The drawing sword of the Yagyū line
Yagyū Seigō-ryū (柳生制剛流) is a tradition of Japanese sword-drawing, or battōjutsu, transmitted alongside the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū. It descends from Seigō-ryū, a school founded by Mizuhaya Chōzaemon Nobumasa, whose drawing techniques were absorbed into the Yagyū curriculum and handed down together with its swordsmanship, so that the two are practised as companion arts.
From Seigō-ryū to Yagyū battō
Seigō-ryū began as a broad system that included grappling, capturing and drawing techniques; the sword-drawing portion is what became attached to the Yagyū line as Yagyū Seigō-ryū. The exact steps by which it joined the Yagyū tradition are recorded mainly through the schools involved, so Ryūpedia describes the connection rather than asserting a precise founding date for the combined art.
Drawing the sword treated as one half of the same swordsmanship.
Practised with Shinkage-ryū today
Yagyū Seigō-ryū battōjutsu is transmitted today by the organisations that carry the Shinkage-ryū of the Yagyū line in Japan, where drawing the sword is taught as the companion discipline to its fencing. In this way the tradition remains a living part of the Yagyū swordsmanship inherited from Owari.