Komagawa Kaishin Ryu

Komagawa Kaishin-ryū (駒川改心流) is a traditional Japanese martial art established by Komagawa Tarōzaemon Kuniyoshi (later Komagawa Kaishin) based on the Shinkage-ryū of Kamiizumi Ise no kami Nobutsuna. The only authorized teacher of this ryū is sōke Kuroda Tetsuzan himself. Founded in the late Muromachi period (1336-1573).




Komagawa Tarōzaemon first learned Shinkage-ryū from Kamiizumi Ise no kami Nobutsuna. But even though he soon felt confident in his skills, Kamiizumi would refuse to give him the Shinkage-ryū menkyo (right to teach the ryu), only saying that Komagawa had a "bad habit" in his movements. Komagawa felt wronged by his teacher's constant rebuttals and decided to take the high road and impress Kamiizumi by getting a menkyo in many other kenjutsu ryū.

Returning some years later with over a dozen menkyo, he tried to get Kamiizumi to give him his hard-earned Shinkage-ryū menkyo at last by showing him what he had learned. But Kamiizumi didn't flinch a bit and stuck to his previous statement about Komagawa having something not quite right in his movements. Then something happened that made Komagawa change his outlook on his whole practice up to then.

One evening, while Komagawa was deeply engaged in training, a pack of wolf sneaked up on him. He only had a wakizashi on himself at the time, but he still managed to drive off the pack by repeatedly using a single technique, technique which would later become the first tachi kata and the basis of Komagawa Kaishin-ryū's whole curriculum. During the tense fight, Komagawa realized that he was left-handed and that this was what Kamiizumi referred to by saying he had a "bad habit".

Komagawa then rebased his whole attitude towards his teacher and changed his name to "Kaishin" or "renewed heart" to show that fact. After correcting his movements, he was finally given a Shinkage-ryū menkyo by Kamiizumi. Komagawa then taught under the banner of Shinkage-ryū. The name of the ryū was changed to its present name by one of Komagawa's student, Sakurada Jirōzaemon Sadakuni (桜田次郎左衛門貞国).



The teaching is ONLY done by the soke. NO ONE ELSE. Today it is done by Kuroda Tetsuzan. This is in order to preserve the kata's forms as original as possible. There is only one actual dōjō, the Shinbukan Kuroda Dojo (振武舘 黒田道場) in Saitama, although there are a total of six keikokai or practice groups around the world. Two of these are in Japan (Kami-itabashi in Tokyo and Amagasaki in Kansai), three in the United-States of America (San Antonio, Encinitas and Chicago) and one in France (Paris). The locations outside Japan are visited once a year. Kuroda sensei personally examines the candidacy of prospective students; enquiries should be made to the geographically closest practice group, excluding those in Japan.



The school was nearly wiped out in 1767. A samurai by the name Fujii Umon Sadayuki had been accused of plotting a revolt against the Tokugawa Shogunate. He had been criticizing about the Shogunate, so the Tokugawa used their "ISA" powers to detain him and execute him. At that time Fujii Umon Sadayuki was chief proponent of the school, so the school got a bad name throughout the whole of Japan. Branches of the school were shut down.

Even in Toyama, the birthplace of the ryū, it has since then been publicly referred to by the name of its parent art, the Shinkage-ryū. The secrecy was so complete that even the grandfather of the current sōke, the 13th sōke Kuroda Yasuji, thought when he was young that he was practicing Shinkage-ryū. Only by comparing his techniques with practitioners of other ryū did the thought cross his mind that he did not actually practice Shinkage-ryū at all. He then asked his own father, the 11th sōke Kuroda Hiroshi Masakuni, who passed down this story about the concealment of the ryū's real name and origins. Yasuji was thus the first to use the name "Komagawa Kaishin-ryū" outside of Toyama since the incident when he relocated to Tokyo at the start of the Taishō (1876-) period.