This year's koryu bujutsu demonstration organized by the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai (日本古武道協会, Old Japanese Martial Arts Association) took place at the usual date, but in a different location, due to the renovation works currently ongoing at the Nippon Budokan.

Those who imagine traditional Japanese martial art schools (koryu, 古流) to be exclusive organisations that are dedicated to the refinement of ancient warfare techniques in the most complete secrecy are often taken aback when they realize that on the contrary, one of the main activities of those schools resides in public performances during demonstrations that are held jointly with other schools. There are not one but two overarching organisations that gather those koryu, namely the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai (日本古武道協会, Old Japanese Martial Arts Association) and the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai (日本古武道振興, Japanese Kobudo Promotion Association). I spoke previously about the former, which is responsible for the Nihon Kobudo Embu Taikai (日本古武道演武大会) held at the Nippon Budokan held each year in February. Today, I would like to share some videos I shot during the other major demonstration, the Meiji Jingu Hono Nihon Kobudo Taikai (明治神宮奉納日本古武道大会), organized each year under the auspices of the Kobudo Shinkokai at Meiji Jingu (明治神宮, Meiji Shrine) on the occasion of the birthday of Emperor Meiji (3 November 1852 – 30 July 1912).

Donn F. Draeger was a military veteran of WWII and Korea, a pioneer of physical training methods and a practitioner of modern Japanese martial ways (budo). He was also the first non-Japanese to study a number of classical martial arts (koryu), the author of definitive books on those arts, and the founder of a study of human combative behavior, called Hoplology. We still do now know the full extent of his achievements by his untimely death in 1982, but he was, through his perseverance, abilities and example, known even to the Japanese as, sensei.

The 42nd edition of the Nippon Budokan's annual kobudo demonstration took place last weekend. The event also marked the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai (日本古武道協会, Old Japanese Martial Arts Association).

IThe 41st edition of the Kobudo Demonstration took place at the Nippon Budokan on Sunday, February, 4th. this year also marked the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration, which is also, perhaps, an opportunity to reflect upon the nature of budo (martial way), and the elusive notion of bushido (warrior's way). Like every year, 35 schools, some several hundreds of years old, demonstrated their their art to a crowd of budo enthusiasts who observed attentively in a respectful silence.

On Sunday February 9th 2014, the Nippon Budokan welcomed representatives of 35 schools of traditional Japanese martial arts during the 37th Kobudo Embutakai. This annual show is one of the most important events related to Koryu that take place in Tokyo, the other major one being the demonstration taking place in March at Meiji Jingu Shrine. However, the conditions were not ideal this year since one of the most severe snowstorms of the past twenty years had just passed over the country the previous day, killing 11 people, leaving 40,000 homes without electricity, and leading to the cancellation of over 700 flights. In spite of this, the passion of all these experts originating from all over Japan was such that they braved the elements and reached a Tokyo covered with 27 cm of snow in order to present their respective arts. Here details and videos of 11 out of the 35 demonstrations that took place on that day.

Even though firearms had been introduced in Japan from China as early as the 13th century, these were rather primitive and pretty impractical on the battlefield as they consisted of nothing more than a metal tube that was either mounted or hand-held. It took the arrival of the Portuguese in 1543, the first Europeans ever to land in Japan, to bring a significant improvement to these weapons. This technological change would trigger radical changes in the way warfare was conducted and it can be argued that the whole history of Japan was changed because of the advantage that these new weapons provided to those who equipped their armed forces with them. This led the way to firearms frenzy and the development of a whole range of techniques, formalized within the discipline of Hojustu in order to improve their effectiveness.