Hojōjutsu schools

Hojōjutsu, restraining rope technique, was not one school but a skill taught across many. Japanese Wikipedia states that more than 150 schools taught it during the Edo period, when it formed part of the arrest techniques used by officials, and that this is why so many regional variants developed. It was usually one part of a broader martial curriculum, and English Wikipedia notes that it remains an advanced subject in some jūjutsu schools.

The schools

The Kokusai Hojojutsu Kenkyukai, an international study group, keeps a list of classical schools whose curricula include rope restraint, and stresses that it claims no endorsement from any of them. Its list includes Araki-ryū, which it dates to around 1573; Takenouchi-ryū, around 1532; Sekiguchi-ryū, 1640; Takagi Yōshin-ryū; Masaki-ryū; and Seigo-ryū of the Owari domain. It describes Ittatsu-ryū, taught as an ancillary art of Shintō Musō-ryū, as the most widely practiced hojōjutsu system today. Some schools used other names for the same skill: Kashima Shin-ryū teaches it as hobakujutsu, and Takamura-ha Shindō Yōshin-ryū as torinawa. Japanese Wikipedia lists around fifty schools by name and notes that many more existed. English Wikipedia names schools cited as sources of documented ties, among them Seigo-ryū jūjutsu, Kurama Yōshin-ryū jūjutsu and Nanbu Handen hojōjutsu.

What they taught

Sources distinguish two main kinds of rope work. Hayanawa, quick rope, was used to secure a person fast at the moment of arrest; English Wikipedia describes it as thin, strong cord carried by constables. Honnawa, main rope, was the formal binding used for escort, court appearances and public display, applied by several people with longer and thicker rope. The Nippon Dai Hyakka Zensho encyclopedia adds that the binding was standardized by the rank, occupation and age of the person tied, and that tying someone in the wrong form was counted as a fault of the binder. Japanese Wikipedia notes that the Edo town magistrates changed the color of their rope with the seasons.

After the Meiji Restoration the police still taught rope restraint, but handcuffs later made it unnecessary. Today it survives mainly inside jūjutsu and jōjutsu schools and in the work of a few teachers who preserve it; Japanese Wikipedia credits the everyday expression “o-nawa”, meaning arrest, to this history.

Link to kinbaku

English Wikipedia records that Itō Seiu studied hojōjutsu and is credited with the beginnings of kinbaku. Several modern styles also point to it. Akechi Denki said he looked for material on restraining rope in libraries, museums and a martial-arts book and reworked rather than copied what he found; Karada House describes the Kanna style of the Akechi lineage as inspired by hojōjutsu; and French Wikipedia notes that Naka Akira’s style claims a link to it. These are claims of influence, not of unbroken descent from a particular school.

Characteristics

• Rope restraint taught inside wider martial curricula, often jūjutsu
• Quick capture rope (hayanawa) and formal binding (honnawa)
• Bindings that varied with the status, occupation and sex of the person tied
• Still preserved in a small number of koryū