Wild in the Mountains, A Perspective on Kyoketsu Shoge
Feb 08, 2025
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This is a supplemental video to the episode Wild in The Mountains, a Perspective on Kyoketsu Shoge This episode is my own perspective on the unique tool found in the traditions of Togakure Ryu, known as the Kyoketsu Shoge. This sickle, rope and ring has been the hallmark of the modern 'ninja', finding it's way on toys, cartoons and countless hours of discussion, yet almost no demonstration of it's use.
In this episode, I breakdown much of what I see as myth, drawn from the old work of Hatsumi Soke and twisted into marketable circus ninja hype of the time, much of which is still with us today. that said, the tool itself was quite real, it most certainly would have had it's place among those men is disguise sent to gather information or other types of covert work. The truth is, it's much more simple than the ninja-lore has made it out to be, and I fell should be both an important tool in our tradition, as well as a testament to using simple means to accomplish extraordinary goals.
Resources
The kama 鎌, as we know is a very common tool that was extremely common among farmers and woodworkers alike.
As we see int he following antique images, carrying your bale of straw, produce or rice on an ox was extremely common, requiring the farmer to have the proper rope and ring to steer an ox. As we see in some of the prints, this was commonly tied to the kama or other tools for fastening.
Modern tools that match the uses of old, the sickle and plow blade, and hand claws for picking up larger bundles of hay, straw or bamboo.
