A jūjutsu of the Morioka domain
Shosho-ryū (諸賞流) is a school of Japanese jūjutsu long transmitted in the Morioka domain, in what is now Iwate Prefecture in Japan. Its full name is Kanze-mato-shin Shoshō Yōgan Koden-ryū, and its curriculum joins grappling to a rope-binding art, with a jūjutsu noted for strikes to the legs and elbows and for attacks to the eyes. The tradition claims a legendary ancient descent, but it is documented as a martial art of the northern Nanbu domain.
Legend and record
The school's own account traces its origins to a remote antiquity and a succession of renamings across the centuries, a genealogy that belongs to legend rather than to verifiable history. What can be documented is its life as a jūjutsu of the Morioka domain, where it was handed down among the retainers of the Nanbu house through the Edo period.
A northern domain's grappling and binding art, guarded across the centuries.
A living tradition of Iwate
Shosho-ryū continues to be transmitted in the city of Morioka, where it is preserved as a classical martial art and has been recognised as a municipal intangible cultural property. It stands among the koryū of the far north that have survived into the present as living local traditions.