Pics of the masters

**patfromlogan** · Posted On: 8/27/2007 9:11pm

ttt, Takamatsu make me a believer. This was a good post and I'm bringing it to the end, where there are less blanks.

Originally Posted by Spunky

Toshitsugu Takamatsu. Spent a decade in China and Korea during the 1920's in the service of various warlords, teaching martial arts, and was a president of the Sino-Ippon Martial Arts Federation. Won or found stalemate in 12 duels, 7 of which were mortal, and wrote that he'd estimated killing at least a hundred people in battle. I've read that in addition to the nine koryu ryuha he was soke of (most famously in his day Kukishinden ryu), he mastered something like 18 mainland systems. Earned the nickname Mongolian Tiger on his travels.

He went through intensive strike conditioning. A newspaper reporter described him stripping bark off trees with an effortless pass of his hands, driving holes into the trunk with a five-fingertip strike, and breaking small rocks with a thrust from his pinky.

Pictured with Akimoto Fumio, his senior student who died in a car accident, and Soke Masaaki Hatsumi.

A couple pictures of him training Hatsumi. Even as a skeleton of a man, Hatsumi's students who briefly met the man described feeling cold fear of him, and from these pictures I don't doubt it.

**patfromlogan** · Posted On: 8/27/2007 9:18pm

Ah, Bluming and Oyama

**Basho** · Posted On: 10/16/2007 7:14am

Yamaoka Tesshu

Yamakoa Tesshu, the founder of the No-sword school of Kendo, was a master swordsman, calligrapher, Zen practitioner, and embodied the samurai ideal of the peaceful warrior.

There is a very good book on his life that highlights the (defeat) 300 man (!) examinations for a teaching grade.

Basho

www.outsidecontext.com