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My Daito Ryu training actually began long before I ever heard of Daito Ryu. In reading the history of my training and this school, you will see that we are deeply rooted in the arts of Shogo Kuniba Soke: Motobuha Shito Ryu Karatedo and Goshin Budo Jujutsu AKA Kuniba Ryu Goshindo. Kuniba Soke studied under a number of great and notable martial arts teachers. One such teacher was Shioda Gozo, the founder of Yoshinkan Aikido. Before establishing Yoshinkan, Shioda Sensei studied Daito Ryu under Ueshiba Morihei. It was in the art of Daito Ryu that Shioda Sensei earned his first credentials and that which he taught to Kuniba. Kuniba Soke applied this knowledge to his Karate and Jujutsu. Also, we believe that Kuniba Soke had training in Asayama Ichiden Ryu Taijutsu. This training likely came not through formal training but through association with teachers of the art. A number of historians believe that Asayama Ichiden Ryu Taijutsu was the parent art of Daito Ryu. This may or may not be the case, but the two arts are extremely similar. The Asayama Ichiden Ryu influenced the Kuniba style in the same way as Daito Ryu. As a young Karate student in the National Karate and Jiu Jitsu Union, I was exposed to the Goshin Budo of Kuniba Soke. Later I began to explore the Hakko Ryu Jujutsu taught by Lemuel Stroud, then of the NKJU now of the National Martial Arts Association. I would later learn several important things about Hakko Ryu. One was that the founder of Hakko Ryu studied Daito Ryu. The other was that many of Kuniba's early American Karate and Goshin Budo students also studied Hakko Ryu - so Hakko Ryu influenced much of what was taught. Kuniba had used a Hakko Ryu instructors manual to create kata to help those students learn his Goshin Budo. Kuniba took to Hakko Ryu so quickly that many people mistakenly believed he studied Hakko Ryu. That is not the case. The likely reason why he so readily absorbed and utilized the material in the Hakko Ryu manual was because of his exposure to Daito Ryu - the parent art of Hakko Ryu. After several years of casually studying Kuniba Ryu and Hakko Ryu I began to study Aikido, primarily Yoshinkan. Prior to the study of Aikido, I had still never heard of Daito Ryu, even though it had such an influence on all that I had done. It was in studying the history of Aikido that I learned of Daito Ryu. Then after becoming more interested in the history of Hakko Ryu and Daito Ryu I learned of the Daito Ryu - Hakko Ryu connection. In 2005 I started looking for Daito Ryu instruction and read as much material as I could find. It did not take long to realize that I already had a firm foundation in the principles and techniques. By the time I attended my first Daito Ryu seminar I had studied Yoshinkan Aikido for 6 years and had been attending Hakko Ryu seminars for a long time. except for using different names for techniques and being organized and taught differently, Hakko Ryu is Daito Ryu. There is very little difference. There is also a very fine line between Yoshinkan Aikido and Daito Ryu. After attending my first Daito Ryu seminar I put together a list of the techniques of the Hiden Mokuroku. Then cross-referenced that with techniques from Hakko Ryu, Yoshinkan and Kuniba Ryu. The vast majority of these 118 techniques were already known. usually by different names, but they were known. This was at the same time that Artusi Shihan awarded me the Yondan ranking in Hakko Ryu. Yondan is the highest Dan grade awarded in Hakko Ryu and is one grade below Shihan, which can only be awarded by the honbu dojo in Omiya. Other Daito Ryu connections came through an association with Gerardo
Cantore Sensei who created his own style of Karate called Shinshinkan. It was at this time that our dojo became a Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu "study group" and I began to teach the techniques of the Hiden Mokuroku. |
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