Ichijoji

  Still from the movie Sekigahara (2017) – good use of a short sword. The katana is, perhaps, the sword most closely associated with the sam...

I try not to spend too much time scrolling through online feeds, but like most of us, I suspect, I often find myself doing it more than I wo...

The snow yesterday (not so common these days, and comparatively light compared to much of the rest of the country) reminded me of this cla...

  So an old year leaves and a new one comes around. And in Japan that means the start of a new animal year according to the Chinese zodiac (...

  A real antique kumade - this one was more than  260cm long We looked at the military rake (kumade) last month, so now it’s time to see how...

From the Scroll of the Mongol Invasion ( Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba) - a fine example of a kumade in the centre. Today, seeing the leaves beginning...

The late Otake Risuke, master of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto R yū   Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryū is one of the oldest extant school...