Q20. Can Sensei describe his teachers? What kind of teachers and human
beings were they?
IS.: All the teachers in Kochi were Igosso (strong characters). Igosso is Kochi dialect.
Yamamoto Takuji sensei's iaido was very dynamic. He took the dynamic part mainly from Oe sensei. I was strongly influenced by Takuji sensei, so my iaido is 80% dynamic and 20% graceful. Harumasa sensei was calm, mild and warm-hearted. Mori sensei was very precise. He respected Kochi teachers, so he didn't correct me. But he used to say Oe sensei's iaido was 50% dynamic and 50% graceful. He added his iaido to my iaido. He said, "Your iaido is very dynamic. You don't need to change your iaido. Do 'Your' iaido". I tried to take the best points from all the Sensei, but it was Takuji sensei that influenced me the most.

Q21. Can Sensei tell some anecdotes about his teachers which describe their characters etc?
IS.: Yamamoto Sensei was a very independent man. Even when he was hurt or cut he would treat himself, he did not go to see a doctor.
Harumasa Sensei was married but he had no children, so he died alone. He was very calm with people, he was very kind to people from outside Kochi (he treated them like guests). However, Harumasa Sensei was a “devil” when he taught, he was very strict.
Takeshima Sensei of Kochi was taught by Harumasa Sensei. Kochi people tended to protect each other so they trained very hard and seriously together. Takeshima Sensei has many of the characteristics of Harumasa Sensei. He doesn’t generally teach people from outside Kochi, so the students from England should feel very honoured, and I am sure they are.

Maybe I was the first person from outside Kochi to be taught like this by the Kochi Sensei. All three got together to decide if they would teach me. After 3 months Harumasa Sensei said yes but people had to teach me harshly so I would give up and go away. They failed, although they taught me for five hours at a time without a break, I kept going to Kochi for more tuition. The hard work was very good for me and I think in the end they respected me for my effort.

Mori Sensei was a very intelligent man, and did very beautiful and precise calligraphy. As I said he and Hokiyama Sensei were classmates, and they promised each other to make a very precise book about Oe Sensei’s iaido. However, Hokiyama Sensei was a very heavy drinker and died at only 40 (he had very high blood pressure), therefore Mori Sensei could not write the book. He thought that if he wrote the book with Hokiyama Sensei as the Soke people would respect it. If he published on his own it wouldn’t be respected. When I published my first book, Mori Sensei was very happy and I asked him to write the foreword for the book.

Q21b When did Yamamoto Harusuke Sensei live and in which part of Shikoku?
IS.: Again you will find the dates for when Yamamoto Sensei lived in my book. He lived in a part of Kochi.

Q22 Can Sensei tell me something more about his research into iaido and the books/articles he has written?
IS.: Since I learnt Tosa iaido under Yamamoto Takuji Sensei, Fukui Harumasa Sensei, Taoka Tsutau Sensei, and Shimazaki Teruyuki san I thought I should write an outline of wazamae that I learnt in Kochi so as not to forget in the future. That was the beginning of my book writing. I named it SHI DEN KAI KO - TOSA NO EISHIN RYU (also known as The Red Book), and started to write the articles. It was necessary to study Koryu enough to write a book. So I started to trace the origin of Koryu.

I started to study books by Kono Hyakuren Sensei. He was taught by Hokiyama Namio Sensei (18th Soke) especially, and after Hokiyama sensei passed away, he was taught by Fukui Harumasa Sensei (19th Soke). He had enough practical training and studied the reasons very much. He redoubled his efforts to study Koryu and became the 20th Soke. One of his books is an explanation of the 45 hon practice, another one is a study of Koryu. In his last years he deplored the wrong ideas people had of iaido: waza were done incorrectly and even changed, and so he wrote a book called TAN I ROKU. He published several excellent books. He did his best to teach the iaido people at that time (Showa). I read these books and practiced every day. That helped me a lot to finish Kochi practice. I was very much enlightened by them. I felt I started to gain firm confidence from the lessons by Yamamoto Sensei and the study of Kono sensei's books.

I could not publish my Red Book when I initially wrote it as I was only 50 and I didn’t think it would be very well accepted. Around this time Nippon Budo Shinbun was still publishing in Kyoto. Many ideas about budo and the present budo situation appeared in the newspapers. There were various kinds of individual opinions among them. I thought of contributing articles. I thought someone would answer my questions and teach me. I started to contribute every month for 4 years from 1963. My article appeared almost every month. However, I was disappointed in my expectations. I did not get any answers. On the contrary I had a bad reputation, "an impertinent fellow", so I stopped.

I was around 50 years old then. I was thinking of reasonable iaido day and night and wrote freely without reserve. It was very useful for me to write books. I published these as an at-random commentary iaido book, TANBO KAIKO (the cover is dark blue.)
I finally published Shi Den Kai Ko - Tosa No Eishin Ryu when I was 70, and by then I was respected and most people accepted the book. I re-wrote the book 5 times over the 20 years as I learnt more, so perhaps the delay was a good thing.

A) Soda Torahiko Sensei (the 16th, Shimomura Ha): Soda Torahiko Sensei learnt under Yukimune Sadayoshi Sensei (the 15th Soke, Shimomura Ha.) He was a Shimomura Ha expert and had copies of the reference material Yukimune Sensei had. He was an excellent Shimomura Ha teacher. I heard his son lived in Tokyo. I asked him about the copy of the reference material on iaido. He kindly gave me the copies he had. There were very valuable documents, such as Oe Sensei's students' articles and Shimomura Ha and Tanimura Ha teachers' articles that were contributed to Nippon Budo Shinbun in 1926. Moreover, there were copies of Yukimune Sensei's writings about Shimomura Ha Koden, commonly called Muso Shinden Shigenobu Ryu Record. Soda Sensei copied them. They were really useful and I could study a lot. There were Nakanishi Sensei's articles and a man who was from Kochi contributed from Manchuria. The reference material helped me to learn about the Kochi iaido teachers' activities and facilitated much my study of iaido in Kochi. I appreciated these precious copies and I put some of them in my book, TANBO KAIKO.

B) Research into the old traditional books.1) Research into the book, KENDO SHÛGI: Kendo Shûgi was written by Yamada Jirokichi Sensei, a kendo teacher at the Tokyo Commercial University. I knew the book had many useful old writings when I was contributing to Nippon Budo Shinbun. I asked my friend to buy one for me. He graduated from the Tokyo Commercial University. I started to research into the book. There were a lot of explanations about budo ryu ha (budo schools), a lot of Kubota Sugane Sensei's writings, GORIN NO SHO, and so on. There were many original texts in the book. I researched into the book and extracted the parts useful for iai and published them in a book form. I named the book IAIDO SHÛGI, the third book I published (the cover is light green). Kubota Sensei was a teacher at KOBUSHO, a kind of school, in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate. There were a lot of useful explanations about the old traditional kendo and iaido techniques and how to teach. His book was very helpful to my study of these techniques.

2) Research into GORIN NO SHO: I found Gorin no Sho explained by Kobayashi Ichiro in a second-hand bookstore in Kyoto in 1988. I studied it with all my heart. He explained the book as one of the old traditional books. However, the explanations are like ones by a martial artist. I have never read such a good book as this. I keenly realized we should study and practice kendo and iaido aiming at Gorin no Sho as our objective/goal. I often re-read it even now.

3) Research by reading various books: You can learn MUSO JIKIDEN EISHIN RYU techniques well enough, if you study the books by Kono Hyakuren Sensei very hard. However, you can't learn mentality well enough, even if you study iaido writings very much. Yamaoka Tesshu Sensei, a famous swordsman and statesman, finally completed his kendo by zen.

After learning in Kochi, I thought of mental training. I tried to find good books. I read the books on zen by Suzuki Taisetsu Sensei. I read KEN AND ZEN, YUMI AND ZEN, and so on. Mental explanations are very useful to improve techniques. However, there weren't so many good books to help techniques. I read a book about Noh play (drama) and I was impressed. Noh has been keeping strictly to its old tradition and the people have been putting old things into practice. They have warned against changes in the body movement. They have kept the admonition in mind.

4) Study techniques and reasons by adopting ideas from newspapers and magazines: We can find the articles about the people who succeeded technically by making efforts. Their mental processes through their efforts are very similar to ours. When we read about their achievements, we can adopt their experience to improve our iaido. I always look for this kind of articles. I try to keep useful things in my mind. Of course I can't keep all of them, but I do try to keep them in my mind. I also enjoy reading the books. I often go to the bookstore. I was impressed most by Mr. Matsushita Konosuke, the first (Matsushita) Panasonic president. By his achievement and words and deeds, we can learn a lot. He studied by himself, not at schools. His words, deeds and mentality are very useful to us.

Q22b Was Shimazaki san a budo teacher?
IS.: No he was not a budo teacher. He loved iaido very much and was especially interested in Oe Sensei’s iaido.

Q22c When did Kono Sensei take over as the 20th Soke?
IS.: Kono Sensei became the 20th Soke before Fukui Sensei died, so for a few years (maybe as many as 10) both the 19th and 20th Soke were alive.

Q22d Where was Kono Sensei from?
IS.: Kono Sensei was a native of Oita in Kyushu.

Q22e Sensei mentions Nakanishi Sensei, who was he, was he from Shimomura-ha?
IS.: Nakanishi Iwaki sensei was one of Oe Sensei’s deshi and he practiced Tanimura-ha.

Q22f Kendo Shûgi – is it an old book?
IS.: Yes, it is an old book. It is mentioned in the back of my light green book.