Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu

Who was Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu?

Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu is mentioned in the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten as being the head master of several styles of Japanese martial arts, including:

⁕Gyokko-ryū|Gyokko-ryū Kosshijutsu

⁕Kotō-ryū Koppōjutsu

⁕Shinden Fudo Ryu|Shinden Fudō-ryū Dakentaijutsu

During the later part of the Tokugawa period, the government ordered the building of a national military academy. According to Bujinkan sources, in 1855 Toda was appointed as chief budo instructor by Matsudaira Noriyasu. The Bujinkan founder, Masaaki Hatsumi, indicates that Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu taught his skills to Toshitsugu Takamatsu, who later passed them on to him.

Bujinkan sources indicate that Toda taught the following "five precepts for ninpo" :

⁕1. To know that patience comes first.

⁕2. To know that the path of mankind comes from justice.

⁕3. To renounce greed, laziness, and obstinacy.

⁕4. To recognize sadness, worry, and resentment as natural and to seek the immovable heart.

⁕5. To not stray from the path of loyalty and brotherly love and to delve always deeper into the heart of budo pursuing the ways of both the literary and martial arts with balanced determination.