The following article was prepared with the kind assistance of Brian Workman of the USA. It was originally published in Aiki News 80 which appeared in April 1989 and was reprinted with the kind permission of Tokimune Takeda Sensei, Headmaster of Daito-ryu Aiki Budo and the son of Sokaku Takeda Sensei.

Confused Fight in the Darkness

In the spring of 1875, Sokaku Takeda returned home for a visit from the fencing school of Kenkichi Sakakibara. This incident occurred while he was back in his hometown. At that time the decree abolishing the wearing of swords had entered effect and it was popular to carry one’s favorite sword inside a cane.

Sokaku, who was second son born into his family, was given a fine sword bearing the name of the swordsmith Kotetsu Nagafune of Bizen as a present upon his adoption [Sokaku was adopted for a time into the Kurokochi family on his mother’s side]. His maternal grandfather, Dengoro Kurokochi (a sword master) used the sword regularly. Sokaku always carried the sword in a cane. After he had returned home, he arrived at a bridge on an errand in the village of Inawashiro at about seven in the evening when it was dark. Suddenly, two ruffians jumped out from the right bank and attacked him brandishing naked blades. He could not see their faces due to the darkness. Sokaku was very surprised at what happened, as he could not think of anything he had done to have incurred a grudge. He dodged their attack and fell to the ground. He drew his favorite Kotetsu sword and executed cuts to the left and right which were sure to cut the legs of the two attackers. He cut once more to make sure no one was there and then rolled in that direction. When he stood up because he heard no sound, two or three men jumped out from the left bank and attacked him. He avoided the attack and cut from below from a prone position.

This time, when he stood up again, more than ten men jumped out from both sides wielding naked blades. Sokaku moved backward to the center of the bridge. Then more than ten others from yet another group closed in on him from the rear approach to the bridge flailing their swords and shouting loudly. Sokaku was about to be attacked from both sides. At the center of the bridge, the ruffians fought wildly in the darkness. He could not figure out what was happening and thought he would be killed. So he jumped into the river from the bridge and escaped from danger. Though it was spring, the river was cold. Sokaku swam downstream for a while in the direction of the light of a house near the river. He emerged from the river and washed the blood off his sword so his clothes would not be stained. When he arrived at the house, he found a couple of about 60 years old. They said, “Did you fall into the cold-river water?”, and treated him to a cup of hot water and kindly dried his wet clothes.

Sokaku related the incident on the bridge. The old man said, “There are two powerful groups of gamblers in this district. They are always quarreling over their territories. There was a rumor that there would be a big fight soon. I guess it happened tonight.” Finally Sokaku realized that he had become embroiled in a quarrel. He remembered he had cut the legs of four or five men. He thought that he had better leave the house. He would be in trouble if they learned about him. In the fight Sokaku surely cut the legs of four or five persons, but the cutting quality of the Kotetsu blade was so high that there was no knicked edge.

Sokaku left the following oral instruction: “Real fighting and training in a dojo are quite different. The mental attitude and way of using the sword are different in these situations. In a real fight a quick-witted person can win. Especially when in the darkness, lie on the ground and you can see the movements of the enemy’s legs with your mind’s eye from below. Before you move yourself you must strike in the direction you are heading to make sure there is no person or thing.”

Daily routine after fight on the bridge

On March 3, 1928 when Sokaku Takeda was 70 years old, he gave Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu lessons to more than ten people in Shibetsu at the military dojo in Hokkaido. This group included Yasutami Shimura who was the president of Shibetsu Yasutami Shimposha.

Sokaku showed some extraordinary feats to entertain the students during the training. This is what he did. He attached rolled letter paper to the forehead of one of his students who was holding the edge of the paper. Then Sokaku drew his favorite sword [a short sword] bearing the name of the swordsmith Masaie which he carried with him all the time, and executed a single strike. He cut the paper on the forehead over a distance of about 2 inches, but there was no sword mark on the man’s forehead. Then Sokaku called on a huge man named Shoji who was a fifth dan in Judo and said, “You can twist or lower my arm any way you want.” He offered his extended arm to the man. Everyone present was astonished.

A highly skilled judo expert with a large frame, Shoji tried to twist and raise Sokaku’s outstretched arm in various ways, but he could not move it at all. Finally, Shoji stood on the insteps of Sokaku while holding and hanging on his arm. Though he applied great force, he could not lower Sokaku’s arm at all. Shoji was helpless against Sokaku’s muscular arm. Sokaku was a small man, but his arms, which had been trained through the sword since childhood, were hard as the root of a tree. Everyone was surprised at the strength of his arms.

On that occasion, Sokaku talked to his students about his sword training. One of the stories he told was about the above-mentioned “confused fight in the darkness on the bridge”. Later a police sergeant named Sato of the Shibetsu Police Station heard about this story somewhere and came to visit Sokaku. He said to him, “I want to know about the incident in detail even though it happened more than 50 years ago and the statute of limitations has already expired. That’s why I came here.” Thus Sokaku talked in great detail about his experience when he was training as a young man. The following became clear. This incident took place because of territorial quarrels among the two opposing groups of gamblers. Among the victims injured in the fight on the bridge, the assaulter who inflicted injuries to the upper bodies of the men involved was identified, but the one who seriously wounded the men who had their legs cut with consummate skill had not been discovered. This had been treated as a mystery up until that time.

Sokaku was surprised to see that the truth about the incident that occurred more than 50 years earlier [in Inawashiro in Fukushima Prefecture] had been found out. He then made the comment that one’s sins always catch up to him in the end.

Sokaku’s Travels for Self-Training by Headmaster Tokimune Takeda

In 1868 the new government had just been formed and the administration had not yet exerted its control over the Tohoku region. Roads, in particular, were in bad condition and it was necessary to pay a toll each time one crossed a bridge since each town or village had to repair the roads. Thus travelers had difficulty paying the bridge toll.

The amount of money was large for someone traveling for self-training and proved to be a hardship for those who had to rely on the charity of others for lodging and food. Therefore there was no way to cross a river other than by walking or swimming. When it rained, the conditions of the roads were so bad that the mud was shin-deep. Even though he left a lodging wearing new straw sandals hanging from his waist in the morning, all of the footwear was worn out after he covered a distance of about 25 miles. In those days, if a man traveling for self-training visited a well-known fencing school he was treated to a meal and politely asked by the dojo head to instruct his students first. Then he would give them lessons. In that period they practiced with bamboo swords wearing protective kendo equipment. It was important to give the students only light training and to guide them well. Sometimes there were 40 or 50 pupils to teach. After teaching six or seven students, the master would tell him to rest where he was and he would stop with his headgear on. After giving lessons to 15 or 16 students he would tell him to rest and remove his headmask. Then he could take a rest without the headgear. If he was tired and removed his headgear to rest before being directed to do so by the master, this was regarded as bad etiquette and shameful. It meant that the person would be expelled from the fencing school as a shamed, weak-spirited man.

Katate seigan and Katate uchitsuki are sword-cutting techniques handed down through the Takeda family that Sokaku inherited and used extensively. These are old sword forms remaining from cavalry battles in Koshu. The Katate seigan is said to be a yadome no jutsu (arrow-stopping technique). Sokaku was left-handed and good at properly using both hands one after the other so as to rest one of the hands quickly. He always used this method. The master of the fencing school would sit in a higher position and judge what the visitor’s forte was to detect a weakness. The newcomer would be exhausted by the time he had an opportunity to have a match with the master. Then the master proposed three matches with the man and would defeat him easily.

This was the common process at that time. If a man gave lessons holding the bamboo swords with both hands, he could not move his hands and thus not wield the sword freely.

Sokaku made it a rule to win the first match out of three and yield to the master of the fencing school in the second and third matches. If the master was not too strong, he did not fight, but yielded saying he was no match for the master. In those days, two-handed kendo was as popular as it is today and thus the one-hand kendo style of Sokaku was regarded as a curiosity. Furthermore, the master could see Sokaku’s real ability while the latter was teaching his students. Thus the master knew that Sokaku let him win, and would say, “You are quite skilled at kendo. I want you to stay at this school for a week or so and give lessons to my pupils.” Then he would remain and train them lightly and skillfully, but not too severely at the same time acquiring the special techniques of the particular fencing school.

When Sokaku would leave the school, the master would be delighted with his behavior and give him money for straw sandals and write a letter of introduction. In this way Sokaku traveled about many provinces. If a man traveling for self-training was poor at kendo, he was not asked to stay but rather expelled. If he was conceited and trained the students too severely or behaved too proudly, he could not stay or receive any money or letter of introduction. He would instead inspire antipathy and would be ignored at the next fencing school.

Sokaku always taught that one must train himself being indifferent to the results of matches when traveling for self-training and that self-conceit is one’s enemy.

Sokaku’s Secret Word Strike

On the day of the Ox during the summer of 1875, the hottest part of the summer, Sokaku left his lodging early in the morning and at around nine o’clock visited a fencing school and was led into the dojo. There he saw a tall, handsome master of about 40 years of age. Sokaku saw at a glance that the master was much superior to him. The master asked Sokaku to give lessons to his pupils first without offering a meal. Thus, he trained the students lightly using alternately his right and left hands from the seigan or horizontal stance. Even though Sokaku gave instruction to about 20 students, the master did not tell him to take a rest at all. He had not had breakfast since he left the inn very early. Sweat entered into his eyes since he was wearing head gear on the very hot summer day. The 35 or 36 students sitting lined up clearly thought Sokaku to be an impertinent fellow using one hand. They could not stand the fact that Sokaku was fighting them from the one-handed seigan position and continuously tried to thrust at him. The seated students shouted encouragement to their fellows. “Strike the elbow! Strike the elbow!”” they said. The students’ strikes aimed at Sokaku’s elbow missed their mark and they then dashed themselves against him. However, before they attacked Sokaku’s elbow, he would thrust with his right or left hand. As a result, they would lean backward as they were thrust in the throat. Since their attacks to the elbow of Sokaku didn’t work, two or three of the students attacked him using different techniques. They intended to knock him down before he got to the master. To his regret, Sokaku fell unconscious due to the heat and his fatigue and hunger after several hours of hard training with no rest. There were two students left before the master.

“He moved! He moved!”, “He is still alive!”, were the words Sokaku heard in his semi-conscious state. The first thing he knew he was lying in the corner of the dojo with water being poured on him. Then he realized he had finally lost a match at this dojo. He entreated the assistant to ask the master to teach him. Even though he asked again and again, the assistant refused saying that Sokaku still had not realized he was defeated. He continued, “You are incredibly shameless asking the master to have a match with you. When you become strong and come again, I will ask the master to have a match with you. I’ll give you a meal and you leave after you eat.” When he finished eating, he quickly recovered since he was born with a strong constitution. He made up his mind not to leave the fencing school without first taking revenge even if he was killed.

In those days there were some fencing schools where it was rumored that men traveling for self-training were seen to enter but not leave. That means they were “eliminated”, as we would say today. That is to say, they were killed. Since a man traveling for this purpose had no fixed address, no one would even know that he had been killed.

Sokaku made a request. “I cannot go anywhere under these circumstances. Please agree to a match with me.” The master agreed provided that there was only one match. He thought Sokaku could never defeat him since he was treated so roughly by his students.

Sokaku was elated and switched from his ordinary bamboo sword to his Takeda family sword that had copper wire inside. Students were sitting on both the left and right and two bamboo swords were placed in the center of the dojo. They both put on protectors and bowed. Immediately, the master held the bamboo sword and jumped backwards about 12 feet assuming the seigan stance. On the other hand, Sokaku chased into him and executed a blow to the head using a single, secret strike from over his head with both hands, his mind free of all thoughts as he held the bamboo sword. He executed a head strike taught directly by Sakakibara and a two-handed thrust with his bamboo sword with copper wire inside simultaneously with a head thrust from the Itto-ryu school using both hands. If he used an ordinary bamboo sword, it would have bent, but he succeeded because the sword contained a copper wire. The master fell on his back. The master managed to stand up and held his sword aimed at Sokaku and said, “One more match!” Sokaku already felt a let down, but said, “All right. Let’s have another match.” Then he dashed at the master and executed a two-hand thrust to the face. The master fell down again. He was mortified because he was ignominiously defeated in front of all of his students. Then he stood up saying, “One more match! I will definitely thrust you this time!” Sokaku launched a two-hand thrust three times in succession. When Sokaku executed these thrusts he penetrated with his bamboo sword under the master’s face protector to his throat directly. Thus the master was down for the third time with finality. He moaned and could no longer stand up. The students were astonished and gathered around him picking him up. There was a great uproar. Sokaku did not miss the opportunity to escape and fled like a hare holding his kendo equipment on his shoulder. He managed to save himself for if he had been seized by the students, he surely would have been killed.

Sokaku explained in the following way how this great master was defeated even though he was superior in ability. Sokaku said that he was tough and quickly recovered and was filled with the spirit of desperation. On the other hand, the master relaxed his attention without understanding Sokaku’s condition.

Sokaku elaborated further saying that such a great master already knows what school a newcomer belongs to. Therefore, one cannot parry or avoid the master’s sword. A sword strike free of all thoughts is the only way to defeat such a master. In tactics, there is a saying that one who intends to live loses his life, and one who dares to die may live. “When a warrior holds two thoughts in his mind, that is delusion. If one is spiritually awakened, he can proceed to death.”

This article is used with the permission of Aikido Journal and originally appeared in Aiki News #80 (April 1989).