Morooka Ippa
諸岡一羽
Founder of Ippa-ryū at Edosaki in Hitachi, who entrusted his art to three eminent disciples
Description
Origins
Morooka Ippa (c. 1533-c. 1593) was a swordsman of the Sengoku period and the founder of Ippa-ryū. His name is also written Morooka with an alternative character. He is transmitted as the son of Morooka Tsuneyoshi, a descendant of the Toki clan of Mino Province. His dates are usually given as birth in 1533 and death in 1593, but an alternative tradition places him roughly a century earlier, and the question remains unsettled.
The Founding of Ippa-ryū
He studied within the Katori Shintō-ryū lineage descending from Iizasa Chōisai, and on that foundation added innovations of his own to found Ippa-ryū. Based at Edosaki in Hitachi Province (present-day Inashiki, Ibaraki Prefecture), he served the Tokihara clan who governed the district before establishing himself as a martial instructor and training disciples. In forming a major centre of sword instruction in the Kantō region, he occupies an important place in the history of Sengoku-period swordsmanship.
The Three Eminent Disciples
Ippa had many students, but three in particular — Negishi Tokaku, Iwama Oguma and Tsuchiko Dorosuke — were known as his three eminent disciples. Each of them, having received transmission of his technique, would later establish a line of his own.
Later Years and the Conduct of His Disciples
In his later years Ippa contracted a grave illness, transmitted as leprosy, and most of his students drifted away. Of the three eminent disciples, Negishi Tokaku is said to have abandoned his teacher, gone to Edo, and there proclaimed his own Mijin-ryū, gathering many followers. Iwama Oguma and Tsuchiko Dorosuke, by contrast, remained with their master to the end and attended his death. His grave is said to lie at Dainen-ji in Edosaki.
Legacy
From Ippa's lineage there branched, besides Ippa-ryū itself, the Iwama-ryū (also called Ikkan-ryū) descending from Iwama Oguma, and Negishi Tokaku's Mijin-ryū, among others. Tennen Rishin-ryū, the school practised by Kondō Isami, commander of the Shinsengumi, is also held to trace its headwaters to Ippa's line. From the standpoint of sword history he is a figure of particular interest as a junction showing how practical blade technique was systematised in the late Sengoku Kantō and handed on to the dōjō swordsmanship of the Bakumatsu era.
Related Warriors
九戸政実
Sengoku to Azuchi-Momoyama periodKunohe Masazane
Leader of the Kunohe Rebellion, the final battle of Hideyoshi's unification of Japan
長束正家
Sengoku to Azuchi-Momoyama PeriodNatsuka Masaie
One of Toyotomi's Five Magistrates, Near-Omi Administrator Who Supported Hideyoshi's Regime with Arithmetical Genius
前田玄以
Sengoku to Azuchi-Momoyama periodMaeda Gen'i
From monk to one of Hideyoshi's Five Commissioners — the Kyoto shoshidai who managed the court and the temples