Every practitioner of Japanese budo has heard about the legendary Butokuden. Completed in 1899, it served as the HQ dojo for the Dai-Nippon Butokukai from then until the end of World War 2, after which it changed hands a few times, finally coming under the safe ownership and protection of Kyoto city. Despite undergoing a […]
Of the three great private dojo in Japan (日本の３大私塾道場) – Honma Dojo (Chiba), Shubukan (Hyogo), and Tobukan (Ibaraki) – two remain extant at the time of writing this article: Shubukan and Tobukan. Having been to Shubukan, I decided to take sometime out of my schedule and go to practise at the legendary Tobukan in Mito […]
Founding of the Butokuden in 1895 on the 1,100 year anniversary of the transferring of the Japanese capitol to Kyoto (Heian-kyo), and as part of the building of Heian-jingu, the Butokuden construction began. It was originally meant as a demonstration platform for the Butokukai. It was completed in 1899 on the north-west side of the […]
(The following is a guest post by Leiv Harstad from 2009.) “The night bus to Tokyo: a nine hour hell ride in a muggy sardine can, with an interior that is all too reminiscent of a cheap airport hotel, and a smell to match. This is the chariot of thrifty foreign travelers, poor university students, and gassy […]
Yagyu no sato (柳生の里) is a small village in Nara prefecture, Japan. Passing through it in a car or by very infrequent bus, you would probably notice nothing particularly different to any other sleepy rural Japanese town. However, this town was the center of Yagyu-han, the ancestral home of the Yagyu family, the masters of […]