Shinto Muso-ryu jo, founded in the early seventeenth century by Muso Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi, is said to be Japan's oldest formalized stick (jo) fighting system. Oral tradition maintains that sometime in the late 1590s or early 1600s Gonnosuke, a renowned warrior and duelist, challenged the famed swordsman Miyamoto Musashi to a training match. Fighting with a long-staff (bo), he found himself defeated unexpectedly by Musashi's trademark "crossed-swords" blocking technique and had to concede the match.
Frustrated by this loss, Gonnosuke continued traveling around Japan in pursuit of further training, eventually retiring to a shrine on Mt. Homan in the Chikuzen region of Kyushu to pursue a series of spiritual training austerities while meditating on the reasons for his defeat. After thirty-seven days, it is said, he received a "divine" revelation in the form of a dream of child delivering the cryptic advice, "holding a round stick, know the suigetsu." What this message meant to Gonnosuke is difficult to know today (the word "suigetsu" is particularly obscure and open to interpretation), but from the events that followed we know at least that he took it as an admonition to devise a shorter weapon to be used with some specific new understanding and emphasis.
Namely, Gonnosuke created a staff which, by virtue of being thinner and shorter than conventional staves, could be manipulated in more ways and much more quickly, but which also had the advantage of being slightly longer than the average Japanese sword. To distinguish this new weapon, he referred to it simply as a “jo,” meaning "stick." He then devised a number of techniques for using this stick, incorporating movements key to other Japanese weapons, including the thrusting movements of the spear, the striking capabilities of the sword and staff, and the sweeping movements of the glaive. He named his new stick-fighting system "Shinto Muso-ryu" (perhaps by combining his own name with part of the name of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu swordsmanship he had previously mastered).
Some accounts (including novels about Miyamoto Musashi) suggest that Gonnosuke was later able to use his new system to defeat Musashi in a rematch, but there is little concrete evidence for this and the story may well be apocryphal. (If true, it would have been the only match Musashi ever lost.)
Gonnosuke's achievements and abilities seem to have caught the attention of the local ruling Kuroda clan, who retained his services teaching jojutsu (stick techniques) to its warriors. The specifics of his employment and position in the Kuroda domain are not known, but in any case the Shinto Muso-ryu tradition was subsequently passed down in the area by succeeding generational headmasters. During many periods it was taught as one of the area’s so-called “men’s arts,” used principally by the law enforcement forces of the day as a non-lethal (or at least "less" lethal) control and arrest tactic.
By the late-1800s there seem to have been two lines of jojutsu taught in two different areas around Fukuoka castle in the former Kuroda domain, run by the Hirano and Hamachi families (the 15th and 18th headmasters). These lineages were eventually brought together through a series of joint training sessions around 1902, leading to the 24th generation headmaster, Shiraishi Hanjiro.
After Shiraishi Hanjiro’s death in 1927, his student Takayama Kiroku converted a storehouse behind his home into a small dojo, where he taught as the head instructor. The next-senior student, Shimizu Takaji, acted as assistant head instructor and others, including Otofuji Ichizo, were ordinary instructors.
In 1930, Shimizu left to teach in Tokyo, and Otofuji moved up to fill the position of assistant head instructor. Takayama quickly began efforts to popularize jojutsu, but unfortunately these were cut short by his sudden passing in 1938 at the young age of forty-six, leaving Otofuji as the head instructor of the Fukuoka dojo. From then on the popularization and transmission of Shinto Muso-ryu continued under Otofuji in Fukuoka and, to a larger extent, under Shimizu in Tokyo, and the tradition eventually began to flourish throughout Japan.
Shimizu Takaji, teaching in Tokyo, become the head of the new All-Japan Jodo Association, which changed the name from jojutsu to jodo (the way of the jo) in 1940. Shimizu taught in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, at the Kodokan's Kobudo Research Group, and elsewhere, including a stint in Japanese-controlled Manchuria. By the 1950s he had become recognized as the 25th headmaster of the style, possibly simply because he was Shiraishi's oldest surviving student. Part of his efforts included extracting portions of the jodo curriculum for use by kendo practitioners, resulting in a set of twelve seiteigata (standard forms) considered representative of the Shinto Muso-ryu technical tradition. Shimizu also developed a set of kihon (basics) designed to help practitioners learn fundamental body movements and ways of using the jo, to be learned before moving into formal training.
Shimizu continued teaching until his death in 1978. He had not named a successor, however, and so the position, once again, was eventually taken on by Shiraishi Hanjiro's next-senior surviving student, Otofuji Ichizo back in Kyushu. Otofuji passed away in 1998, leaving the position of generational headmaster yet (and possibly unlikely) to be determined.
Shinto Muso-ryu jo training continues today, both in Japan and around the world. The Pan-American Jo Federation overseas training in the Americas. It is headed by Philip Relnick, a direct student of the late Shimizu Takaji and holder of menkyo kaiden (license of complete transmission), Shinto Muso-ryu’s highest recognition.
Portions of this history have been adapted with permission from "Field Guide to the Japanese Classical Martial Arts" by Meik & Diane Skoss (the original article appears in Sword & Spirit: Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan, Vol. II). Other portions reference Pascal Krieger's history in Jodo: The Way of the Stick and Matsui Kenji's lecture "Shindo Muso-Ryu Jojutsu" delivered at the 1998 International Budo Seminar in Katsuura, Japan (translated by Derek Steel).
*Note: Japanese names are given in the customary Japanese manner, i.e. surname first and given name second.
Woodblock print image of Muso Gonnosuke
Painting of Miyamoto Musashi
Shimizu Takaji
25th Shinto Muso-ryu jo headmaster
Philip Relnick, menkyo kaiden holder and head of the Pan-American Jodo Federation, instructing with Nishioka Tsuneo (in white)
A Brief History of
Shinto Muso-Ry Jo
Sword and the stick, the primary weapons used in Shinto Muso-ru jo training
