Autobiography of Takamatsu Toshitsugu

(Some selections)

Cited from …

My teacher of the Koto ryu koppo jutsu and the Togakure ryu ninjutsu was TODA SHINRYKEN MASAMITSU SENSEI. Toda sensei began teaching me first koshi jutsu when I was nine years old. Whilst I was young I had a few too many fights these I have to say were in my own protection. When I was fifteen I had a fight with two masters of Musashi ryu during which my ear drum was ruptured this later stopped me from joining the children's army.

When I was seventeen, my family had a match factory, during this time an elderly man by the name of Ishitani called by the factory using a bokken as a walking stick. He was a very famous martial artist, but as will all other martial artist's he could not earn a living from it during this period. So my family employed him as a guard at the factory. Together with another person we made a dojo at the factory and Ishitani sensei began teaching us Kuki Happo Biken no jutsu as well as other martial arts including a variety of weapons, such as swords, bo, shuriken etc. But above all he trained me in the art of ninjutsu. He was already a very old man and after two years died upon my lap.
I trained in Karate koppojutsu and this training is very difficult. At first you should train the fingers and toes using sand. Next you use small pebbles and then a rock, at first your nails and finger tips will flow with blood, it will be very painful and difficult to persevere. I developed very strong fingers and toes from this practice, however this sort of training is useless nowadays and just a little Makawari training is sufficient. I say this because it is very easy to damage the joints causing problems later on in life.

Any way the most important thing is to keep the essence of a true heart.
In the martial arts there is no need to concentrate only on the aspect of winning when fighting. However not to commit ones self to the fight is not a Martial art – it is simply violence and such a person does not have an honest heart and is antihumanist.

A true martial art wins by using the natural movements of the highest quality techniques and if one moves the body according to this theory then one will of course win. In Martial Arts you need three points these are:

1. Body power
2. The learning of techniques
3. The spirit power

With these you can truly win.

When I had been training for some time I decided that I wanted to know more about myself and Ninjutsu, so I went to a mountain know as Maya San in Kobe prefecture. At the mountain I lived by a waterfall called Kamenotaki for a period of one year. I stayed in a cottage the size of two tatami mats and lived on beans with no boiled rice. My training partners were the rocks around my cottage. Sometimes I would exercise my finger tips by hitting the rocks. I would jump up onto the rocks with my kiai and then jump off. During this time I developed a special sense, for instance I could stand at the top of the mountain and know how many people were coming up, I could tell if they were men or women or otherwise. I became known as the sennin or tengu of the mountain. I went to China in the CHIN era and travelled through Mongolia and northern China, for a period of about ten years. During this period I met a shorinji boxer named Choshiro, we had a fight and I beat him. We became very close friends, like brothers. This was how I was introduced to the president of the Sino Martial Arts Association.

This is an important point when we talk of techniques we are not talking about moving the body in an exact direction. There's a phrase in the Chinese book of strategy. "UTSU RYO SHI" that says how the victorious soldier is like water. This is because the water is both weak and soft and yet if there is a strong influence on it like a hill even the hill can be decimated. On the surface it appears like the soft cannot win. And yet soft can be stronger. This is like individual techniques, they are strong on the outside but weak within.

To train you must do so at any time in any condition. I remember my Grandfathers training hall was lit by candles and you had to use all your senses to know who had entered and if they were friends or not. Sometimes we would get ready for training and he would take us outside (in the winter) if you did not have on you outside clothes you would die from the cold so you had to know before. This also teaches bravery and courage. Use all your senses all of the times. You must train like fire because this is how the sword is made if you sweat this is like the cooling and forging process. You must keep your vision broad even after practising a skill for a long time if you fail to anything else then your vision will become narrow. If when training you think you are not learning then wait ten years this will change. On injuries I have had many too many to remember them all, for if you truly have to fight for your life this is bound to happen.

Toshitsugu Takamatsu 33rd grand master of Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu