Mugai ryu

Mugai-ryū (無外流)
Founder	Tsuji Gettan Sukemochi (辻月丹資茂)
Date founded	23 June 1680
Period founded	Mid-Edo period (1603–1868)
Art	Description
Kenjutsu - Tachi, Wakizashi	Sword art; with long sword, short sword.
Yamaguchi-ryū • Ittō-ryū Mugai-ryū curriculum. Shinkage-ryū • Awaga-ryū • Kashima Shintō-ryū Yamaguchi-ryū influences.
Ōdachi-ryū

Mugai-ryū (無外流, Mugai-ryū) or "Outer Nothingness School" is a Japanese koryū martial art school founded by Tsuji Gettan Sukemochi (辻月丹資茂) on 23 June 1680. Its formal name is Mugai Shinden Kenpō (無外真伝剣法).

The founder of Mugai-ryū, Tsuji Gettan Sukemochi (辻月丹資茂) was born to Tsuji Yadayū descendant of Sasaki Shirō Tadatsuna, in the second year of Keian (1649, early Edo period), in the Masugi (馬杉) village area of Miyamura (宮村), in Kōga (甲賀郡) region of Ōmi (近江), now Shiga Prefecture.

When he was 13 he went to Kyoto to study swordsmanship and at the age of 26 he received kaiden (full transmission) and opened a school in Edo (now Tokyo). The school he studied is controversial. The most accepted theory is that he learned Yamaguchi-ryū swordsmanship under Yamaguchi Bokushinsai, but earlier documents state he studied under Itō Taizen.

Also, he studied Zen Buddhism and Classical Chinese literature under Zen monks Sekitan Ryōzen (石潭良全) and Shinshū (神州) at Kyūkōji temple (吸江寺) in Azabu Sakurada-chō (麻布桜田町). At the age of 32 he reached enlightenment and received from his Zen teacher a formal poem taken from the Buddhist scriptures as an acknowledgment and proof of his accomplishment. Tsuji Gettan Sukemochi used the word Mugai from this poem as his nom de plume and hence, later generations alluded to his swordsmanship teachings as being "the style of (Tsuji) Mugai", or Mugai-ryū.

The name "Mugai" comes from the following poem:

一法実無外
乾坤得一貞
吸毛方納密
動着則光清

"Ippō wa jitsu ni hoka nashi
Kenkon ni ittei wo eru
Suimō wa hō ni mitsu ni osamu
Dōchaku sureba sunawachi hikari kiyoshi"

"There is nothing other than the One True Way
As vast as Heaven and Earth may be, only the Way can create this single Righteous Virtue
The One True Way dwells in our hears and its sharpness can slice a fluttering feather in two
And the purest light radiates whenever It manifests"

The earlier documents on the school opened by Tsuji Gettan were lost in 1695, when a great fire hit Edo. Later records show that he had 32 daimyō as pupils, including the rōjū Ogasawara Sado-no-kami Nagashige, Sakai Kageyu Tadataka, the feudal lord of Maebashi, and Yamauchi Toyomasa, the feudal lord of Tosa. The list also included 150 jikisan, and 932 baishin.

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