their own schools, teaching on their own authority; instructors retained no
residual control over former students or students of students. It was com-
mon practice for such graduates to blend what they had learned with per-
sonal insights and/or with techniques and ideas gleaned from other teach-
ers. Often, the former students changed the name of the style, in effect
founding new ryûha in each generation. Consequently, lines of descent
from famous warriors tend to fork and branch again and again, over time
giving rise to many hundreds of ryûha.
During the Tokugawa period, the procedures surrounding martial art
instruction and the master-disciple bond became much more formal and ca-
balistic, and the koryû assumed the shapes they have retained into modern
times. One of the first steps toward institutionalization of martial art ko-
ryû was the issuing of diplomas and licenses to students. This practice be-
gan in the sixteenth century with certificates given to acknowledge “grad-
uation” from an instructor’s tutelage. The vocabulary used on and for these
certificates varied from teacher to teacher, but the most common term for
this level of achievement was menkyo-kaiden. Kaiden, which means “com-
plete transmission,” indicated that the student had learned all that the
teacher had to offer. Menkyomeans “license” or “permission,” and signi-
fied authorization to use the name of the teacher’s style in dealings with
persons outside the school—such as in duels or when seeking employment.
Medieval bugei instructors seldom formally differentiated students by
level prior to graduation; there was little need for such distinctions, inas-
much as the period of tutelage was usually brief—sometimes only a few
months. But during the Tokugawa period, as instruction became more pro-
fessionalized and more commercialized, apprenticeships became longer.
Thus, more elaborate systems of intermediate ranks were introduced, pro-
viding students with tangible measures of their progress.
Today, a few koryû have adopted the standardized dan-kyûsystem of
ranks and grades introduced by jûdô pioneer Kanô Jigorô in the late nine-
teenth century and embraced by most modern cognate martial arts. Prior
to Kanô’s innovation, however, each ryûha maintained its own system of
ranks and its own terminology for them, and most koryû continue to use
these systems today. This situation makes it difficult to compare the levels of
students from different ryûha, inasmuch as even terms used in common
sometimes represent completely different levels of achievement from school
to school. Similarly, there is no simple formula for calculating equivalencies
between koryû ranks and those of the dan-kyû system, which many koryû
view as being based on fundamentally different premises from those of their
own systems. Ranks within the koryû tend to certify not skills mastered or
status achieved so much as initiation into new and deeper levels of training.
Promotion in “rank,” therefore, signifies the granting of permission for the
Koryû Bugei, Japanese 303