Sunday started very early, as we intended to watch the SMR jodo embu back in Fukuoka city. After two hours drive we arrived on time to the Gokoku Jinja, next to Fukuoka castle. In the grounds of the shrine we saw a large group of people dressed in blue keiko-gi's, and we we knew we were in the right spot. Among the participants was a Dutch fellow, who was quite friendly and gave us some information about the embu and the Sensei's who participated.
The embu appeared to be lead by Tominaga Sensei and Shindai (神代) Sensei. Firstly, the whole group entered the main shrine building where the resident Shinto priest conducted a ceremony. After about half an hour they emerged and the demonstration got underway. The embu also featured another koryu which included kenjutsu and jujutsu at least, but we didn't find out the name of this ryu.
The SMR embu was very complete, and included kata from kenjutsu, tanjo, jutte and kusarigama. We noticed quite a few differences in the techniques, but the similarities to our training were by far the majority. Many practioners of SMR have the impression that the two lines of jodo today (i.e. Shimizu and Otofuji) are very distinct, but we believe that these two styles could be complementary. There were small differences in body movements and the execution of techniques, but the essence was the same. We are fortunate to have learnt from Nishioka Sensei as he also has first hand experience of training with Otufuji Sensei, and has shown us some of the differences as part of our training. Of the observed differences, it could be said that Shimizu Sensei's style has a tendency to perform aiuchi, and the Otofuji style has more escaping and then countering techniques. Nishioka Sensei explained to us that Otofuji Sensei's sword targetting and cutting line are different in many techniques, generally forcing shidachi to avoid the cut and then counter. It is a pity that different groups of SMR do not interact more, but we were very grateful to be allowed to watch this embu.
Since we booked our flight back from Kumamoto city, we had to drive south again and took the route that passed a few sites related to Miyamoto Musashi's life and death. First we headed towards Reigando Cave in the mountains near Kumamoto city, the site where Miyamoto Musashi is supposed to have written his famous Book of Five Rings (Gorin no Sho). The site had a small museum and good car access which meant we didn't have to spend a few hours of climbing to get there. Whilst approaching the cave there were a few hills covered in curious small statues and a number of shrines. The cave itself was much larger and much more comfortable than the cave Muso Gonnosuke chose! It had a perfect southerly aspect which allowed the sunshine to stream in. As with the previous cave we visited, our presence there didn't seem to have impressed the kamisama's and again we weren't rewarded with any enlightenment.
From the cave, we set up our GPS navigation to take us to the grave of Miyamoto Musashi. Instead, the machine directed us through some small streets which lead to a dead end with an abandoned house surrounded by fields. Fed up with the technology, we used the old 'fool proof' method of asking the locals (the ones who didn't run away from us). This method was not so successful, as not many people had any idea what we were asking for. Finally, someone informed us that we were a few kilometres away and gave us the desired directions.
Miyamoto's grave is in a beautiful and well tended park called Musashizuka Park, with the main feature being a large statue of him in one of his famous two swords kamae. It appears that this statue was modelled on Miyamoto's famous self portrait in which both of the swords are lowered.
Below the statue is a plaque showing the five kamae of his style of swordsmanship. There is some confusion about the name of his style of swordsmanship, partly due to the fact that there were a few generations of professional swordsmen in his family. According to Professor Takashi Uozumi (International Budo University, Chiba) it was Musashi's adopted father who created Nito-ryu, and during his musha-shugyo Miyamoto Musashi created a style call Enmei-ryu. However, it seems most people know his style as Nitenichi-ryu, and this is corroborated by the plaque showing his five kamae in Musashizuka Park. We wondered around the park and the grave for a little while, and visited the souvenir shop next to the park where we found, to our surprise, some good quality white oak tanjo's.
The time came to depart for the airport, and after little fuss with returning our rental car we found ourselves with time to kill in the bar. The weekend had been quite intense, and while reflecting over a few beers we felt much satisfaction about all the things we had seen and done. It was definitely worthwhile.
