Fusen-ryū (不遷流) is a Japanese school of jūjutsu founded in the nineteenth century by Takeda Motsugai, a Zen monk remembered for extraordinary physical strength. It is best known today through a famous and much-repeated story about ground grappling and the early history of judo.
The monk Motsugai
Takeda Motsugai (1795 to 1867) was a Buddhist priest who taught across several provinces and gathered a wide reputation, part martial and part legendary, for his power and character. The jūjutsu that carries the name Fusen-ryū descends from his teaching.
On the ground a smaller grappler can borrow time and leverage that standing never gives.
The famous newaza story
The story most often told about Fusen-ryū is that one of its grapplers, frequently named as Tanabe Mataemon, defeated Kōdōkan judo men by taking the fight to the ground, and that this pushed Kanō Jigorō to develop judo's own newaza, its ground techniques. The tale is widely repeated and probably reflects the real contests of the Meiji era, when judo and the older jūjutsu schools tested one another. Its exact details, including which matches took place and whether Tanabe's art is best labelled Fusen-ryū in a strict sense, are uncertain and debated. Ryūpedia presents it as an influential tradition rather than as established fact.
What it teaches
Fusen-ryū is a grappling art of throws, joint locks and pins, and in the lines associated with the newaza story, a developed body of work on the ground. Some lines also retain weapon kata alongside the unarmed techniques.
Honesty note
The school survives only in part and through more than one claim, so single-line assertions about the one true Fusen-ryū should be treated with care.