Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu

Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu (戸田真竜軒正光) was a martial artist, and a samurai, who lived in the Meiji era (1824–1909)^{[citation needed]}. He is widely known to have been an instructor of the Shinden Fudo Ryu and also a direct decedent of the founder of Gyokko Ryu^{[citation needed]}. However, the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten mentions his name as being the head master of several styles of Japanese martial arts a list which includes

• Gyokko-ryū Kosshijutsu (玉虎流骨指術)
• Kotō-ryū Koppōjutsu (虎倒流骨法術)
• Shinden Fudō-ryū Dakentaijutsu (神伝不動流打拳体術)

as well as others.

During the later part of the Tokugawa period, the government ordered the building of a national military academy (kobusho). In 1855, Toda Sensei was appointed as a sword instructor by Matsudaira Noriyasu, teaching Hikenshin Ryu Kenjutsu. After he had finished at the Kobusho, he wandered from place to place before setting up a bone-setting (sekkotsu) clinic and dojo in Kobe^{[citation needed]}.

He taught the five precepts for ninpo which are:

• 1. To know that patience comes first.
• 2. To know that the path of mankind comes from justice.
• 3. To renounce greed, laziness, and obstinacy.
• 4. To recognize sadness, worry, and resentment as natural and to seek the immovable heart (fudoshin).
• 5. To not stray from the path of loyalty and brotherly love and to delve always deeper into the heart of budo pursuing the ways of both the literary and martial arts with balanced determination.

He is also quoted as saying "Even when you are faced with certain death, die laughing."

Notable students

Kuki Takei from the Kuki family of Kukishin Ryu studied Shinden Fudo Ryu under Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu^{[citation needed]}. Takenaka Tetsunoke, senior student of Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, was at one time a student at the Shinden Fudo Ryu dojo led by Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu^{[citation needed]}. Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu was also "Soke" (Grandmaster) of the Togakure Ryu, Kumogakure Ryu and Gyokkushin Ryu Ninjutsu schools^{[citation needed]}. He was followed by his grandson Takamatsu Toshitsugu, whose successor, Masaaki Hatsumi, is the current Soke of several modern schools of Ninjutsu.