Happobiken
If you take a look at the back of the Taikai T-shirt you’ll notice something a little unusual. It has some calligraphy by Noguchi Sensei that reads Koto Ryū Happō Biken. Usually, the name of this school is written as Koto Ryū Koppojutsu, so what is this happō biken and why has Noguchi Sensei written this?
The characters used to write happō biken are 八法秘剣 and they mean “eight methods secret sword,” but it’s better to understand the phrase in a non-literal way. In the context of the Bujinkan Dōjō martial arts, it means something more like “engaging with threats and conflict of all kinds, at all distances, in the most appropriate way.”
While happō literally means “eight methods,” here it’s shorthand for “all possible lines or angles of attack or movement,” while biken means “secret or mysterious sword,” but it can also be understood as “the martial arts that are effective in keeping you safe.”
Why has Noguchi Sensei written this for our Taikai? A few years ago, I was in his dōjō in Shimizu before it was knocked down, and I noticed there was a small plaque that featured the Bujinkan crest. Underneath was Noguchi Sensei’s name, and the words Koto Ryū Koppojutsu Happō Biken.
I asked Sensei what this meant.
He explained that he had studied the Bujinkan arts under Hatsumi Sensei for over 50 years, and while he is now guardian of Koto Ryū, he also teaches and practises all the other Bujinkan schools too. So the martial arts he practises are not limited to just Koto Ryū — they are open-ended. That’s why this is part of the theme for the Dublin Taikai, along with bō. Yes, Noguchi Sensei will likely teach Koto Ryū, but he is not limited to only things found within that school, because we are also studying Bujinkan Dōjō martial arts.
Adding the term happō biken to the end of a school name isn’t something that Noguchi Sensei invented. Hatsumi Sensei’s current business card, for example, lists the names of all nine schools he is sōke of, and all of them have happō biken added to the end. He currently uses the kanji 八法秘劔, which is slightly different from those Noguchi Sensei wrote — the last kanji for ken here is an older version of the more common 剣.
Recently, over lunch with Hatsumi Sensei, he spoke a bit about this topic, and in answer to the question “What is happō biken?” he replied, “It is the roots of Japanese martial arts.”
One interpretation of why Hatsumi Sensei, and on this occasion Noguchi Sensei too, has added this to the end of the names of the schools might be to show that they are unlimited in scope.
So while each ryūha has its own technical strategies, weapons, techniques, and ways of moving, the Bujinkan Dōjō martial arts as a whole are not limited by that. They are open-ended, and budō taijutsu is a form of happō biken — something endless and free.
