I did not come to 武田流, Takeda-ryū, because everyone was talking about it. Quite the opposite, actually. I went looking for it myself, pulled one thread, then another, and before long I found myself standing in that familiar little swamp where martial history, family lineage, ritual, battlefield memory, shrine ceremony, modern politics, and suspiciously confident origin stories all stare back at me like they have been waiting for someone foolish enough to ask questions. Naturally, I kept going. Curiosity is a dangerous habit. Cheaper than gambling, perhaps, but only just.
The first thing I realised is that “Takeda-ryū” is not one neat little box on a martial arts shelf, nicely labelled, dusted, and ready for tourists. I cannot honestly treat it that way. The more I read the Japanese sources, the more I saw that Takeda-ryū is a name with branches, shadows, documents, gaps, and several different living meanings. 武田流 literally means “Takeda school” or “Takeda tradition,” but that translation is almost too tidy. 武田, Takeda, is the family or clan name; 流, ryū, means stream, current, style, school, or lineage. And that word “stream” is useful, because streams split, merge, vanish underground, and reappear somewhere inconvenient, usually just when a tidy historian wanted a straight line. In the Japanese material, I see at least three major fields that must not be lazily mashed together: 弓馬軍礼故実, kyūba gunrei kojitsu, meaning old knowledge of bow, horse, military ceremony, etiquette, and inherited precedent; 武田流合氣之術 or 武田流兵法, Takeda-ryū aiki no jutsu or Takeda-ryū heihō, meaning Takeda-style aiki technique and martial strategy; and 武田流中村派, Takeda-ryū Nakamura-ha, a modern branch that inherited from the aiki stream and did something wonderfully inconvenient with it: it made people test themselves. Imagine that. A martial art asking whether technique survives when another human being is trying to ruin my afternoon. Very rude. Very useful.
When I write 弓馬軍礼故実, I am not throwing kanji around like incense smoke to make things look deeper than they are. I mean something specific. 弓, yumi, means bow. 馬, uma or ba, means horse. 軍礼 means military ceremony or martial etiquette. 故実 means old precedent, inherited formal knowledge, the memory of how things are supposed to be done. This side of Takeda-ryū is the world of mounted archery, warrior etiquette, ritual order, and the ceremonial body of the mounted archer. It is not just “shooting arrows from a horse,” though I admit that phrase has a certain pub-friendly efficiency. 流鏑馬, yabusame, is described by the Dainippon Kyubakai as a 神事, a Shinto ritual, where the archer shoots at three targets from a horse at full speed, not merely to compete in martial skill, but to pray for 天下泰平, tenka taihei, peace under heaven; 五穀豊穣, gokoku hōjō, abundant harvest; and 万民息災, banmin sokusai, the well-being of all people. That matters to me. It means the arrow is not only a weapon. It is a prayer with feathers. A rather violent prayer, yes, but history rarely bothers to be soft just because modern people have delicate lighting and better skincare.
I like that Takeda-ryū, in this bow-and-horse sense, refuses to behave like a simple sport. I am not against sport. I like pressure. I like testing. I like the ugly little truth that appears when the body has no time to lie. But yabusame is doing something else. It is not just “hit the target, collect applause, upload slow-motion video, wait for a man with a wolf profile picture to explain samurai spirit in the comments.” No. The Dainippon Kyubakai says plainly that 流鏑馬 is not merely a contest of martial skill, but a spiritually charged ritual act of prayer. The horse runs, the archer draws, the arrow flies, and the shot becomes part of a public ceremony that binds weapon, body, shrine, land, and community. I find that far more interesting than the modern obsession with reducing everything to points, rankings, badges, and other little plastic gods.
Then there is 立ち透かし, tachisukashi, and I cannot help lingering there because one technical term can sometimes reveal the whole soul of an art. 立ち, tachi, comes from standing; 透かし, sukashi, carries a sense of letting space through, of not pressing or clamping. In the Dainippon Kyubakai explanation, 立ち透かし is a uniquely Japanese riding method where the archer does not grip the horse with the legs and keeps the hips floating just a paper-thin distance above the saddle. That posture allows the upper body to remain almost unnervingly still while the horse is galloping beneath. I love the cruelty of that. The lower world is speed, impact, hooves, danger, noise, and the possibility of public humiliation. The upper body must remain calm enough to shoot. That is not relaxation. That is discipline under threat. That is the body saying, “I am fine,” while every sensible instinct is quietly packing a suitcase and leaving.
The ideal phrase attached to this is 鞍上無人 鞍下無馬, anjō hito naku, anka uma nashi. 鞍上 means “above the saddle.” 無人 means “no person.” 鞍下 means “below the saddle.” 無馬 means “no horse.” The Dainippon Kyubakai gives the meaning as the unity of rider and horse, 人馬一体, jinba ittai, where the movements become so harmonised that it is as if the rider does not feel the horse and the horse does not feel the rider. I find that beautiful because it insults the ego in the most elegant possible way. The modern ego wants to say, “Look at me controlling the horse.” The old ideal says, “If I am still showing off as a separate little monarch bouncing above the animal, I have not understood anything.” The target may break. The crowd may clap. I may still be technically ridiculous. Tradition can be very polite while calling me useless. That is part of its charm.
The technical structure is not vague either. The sources speak of 騎射, kisha, mounted shooting, and within that world there are forms such as 流鏑馬, yabusame; 笠懸, kasagake; and 犬追物, inuoumono. The Dainippon Kyubakai explains that kisha includes these three, while treating yabusame, because it is 神事, as something especially distinct. I think that distinction is important. 笠懸, kasagake, involves different target arrangements and shooting angles. 犬追物, inuoumono, historically means “dog chasing,” a medieval mounted archery exercise that modern sensibility will naturally find uncomfortable. And yabusame, the most publicly recognised form today, places the archer on a running horse shooting at three targets to the left. Even the shooting angles have names. 弓手横, yunde-yoko, means shooting to the bow-hand side, usually the left side. 弓手筋違, yunde-sugai, means shooting diagonally down-left. 馬手筋違, mete-sugai, means shooting diagonally down-right across the horse’s neck. That last one is the sort of technical demand that makes me suspect the old warriors had a very dry sense of humour. “Can you shoot from a galloping horse?” “Yes.” “Splendid. Now shoot down-right across the horse’s neck while maintaining ritual composure.” Lovely. Shall I also file my taxes during the second target?
What grips me about this side of Takeda-ryū is that the ceremony itself is part of the technique. I do not see the ritual as decoration pasted onto martial skill. I see the ritual as the frame that gives the skill its meaning. The Dainippon Kyubakai’s public event explanations mention 天長地久の式, tenchō chikyū no shiki, a ceremony in which the archer draws toward heaven and earth while praying for peace, harvest, and public welfare; 素馳, subase, a full-speed run without releasing arrows; 奉射, hōsha, shooting as an offering to the deity; 競射, kyōsha, competitive shooting among those who performed well; and 凱陣の式, gaijin no shiki, a concluding inspection with old symbolic weight. I do not think this is “just pageantry.” Pageantry is what happens when people remember the clothing but forget the danger. This is different. This is a martial ritual where timing, posture, horse, bow, arrow, shrine, and community expectation all tighten around the archer at once. Frankly, I find that more frightening than most modern competitions. At least in a normal match, nobody expects me to embody cosmic order while moving at speed.
The material culture matters too. The Dainippon Kyubakai names equipment such as 重籐の弓, shigetō no yumi, a rattan-wrapped bow; 神頭矢, jindōya, ritual whistling arrows used without iron arrowheads because blood is avoided in the rite; 和鞍, wagura, the Japanese saddle; and 和鐙, waabumi, Japanese stirrups. It also notes that the production techniques for some of these horse fittings have largely died out, so old pieces are repaired and reused. That one detail says more about preservation than a hundred sentimental slogans. Tradition is not a mood. It is maintenance. It is saddle repair, equipment storage, role training, boring rehearsals, weather concerns, children’s programmes, committee work, old documents, old grudges, and people trying to keep a difficult thing alive while the modern world politely offers them cheaper hobbies.
This is why I am careful with history. I do not want to flatten Takeda-ryū into mythology, but I also do not want to sneer at myth so loudly that I miss the documents. The strongest historical ground, as I read it, lies in the mounted archery and 弓馬故実 side. The Tokyo University Historiographical Institute research says that the formation of bow-and-horse precedent from the Sengoku to Edo periods was かなり複雑, “quite complex,” and not yet fully clarified. It also says that modern yabusame traditions are mainly divided into 武田流 and 小笠原流, Takeda-ryū and Ogasawara-ryū, and that research on the Kaneko family materials aims to clarify the historical lineage of modern Kamakura yabusame through cataloguing and original-document analysis. That phrase “quite complex” is a gift. It saves me from the childish need for perfect straight lines. History is not a train timetable. Half the time it is a drunken messenger carrying a scroll through a burning province.
The same Tokyo research notes that after three rounds of investigation, a catalogue was completed for 329 items, mainly booklets, in the Kaneko family materials. It also says that comparison with the Hosokawa family documents and the Takehara Yōjirō family documents showed that Takeda-style precedent had, in some contexts, absorbed or been studied alongside Ogasawara material and transformed into something that could almost be called “Takehara-ryū.” That is not an insult to Takeda-ryū. It is precisely what makes it historically alive. A tradition that passes through families, domains, teachers, manuscripts, shrine practice, and modern institutions is going to change. Of course it is. The alternative is not purity. The alternative is death with good branding.
The catalogue of 武田流金子司家史料, Takeda-ryū Kaneko tsukasa-ke shiryo, gives another serious anchor. It describes materials preserved by the Kaneko family in Kamakura and explains that the Takeda-style bow-and-horse precedent was transmitted from 若狭武田氏, the Wakasa Takeda, through 武田信直, Takeda Nobunao, also known as 吸松斎清芸, Kyūshōsai Seigei, to 竹原惟成, Takehara Korenari, a retainer connected with the Kumamoto Hosokawa house. It also links the broader material world to the Takehara family, Hosokawa documents, Inoue Heita, and Kaneko Yūrin, with transmission surviving in Kamakura and Kumamoto. This is the kind of historical evidence I actually like: not a shiny legend floating above the ground, but names, documents, copies, colophons, archives, and the slow stubbornness of paper. Paper is not romantic until I remember how easily paper burns. Then it becomes heroic. Quietly heroic, which is usually the best kind.
Some of the listed materials are wonderfully revealing: 犬追物類鏡, Inuoumono ruikyō, related to the old dog-chasing mounted archery tradition; 十如院弓馬記, Jūnyoin kyūba-ki, a bow-and-horse record; 馬術相伝聞書, bajutsu sōden kikigaki, notes on transmitted horsemanship; 武家故実考 and 弓馬故実記, works on warrior precedent and bow-horse precedent; 鞭手綱口伝之事, muchi tazuna kuden no koto, oral teachings on whip and reins. I read those titles and I feel the actual texture of a tradition: not only heroic poses, but reins, saddles, documents, angles, roles, and formal memory. This is where the romance becomes sharper, not softer. Anyone can claim ancient spirit. It is harder to preserve the boring details that let spirit become repeatable.
Kumamoto matters in this picture too. The 武田流流鏑馬保存会, Takeda-ryū Yabusame Preservation Association, presents itself as preserving 武田流騎射流鏑馬, Takeda-style mounted yabusame, and its own page describes the organisation as working to pass on one of the two orthodox old martial mounted-archery lines in Japan. I read that sort of statement carefully, because organisations naturally defend their own legitimacy. Of course they do. Organisations without self-belief tend to become newsletters and then ghosts. But I also take seriously the visible preservation work: public dedication, local transmission, children’s training programmes, and continuing activity in Kumamoto. The unglamorous fact of people still gathering, training, teaching, and performing is not the same as proof of every ancient claim, but it is proof of cultural life. That matters.
Then I cross into the world of 武田流合氣之術, Takeda-ryū aiki no jutsu, and I have to change gears. 合氣, aiki, is now more commonly written 合気, with 気 replacing the older 氣. 合 means joining, matching, fitting, or coming together. 氣 or 気 can mean breath, spirit, energy, mood, atmosphere, or vital intention depending on context. 之術, no jutsu, means “the art of.” So 合氣之術 is not, in my reading, a floating cloud of mystical energy. I read it more soberly as the art of joining with force, timing, structure, intention, and contact in order to control the encounter. The Nihon Kobudō Kyōkai page presents 武田流合氣之術 also as 武田流兵法, Takeda-ryū heihō, heihō meaning martial method or strategy. It gives the tradition’s internal origin story through 清和源氏新羅三郎義光, Seiwa Genji Shinra Saburō Yoshimitsu, and the Kai Takeda family, then speaks of transmission through Kyushu and the Kuroda domain context. I do not throw that away. But I do not swallow it whole either. I place it where it belongs: as the school’s traditional self-understanding, to be respected and examined without kneeling before every claim like a frightened courtier.
This is the line I keep drawing for myself: tradition is not automatically false because it contains legend, and legend is not automatically history because it contains old names. I refuse both lazy extremes. One crowd believes every lineage chart as if kanji were carbon dating. The other crowd rolls its eyes at anything that cannot be turned into a modern academic footnote before lunch. I find both positions dull. I want the harder thing. I want to read the claim, understand why the school tells the story that way, and then ask what the sources can actually support. In the case of Takeda-ryū aiki, the publicly clearer ground becomes much firmer around names such as 中村吉翁, Nakamura Kichiō; 大庭一翁, Ōba Ichiō; 池田一晶, Ikeda Isshō; 日影渉, Hikage Wataru; and 平倉恭介, Hirakura Kyōsuke. The Nihon Kobudō Kyōkai describes Ōba as someone who developed and spread the art through 聖武殿, Seibuden, while later preservation efforts tried to reconnect the aiki side with older Takeda heihō material. That is already fascinating without forcing me to pretend every earlier century is equally documented.
The technical philosophy of this aiki/heihō stream feels different from yabusame. The mounted archery side gives me ritual order, prayer, balance, and human-horse unity. The aiki side gives me compression, contact, control, and the unpleasant adult question of what power is for. The Nihon Kobudō Kyōkai says 武田流合氣之術 is strong in 活殺自在, kassatsu jizai. 活 means to give life, restore, or preserve. 殺 means to kill or destroy. 自在 means freely, at will, with mastery. So 活殺自在 is not a cute slogan for a poster. It means having command over the spectrum between restraint and destruction. That is a terrifying idea if taken seriously, and a ridiculous one if printed on a hoodie by someone who cannot control their temper in traffic. The same source says the art is characterised by 手刀構え, shutō-gamae, open-hand “hand-sword” posture; 投げ固め, nage-katame, throwing and pinning; and 手刀打ち, shutō-uchi, hand-sword striking. It also describes the old heihō side as using 長刀, naginata or long-bladed weapon methods; 槍, yari, spear; 體術, taijutsu, body art; 太刀打ち, tachi-uchi, sword engagement; and a 秘伝の握り, hiden no nigiri, secret gripping method or principle. That is not incense and pleasant trousers. That is close-range decision-making with consequences.
I am especially interested in 手刀, shutō, the “hand sword.” 手 means hand. 刀 means sword. Many martial artists say “knife hand” and then wave at the air like they are chopping vegetables in a haunted kitchen. But here I read 手刀 as a deeper structural idea. The hand becomes a line. The open palm becomes a blade-like frame. The empty hand borrows the logic of the weapon. It can strike, enter, cut across balance, guide, break posture, throw, and pin. In that sense, Takeda-ryū aiki does not feel to me like “soft magic.” It feels like weapon logic entering the body. That is a much more interesting thing, and much harder to fake. Soft magic can be performed with dim lighting and cooperative students. Weapon logic is less forgiving. It has the social warmth of a tax audit and the moral charm of a falling brick.
Then comes 武田流中村派, Takeda-ryū Nakamura-ha, and this is where I smile because the whole subject becomes more rebellious. 中村派 means the Nakamura branch. Its major figure is 中村久, Nakamura Hisashi. The Nakamura-ha official history says that he entered the dojo of the 43rd sōke, 大庭一翁, in 1950, later worked to keep the school alive after Ōba’s death, restarted training activity in Shinjuku in 1961, saw student groups form at Rikkyo University and Nihon University, helped establish the 日本合氣道連盟 in 1963, and held a first aikidō championship tournament in 1964, which the source itself frames as highly unusual at the time. I like this because it asks a question many martial arts quietly try to avoid: what happens when the other person does not cooperate? Not in a demonstration. Not in a polite kata where the attack has all the menace of a formal email. In a match. Under pressure. With timing, fear, resistance, mistakes, and the small but educational collapse of dignity.
What I respect about Nakamura-ha is that it does not simply throw kata into the bin and start worshipping trophies like a modern barbarian in a tracksuit. The official Nakamura-ha page says the strength of matches is that they can help practitioners acquire 理に適った技, ri ni kanatta waza, techniques that accord with principle, but it also admits the danger: competition can become forceful and strength-based. That honesty matters. It says the school knows the medicine can become poison. It also says rank is not earned by match performance alone; kata examinations remain separate and necessary. I find that very sane. Kata without pressure can become beautiful taxidermy. Pressure without kata can become strong stupidity. Principle without either can become a lecture delivered by someone who says “energy” too often at dinner. Nakamura-ha, at its best, seems to drag all three into the same room and make them argue until something honest appears.
Technically, Nakamura-ha is broad: 合氣道, aikidō in its own Takeda-derived usage; 居合道, iaidō, the way of drawing the sword; 柔拳法, jūkenpō, a flexible fist method combining striking and grappling; 杖道, jōdō, staff method; plus unusual material such as 手裏剣術, shurikenjutsu, throwing blade art; 手木術, tegijutsu, short wooden implement techniques; and 太刀打之術, tachi-uchi no jutsu, sword engagement. The official Nakamura-ha page says its distinctive character is that not only aikidō, but also jūkenpō, iaidō, and jōdō have match formats. I can almost hear some traditionalists choking politely into their tea. But I do not find it vulgar. I find it brave, with the usual warning that bravery and foolishness are cousins who borrow each other’s jackets. Competition can distort an art, yes. Rules create habits. People game systems. Winning becomes a little idol with sweaty hands. But no pressure at all creates another distortion: the sacred technician whose technique works perfectly as long as nobody behaves like an actual opponent. A rare creature, of course. I am sure none of us have ever met one.
The Nakamura-ha aikidō format called 綜合乱取試合, sōgō randori shiai, tells me a lot. 綜合 means comprehensive or integrated. 乱取, randori, means free taking or free practice. 試合 means match. In this format, the official page says practitioners wear 打ち甲手, uchi-gote, leather hand protectors, and strike each other with 手刀 while aiming at the front, side head, and side body targets; points can be scored through effective hand-sword strikes or by evading and throwing. That is a very different image from the soft-focus popular idea of aiki arts. Then there is 捕技乱取試合, torite randori shiai, where one side attacks with strikes, grabs, thrusts, or kicks and the defender responds with prescribed techniques, judged on correctness, flow, response, and execution. I like the tension between those two forms. One asks whether I can function in the moving mess. The other asks whether my technique still has grammar. Martial arts need both. Grammar without chaos writes elegant nonsense. Chaos without grammar is just two mammals having a bad evening.
The jūkenpō side is no little decorative annex either. 柔, jū, suggests softness, flexibility, adaptability. 拳, ken, means fist. 法, hō, means method. The Nakamura-ha official description of 組手乱取試合, kumite randori shiai, includes punches, kicks, throws, joint techniques, and chokes, with protective gear and rules for 技あり, waza-ari, partial point, and 一本, ippon, decisive point. That rule structure interests me because it shows the art negotiating danger. Too safe, and the training becomes theatre. Too free, and the dojo becomes a casualty report with better calligraphy. Good rules are not cowardice. They are what allow people to train dangerous things more than once. A rather boring truth, perhaps, but most useful truths do arrive badly dressed.
The sword and staff formats are even stranger, which I mean as praise. 組抜刀試合, kumi-battō shiai, is a paired sword-drawing match judged by the correctness and speed of cutting actions. 抜刀斬試合, battō-giri shiai, can involve cutting rolled straw with a real sword within a set time. In 杖道, jōdō, the official page describes 組杖乱捕試合, kumi-jō rantori shiai, using a bamboo staff-like weapon covered in cloth, with strikes and throws, and 捕杖乱取試合, tori-jō randori shiai, using an oak staff where the defender responds with throws and pins. The source explicitly notes that because a weapon is involved, closing distance carelessly is more dangerous and 間合い, maai, becomes especially important. 間 means interval, space, timing. 合い means meeting, fitting, coming together. Maai is not just range. It is the living gap where intention becomes consequence. In other words, it is the tiny space where confidence either becomes technique or receives a wooden reminder.
I also have to separate Takeda-ryū from 大東流合気柔術, Daitō-ryū aiki-jūjutsu, because confusion here multiplies like damp in an old British flat. Daitō-ryū is the tradition associated with 武田惣角, Takeda Sōkaku, and it has its own history and enormous influence on modern aikidō. Takeda-ryū aiki and Daitō-ryū share certain Takeda/Genji origin language and the word aiki, but I do not treat them as the same stream. I think careless blending makes both less interesting. When I speak here of Takeda-ryū, I am speaking of the name-complex I researched in Japanese sources: the bow-horse ritual and etiquette tradition, the aiki/heihō tradition described by Japanese kobudō sources, and the Nakamura-ha branch that modernised and pressure-tested its curriculum. If someone tosses all of that into one bucket and calls it “samurai stuff,” I reserve the right to stare at the wall for a moment in spiritual self-defence.
So what is the philosophy of Takeda-ryū, if I dare to use the singular? I do not think there is one clean philosophy. I think there is a set of tensions, and that is better. In the yabusame stream, I see stillness inside speed, ritual inside violence, prayer inside marksmanship, and the ego dissolved into 人馬一体, human-horse unity. In the aiki/heihō stream, I see the severe responsibility of 活殺自在, the freedom to preserve or destroy, which only sounds noble if the practitioner has moral discipline; otherwise it is just a villain speech with better posture. In Nakamura-ha, I see the rebellious insistence that form must meet pressure, that principle should not be allowed to sit safely in a glass cabinet forever. And in the historical research itself, I see another philosophy that martial artists badly need: humility before evidence. I do not need every story to be perfectly ancient. I need it to be treated honestly. If something is documented, I will say it is documented. If something is tradition, I will say it is tradition. If something is unclear, I will not paint certainty over the gap and call it loyalty. That is not loyalty. That is interior decorating for insecurity.
I think this is why Takeda-ryū has stayed in my head. It refuses to become comfortable. It is aristocratic and practical. Ceremonial and violent. Preserved and transformed. Documented in places, misty in others. It contains horses, bows, shrine prayers, saddles, arrows, scrolls, hand-sword strikes, throws, pins, spears, sword engagements, staff matches, university clubs, cultural preservation, and more institutional complexity than polite people like to mention. Good. History was never polite. History was hungry, devout, vain, terrified, disciplined, ambitious, muddy, and occasionally convinced of its own excellent manners while doing something appalling. Takeda-ryū still smells a little of that mud, and I mean that as praise. Too many martial arts today smell of laminate flooring and motivational slogans. Give me the tradition that makes me ask difficult questions. Give me the one that forces me to separate evidence from romance without killing the romance. Give me the one that does not let me sleepwalk through the word “traditional.”
So when I say 武田流, I do not mean one shining sword pulled from a mythic scabbard while dramatic music behaves itself in the background. I mean a name that branches. I mean 弓馬軍礼故実, the old bow-horse-military etiquette tradition, where 流鏑馬 becomes prayer at speed. I mean 立ち透かし, the riding method that turns chaos into posture. I mean 鞍上無人 鞍下無馬, the strange and beautiful erasure of rider and horse as separate things. I mean 合氣之術, the art of aiki, where the hand becomes a sword and control carries the moral burden of choosing how much harm is enough. I mean 兵法, heihō, martial method, where older weapon and body principles refuse to become museum dust. I mean 中村派, Nakamura-ha, where competition is not treated as vulgar corruption but as a dangerous test: useful, flawed, necessary, and slightly rude. I mean documents too, because without documents we are all just standing around in black belts telling bedtime stories. Some bedtime stories are lovely. Some are even true. But I prefer mine with citations and a pulse.
And that is why I do not want to sell Takeda-ryū as a clean legend. Clean legends are easy. They are also usually dead. I would rather look at the living mess: the ritual archer trying to become still on a running horse; the old scroll that survived because someone bothered; the hand-sword that treats the empty palm as a blade; the kata that must not become taxidermy; the match that must not become mere brawling; the lineage claim that deserves respect but not blind obedience; the historical gap that should remain visible because covering it with gold leaf does not make it a bridge. Takeda-ryū, to me, is not interesting because it is simple. It is interesting because it is not. It asks me to stand between reverence and suspicion, which is exactly where serious research begins. And yes, that is an awkward place to stand. But martial arts were never meant to be comfortable. Comfortable things rarely teach me much, except perhaps sofas, and even they betray the spine eventually.