"Musashi-style" Nito in Kendo. Practical?

[Hrodgar]

Hey there.

I have just seen the Musashi documentary (with Marc Dacascos, to specify which one) and learned about Musashis own swordmanship school with the special Nito-style where they DON'T practice as/with/such as Kendo, more like pure Katas or Jodo if I understood correctly.

But it struck me, Nito-players in Kendo must be a derivative from Musashi-school, right? How come Nito isn't "exactly" Musashi-style in Kendo, and.. would a practitoner in Musashis way have any benefits of his style in "pure" kendo as Nito?

Would it be frowned upon, or would a tournament "accept, adapt, overcome" if one would start to use it?

Damn my curiosity!

[Neil Gendzwill]

Hmm, Colin's site seems to be down right now. You can get more information here.

Musashi's style is actually called Niten Ichi Ryu, "two heavens as one". Most of the practice is with only one sword. They have some kata with two. Asking why this style isn't used in nito kendo is like asking why any other style of kenjutsu isn't used in kendo.

[dillon]

As I understand it, the Musashi-kai practices the nito kata from HNIR and have some connection to one of the minor obscure branches of the school. They stop short of claiming direct lineage though.

[IronWarrior]

I thought his style was where the right hand holds the Shoto and the left holds the Diato

[Neil Gendzwill]

Either way is acceptable for kendo.

[Raffa]

Hi Hrodgar,
you are victim of a common error, linking two sword use in exlusive with Musashi. Mushashi was the most famous samurai using (seldom) the short and long sword together, but he wasn't the only. As example the famous Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto ryu has a set of two sword kata called Ryoto-jutsu (school founded 200 years before Musashi) and other koryu have also two sword kata so it isn't an HNIR exclusive. So you can do nito ryu kendo without any koryu link. Musashikai is a different thing, they are devoted not to koryu but to kendo, trying to give to modern nito ryu (kendo) a solid theoretical base using the HNIR principles. The legitimate line of HNIR doesn't recognise them. As far as I know, in a short time there will be two Musashikai seminar, an official one in USA and an unofficial one in Germany.