Impact
Kamiizumi is considered a major figure in the development of kenjutsu. Through his major students, numerous branch traditions were created and spread around Japan. Schools still extant today that claim Kamiizumi as a founder, co-founder, or progenitor include (Yagyū) Shinkage-ryū, Jikishinkage-ryū, Kashima Shin-ryū, Taisha-ryū, and Komagawa Kaishin-ryū.
He is popularly credited as the inventor of the fukuro-shinai, a practice sword made from split-bamboo in a leather sleeve, allowing practitioners to practice together and swing with full-force without fear of death or major injury. The particular version used in Yagyū Shinkage-ryū is called a hikihada-shinai, "toad-skin shinai". The leather sleeve is made of cow or horse hide, but after being lacquered Kamakura Red, it resembles the skin of a hikigaeru.
The Honchō Bugei Shōden, a mid-Edo period collection of historical stories, related one of Kamiizumi travelling to Myōkōji Temple, in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture. An insane man had kidnapped a child and was hiding in a barn with a sword. Kamiizumi shaved his head, borrowed a kesa from a priest, and approached the barn with two rice balls. Kamiizumi used the rice balls to lull the man into dropping his guard, and then quickly seized him and saved the child. This episode was later used by writer/director Akira Kurosawa in his film, The Seven Samurai.
In 2008, the city of Maebashi celebrated the 500th anniversary of Kamiizumi’s birth with a festival. Services were held at the Kamiizumi gravesite, and a 2.5 meter tall bronze statue of Kamiizumi, holding a fukuro-shinai, was unveiled. Yagyū Koichi, a lineal descendant of Kamiizumi’s student Yagyū Munetoshi, demonstrated Shinkage-ryū with his students.
Read more about this topic: Kamiizumi Nobutsuna
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