'e' ? Sorry for my obtuseness, just a bit confused about the last sentence. What an interestingly transparent thread thread though, I do wonder where this could possibly be heading?.....
It's hardly strange that certain names or years are omitted in a ninja lineage. If Takamatsu sensei in any way wanted to fool you, I am sure he would not have missed this bit. There can be a plethora of reasons explaining this gap. What difference does it make to you or anyone else except for the Sôke and his successor? First of all, I believe in some cases in the list the years are for their births, not year of receiving the title of Sôke, which probably confused you. Second, the list you/we have access to are not necessarily the same ones as the ones in possession of Hatsumi sensei. What I have heard (and believe to be true) regarding the lineages and Sôke lists, they are not what they seem to be for the uninitiated, and are definitely not meant to be read in romaji on a computer screen. There is something much deeper in meaning hidden inside, depending on how you read them and how well you can read them.
Why is this the standard response to a lot of questions? Now fair enough it's Garth asking so I can see why people might have their backs up but come on! On more than one occasion now I've seen people turn around and go "what difference does it make to you?". People are interested, this is a discussion forum and being uppity about question getting asked is daft. I can't get my head around the attitude where this is concerned.
And I can't get my head around how some people cannot understand that not everything will generate productive discussion and some things indeed do not make a difference for the practice. There's a difference if someone who just joined a dôjô thinks that lineages are cool and cites Richard Van Donk's website and asks about it, but it's a whole other ball game if someone with several decades in this martial art asks a question that literally does not make a difference and never will nor can be answered on an internet forum where nobody has access to the original lineage documents penned by Takamatsu sensei (or his predecessor). For intricate questions regarding lineages copied and pasted from different sources on the internet, there are only two valid replies IMO. One being "What does it matter to you?" and the second being a blank post. Heck, I even offered my own opinion (not that it matters much) on the subject of the Gyokko Ryû lineage, and so far the other replies in this thread have been pretty kind. I'm sorry to say, but the least productive reply in this thread is yours.
I agree to an extent and in all fairness most folks here probably wouldn't accept that response if we were in a different forum (or if it came from an indie). We all know it is because of "who" is asking and he clearly did not start this thread just for "clarification".
Big Will I hear what you are saying except this last part was a little unnecessary. We all can get a little frustrated (for the record I'm more amused) with Garth but let's not take it out on anyone else.
Actually guys I had some free time and the last time this was discussed was 5 years ago but it was about Togakure Ryu. But in regard to the quote "What does it matter to you" Well the same reason Will I went to the seminar to meet Dr Zoughari, because we had had this whole discussion on the Gyokko Ryu tojutsu so thought I would go to ask. Another reason Will is I have more than a passing interest hense why I took a degree in Archaeology with a supplemental subject of Ancient History, also why I joined the Battlefield Trust, am a member of the medieval siege society, and a member of the battlefield society. I have an interest in history. can you imagine if some one asked a question on the battle of Hastings and someone replied "What does it matter to you"? Of course it matters its history, and it matters not two hoots if I don't study Bujinkan. Its history. Now OK I havent got the source documents, but I know some people on here have very good information apparantly after all they are close to the source:hat: But moreover the reason this forum is here is to discuss. Now we could spend the forum slagging off the latest DVD course or youtube clip on line or we could spend it a little more constructively in talking about the history. Also I think when we get into the "What does it matter to you" argument it smacks of ignorance or even a cover up. No surely not a cover up I hear you cry, but it does remind me of that old church phrase when you ask a question about the bible "God moves in mysterious ways" or "we can't know Gods plan"
