KOBUDO
The old martial schools on which modern Japanese martial arts like judo, kendo and aikido are founded, are called koryu budo (or bujutsu). In many cases, these schools are small with regards to the number of people who train in them and often they are regionally orientated. They may practice only unarmed techniques, or weapons techniques, or both.
For a long time, not much knowledge was available in the west on these traditions; early travellers to Japan tended to focus on the forms of gendai budo that were more readily available. The first serious attempt to penetrate into the old warrior traditions of Japan was made by Donn Draeger, who trained in Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu, among other schools. From the nineties onward, serious academic research was performed on the martial history of Japan. Men like Hurst, Friday, Bodiford, Hall, Conlan and Anshin have published reliable academic
studies in English. Outside university circles, good material is also being written, for example by people like Skoss or Mol. But the most important increase in our western knowledge of koryu budo in the last decade is probably due to the internet. Practitioners living in Japan and sharing information and film material on koryu budo embu etc. on sites like youtube and facebook, greatly increase our exposure to the old martial schools of Japan.
www.koryu.nl is the result of more than two decades of training and research in kobudo. The Bibliography and Links pages are far from complete, but offer interesting material that I have come across through the years.
Furthermore, I use this place to spread information about our training in Katori Shinto-ryu and Kukamishin-ryu in the Utrecht and Amsterdam area of The Netherlands.
(Shimokamo Jingu Hônô Embu, 4 May 2015)
