For good training, it is crucial to properly set the situation and the underlying assumptions.
If the distance is wrong, the target area is wrong, or the sword is not actually reaching, then the “experience points” you gain from that practice will drop. In some cases, you may not only fail to improve, but actually regress (become less skillful, weaker).
A common pitfall found across many martial arts, past and present, East and West, is this: the attacks become too refined.
Even in the old days, not every warrior was a skilled martial artist. And when emotions flare, or when someone is under life-or-death stress, they cannot always move in a “smart” or tidy way. Yet in normal practice, emotional, rough, and in a sense clumsy attacks are rarely used.
This is only a manga example, but in O-i! Ryoma (A Bakumatsu-era figure — a biographical manga about Sakamoto Ryoma.), there is an episode set in Sakamoto Ryoma’s childhood in which his older sister, Sakamoto Otome—who excelled in martial arts—is unable to cope with the erratic, unstructured, wildly messy sword line of Okada Izo (later known as “Hitokiri Izo”) and is defeated. Anyone who has trained mainly through kata practice or rule-based matches will understand this. It is a universal kind of threat.
In Tenshin-ryu, being “locked into kata”—that is, being unable to respond to the unstructured situations and movements of real combat—is warned against as the teaching of Kannyu (嵌入): being trapped inside a form.
The “Martial Arts Are Useless” Argument
Imai Nobuo (今井信郎), a Tokugawa retainer and member of the Kyoto Mimawarigumi—often known as “the man who cut down Ryoma” (though the historical details are not entirely certain)—is said to have remarked:
“Cutting down people who’ve been formally certified with menkyo 免許 or mokuroku 目録—those who hold official licenses and transmission catalogues—is far easier than cutting down complete amateurs. Studying swordsmanship isn’t safe; you’re better off not learning it at all.”
(Reported in Imai Yukihiko, The Man Who Cut Down Sakamoto Ryoma.)
Saito Hajime of the Shinsengumi is also said, in later years, to have stated something like:
In a real duel with live blades, you cannot do things like “if the enemy cuts like this, you parry like that, and then cut into the opening.” You just end up cutting at each other in a frenzy.
(Shimozawa Kan, Shinsengumi Ibun.)
This, admittedly, may describe the kind of chaotic melee fighting that was common within the Shinsengumi.
In any case, this “martial arts are useless” argument has been voiced since long ago. But that does not mean the best solution is to flail around in real combat however you please. If such nonsense were truly optimal, then “martial arts” would never have arisen in the first place, nor survived across centuries.
If someone says that martial arts were useless in actual combat, then—speaking strictly—it only means there was a problem in that person’s training, in the system of the school, or in both.
Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵), famous for Niten (two-sword) method and Gorin no Sho (The Book of Five Rings), writes at the beginning of the work, in essence:
From the age of thirteen until I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, I fought a little over sixty bouts and I never once lost (I never yielded advantage). Yet after I passed thirty and looked back, I realized that I had not won because I had mastered the martial arts. I had merely been blessed with talent and a strong physique, and my opponents had their shortcomings. From that point on, I devoted myself to training morning and evening, and only when I was around fifty did it finally become something I could call truly correct as a martial art.
I am rendering this in a clear modern paraphrase, but it points directly to what martial arts ought to be.
Winning because conditions happened to align and fortune smiled on you is not what martial arts should aim for. Martial arts, hyōhō, should not be a matter of “you won’t know unless you try.” It should aim for a level where, if you fight, you win as a matter of inevitability. Of course, some things are simply impossible—but the ultimate mission of martial arts and hyōhō is to push the boundary, as far as you can, between what is possible and impossible: to expand, to the maximum, the range in which you can overcome disadvantages of physique, weapons, or numbers.
Martial Arts and Acting
Now, back to the main point.
What matters is that you must become accustomed even to reckless, disorderly attacks. And for that, the attacker—the kōtōsha (攻刀者) in battojutsu 抜刀術, the uchikata (打方) in kenjutsu 剣術, the gōte (剛手) in jujutsu 柔術 (yawarade 柔手)—must be able to deliver those rough, reckless, unstructured attacks.
If they cannot, then the correct prerequisites demanded by Tenshin-ryu are not in place. Training becomes hollow, and it sinks to the level described earlier: something people dismiss as “practice that is useless.”
In the past, many people naturally had that kind of rawness. The world itself was dangerous. But in a comparatively safe society, such rough behavior and speech have largely disappeared. That is wonderful—but from the viewpoint of training and improvement, it creates a problem.
Here, acting ability becomes essential.
You may think martial arts and acting have nothing to do with each other. In general, that is true. But to acquire true martial arts, acting ability is indispensable.
This raises the question: what is “true martial arts”? Here, I define it as this: training beyond mere talent and innate gifts, attaining mastery, responding to any situation, and raising a swordsman who can endure real combat.
After all, Japanese traditional martial arts are fundamentally based on kata training. This is a simulation—so to speak, a kind of structured theater.
If you do not understand this, you start moving as if you already know what will happen. Or you use an attack that differs from what is required, and you collapse the kata itself.
Because people fail to grasp this, they start moving as if they already know what will happen—anticipating in advance—and they use methods that differ from the attack that is actually required. In doing so, they collapse the seiho.
In Tenshin-ryu, seiho is said to be free: fluid and adaptable, capable of endless transformation. But anything that strays from principles and fundamentals becomes nothing more than incoherence—invalid, and merely a show.
In Tenshin-ryu, a person who has lost the school’s underlying principles and foundations and retained only a patchwork of techniques is called a narazumono (破落戸)
The characters are written as if to say “a door (戸) breaks (破) and falls away (落).” When the ground and foundation collapse, the building tilts; the doors will not stand properly, and they break and drop off. That is why it is written 破落戸 and read narazumono—literally, “one who does not become what they should.”
Incidentally, Narazumono is a word of Chinese origin, originally meaning a fallen, ruined “ruffian.” From that, in Japan, 破落戸 can also be read as gorotsuki (thug).
People talk about shu-ha-ri, but anything that deviates from principles and fundamentals is not “breaking the form” in a good sense; it is simply “breaking the form” in a bad sense. In Tenshin-ryu, a person who has lost the underlying principles and foundation, and has only picked up the “surface foam” of technique, is called narazumono (破落戸).
When the ground and foundation are broken, the house tilts; doors cannot be properly set, and they fall apart. That is why it is written 破落戸 and read “narazumono”—a person who cannot “become” what they should. (Incidentally, 破落戸 is of Chinese origin, meaning a fallen, ruined “thug”; in Japan it can also be read as “gorotsuki.”)
I have heard that Ishii Sensei (the 8th Shike) told Tenshin Sensei, “If you can’t act, it’s no good.”
Indeed, when Tenshin Sensei attacked, he would shout in an exaggerated, fierce way; and when he received the counterattack, he would dramatically clutch the wounded area, drop his bokken or marudachi (a fukuro jhinai, a leather-bagged bamboo sword), or fall down.
When I entered the school, that aspect struck me deeply. Because I had already learned the importance of acting in the martial art I studied before.
Of course, if you overdo it, you will also destroy the kata. The balance is difficult, and if you fail, it can become mere clowning or mockery.
However, in sudden, emotion-driven conflict, becoming a doll-like person—attacking without emotion, or showing no reaction even when struck or cut—is a serious problem. There is no need to be theatrical, but how you attack and how you react to a counterattack are essential elements that support the very foundation of martial arts training.
Also, the act of taking a life, unless one is a born killer or truly pushed to the brink mentally, usually involves an extremely strong psychological resistance. That is why, when attacking, one may let out a fierce roar so as not to hesitate—trying to sweep away and lift that inner resistance, to release and remove the limiter within oneself.
In many martial arts depictions in films and comics, you often see nothing but movements that cut down an opponent without so much as a change in expression. Training as if that were the norm is essentially training on the assumption of a cold-blooded, unfeeling murderer. We do include that possibility in our assumptions—but it is not the standard.
Ishii Sensei taught Tenshin Sensei, “Cast off your sense of shame.”
However, it is true that many people—especially adults—feel resistant to acting in earnest. So start little by little, but please carry yourself in that way.
Acting and Hyōhō
And when Ishii Sensei said that Tenshin-ryu was “a school different from others,” he meant more than just training-room performance.
This acting ability is not limited to practice.
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Kyoshin-no-kurai (虚身の位): making yourself appear wounded or disabled, a stance of “empty body,” It is the same as a bird’s injury-feigning behavior: a parent bird pretends to be wounded to act as a decoy, drawing a predator’s attention so its chicks can escape.
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Kyoshin-no-kurai (脅身の位): showing a posture of fear and trembling, hips pulled back, to lure the opponent,
and these are considered usable in real combat.
Furthermore, in the duties of the Shirin-dan (士林団) who study Tenshin-ryu, one may travel disguised as San-min (三民 Literally, “the three common classes”: farmers, artisans, and merchants.) or as entertainers such as Tabi-gêini 旅芸人 (People who earn their living by traveling from place to place and performing various entertainments.), to gather information. In such cases, if you are obviously seen as a warrior class person, it defeats the purpose. While holding a high sense of dignity within, you must still conceal your identity for the sake of the mission—acting, pretending, hiding who you are.
In this way, Tenshin-ryu is not merely martial arts. It is hyōhō: a complete system including all training, teachings, techniques, and principles necessary for the Shirin-dan’s duties. This is precisely what makes Tenshin-ryu more difficult—and at the same time, what gives it a unique, one-of-a-kind appeal unlike any other tradition.
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