Back to Main Index Furyu Issue #2 Index back to archives index See the JFUSA Newsletter (Jodo Federation of the United States of America). Muso Gonnosuke and
the Shinto Muso-ryu Jo by Wayne Muromoto Jojutsu practitioners Joeseph Cieslik (facing camera and holding bokken or wooden practice sword) and Nelson Rebert assume kamae or positions. I f we can believe the legendsand there are more legends than facts concerning these two martial artiststhe only person to beat Miyamoto Musashi in a duel was someone as outlandish and eccentric as he was. And to top it off, he did it with a wooden stick. In so doing, Muso Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi gave birth to a martial arts system that would elevate the humble wooden staff to one of the preeminent weapons of the bugei of Japan. We know very little that can be verified about the actual life of Muso Gonnosuke, and the little that we do know must be tempered with the knowledge that much of what has been written has been colored and embellished by later writers to make for exciting reading. Nishioka Tsuneo, head of the Seiryukai organization, cautions that many of the legends purporting Gonnosuke to be a colorful braggart originated long after his actual lifetime. "We just don't know that much about him," Nishioka says. In any case, records note that Gonnosuke's original family name was Hirano, and that he went by the given name of Gonbei early in his life. He was supposed to be a distant descendant of Kiso Kanja No Taiyu Kakumei, a retainer of the famous general, Kiso Yoshinaka (1). | |
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