Free Samurai and Ninja: The Real Story Behind the Japanese Warrior Myth That Shatters the Bushido Mystique by Antony Cummins Page A

ideogram “kan” 館 means “building” or “construction.” It is the name given to the place where that branch studies—for example, the previously mentioned Mubyoshi-Ryu had its headquarters in Kaga domain. Their training hall or group were called “Keibukan” 経武館 , meaning “To pursue the way of Samurai,” and of course any other branch was entitled to have their own “kan” name, while remaining under the overall banner of the school. It did not always have to follow this “kan” format. For example, the headquarters of Ichizen-Ryu, which was run by a samurai named Chikamatsu Shigenori in the 1700s in Nagoya castle, was called Rempeido.
    To enter a samurai school a warrior normally had to make an oath to confirm that he would not reveal the school’s secrets to anyone. Often this would take the form of keppan —a blood oath. This was normally an oath to the gods with a small offering of blood to seal the vow between the student and the gods, not the instructor. A student could leave a samurai school if they wished, it was not a lifetime commitment. Upon formally leaving a school the samurai may have to give back any scrolls they had received or copied, and they would then be free to join another school. Samurai could train in multiple schools at the same time. This was not an issue. Some samurai would use a martial arts school to study combat and other schools to study military arts, ceremony and other facets of samurai life.
    The following is a keppan from the school Oishi Shinkage-Ryu that was signed in 1837 or 1838.
    The texts can be summed up as follows:

♦ Those of our school should not enter combat with people of other schools
    ♦ Do not give away the secrets of our school to others
    ♦ Do not speak ill of other schools
    ♦ Be reserved in your manner
    ♦ Do not transgress against our master
    After this there is a list of gods to whom the student had to swear an oath.
    Qualifications in samurai schools were also varied in format, but the most famous is the concept of menkyo —“licence.” The black belt is a modern invention. Proper samurai schools would be divided into students, both high and new, then instructors. At the top of all these were master teachers at the head of the school. Students on entering a school would move through a very limited selection of positions, ranks, or levels until they had mastered the style enough to be awarded menkyo, henceforth being recognized as a teacher of the art. The next and final step was to achieve the kaiden level, making them menkyo kaiden —“master teacher.” This was an extremely high position and required decades of training with a full knowledge of the school and all of its secrets. The level of training and skill to acquire this position must not be underestimated. For example, the above mentioned war master Chikamatsu Shigenori was a student of Naganuma-Ryu (considered an extremely prestigious samurai school) and out of around one thousand students at the time, only ten were awarded menkyo kaiden. Chikamatsu Shigenori was one of them—meaning his skills should have been exceptional.

    A sample of a Naganuma-Ryu manual, all of which is in mock Chinese.
    Teachings inside a school could be divided into many different formats and normally followed a rising pattern of levels; there are multiple ways to divide the inner teachings of a school, so the following is a sampler to get the feel of how it would work.
    The shinobi arts of Yoshitune-Ryu are divided into the following levels or gradients:
1. 法 Ho
    2. 配 Hai
    3. 術 Jutsu
    Some of the shinobi arts that were transmitted by Chikamatsu Shigenori are not divided into sections; instead, each individual skill is divided into three, starting with the most basic teachings of that skill and moving to the highest level of achievement in that specific skill:
1. 初 Sho
    2. 中 Chu
    3. 後 Go
    A similar concept is to have skills divided into three levels known as shuhari :
1. 守 Shu –