A martial art of the water
Kobori-ryū (小堀流踏水術) is a Japanese school of swimming, one of the classical arts of the water developed for military use. Its hallmark is a powerful upright treading of water that frees the hands, allowing a swimmer in armour to fight, signal or carry a load while afloat. Swimming of this kind was counted among the accomplishments of the samurai, and Kobori-ryū is among its most enduring traditions.
Founding in Higo
The school was founded by Muraoka Idayū Masabumi, who established his own line and taught the swimming of the upper samurai at the Tenjin pool on the Shirakawa river in the Higo domain, now Kumamoto Prefecture. His son Kobori Chōjun Tsuneharu succeeded him as instructor, and the art was taught as a martial discipline at the domain academy of Jishūkan down to the Meiji Restoration.
To stand upright in the water as steadily as on the land.
A living tradition of Kumamoto
Kobori-ryū is transmitted today in Kumamoto and beyond, with lines preserved in Kumamoto, Kyōto, Nagasaki and at the Gakushūin, and practice recorded in Saga and Aomori as well. It endures as a rare living example of the classical Japanese swimming arts.