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About the Publication
With Kamae, Andrea Re focuses on one of the foundations of Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū: the guards from which the school’s techniques and kata take shape.
Rather than retracing the history of Katori Shintō-ryū or examining its place within the Japanese martial tradition — subjects already covered extensively elsewhere — this volume concentrates on the practice itself. Re takes the fundamental kamae one by one, examining their structure, the position of the body and sword, their relationship to distance and their purpose within the school’s technical system.
A kamae is far more than a static pose. Each contains the potential for movement and determines how the body and weapon can respond to an opponent. Seen in this light, the kata become a continuous transformation from one kamae into another, connected through attacking, receiving and repositioning actions.
Understanding these positions in detail therefore provides a key to understanding the movements built upon them. Through clear explanations and extensive visual sequences, Kamae allows the reader to examine details that can easily be missed during normal practice and provides a reference to return to between lessons.
The first volume in Andrea Re’s series on the technical foundations of Katori Shintō-ryū, Kamae establishes the groundwork later developed through movement in Suburi and extended to the long staff in Bōjutsu.
The kata that are practised within the school are nothing more than kamae made dynamic by movements that connect them to each other by including either attacking or receiving strikes in between.
In the first kata, Itsutsu no tachi, are 70% of the strikes applied on the battlefield. Paradoxically, it could be almost superfluous to go on with learning the other forms. This is why I consider the basics of kamae to be fundamental.
Product Details
Publisher: The Ran Network
Publication date: 7 June 2023
Language: English
Print length: 266 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8397497268
Item weight: 236 g
Dimensions: 17.78 x 0.74 x 25.4 cm
Part of series: The Guides
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction – How to use this manual
Part 1 – Holding the sword
Part 2 – Taito – Wear your sword
Part 3 – Nuki – Unsheathing the sword
Part 4 – Seigan
Part 5 – Migi Gedan
Part 6 – Hidari Gedan
Part 7 – Jodan
Part 8 – In no Kamae
Part 9 – Sha no Kamae
Part 10 – Shin no Kamae
Part 11 – Waki Dori
Part 12 – Ōgasumi
Part 13 – Teura Kasumi
Part 14 – Ko Gasumi
Part 15 – Teura Do Uke
Part 16 – Irimi Ko Gasumi
Part 17 – Suwari Gedan
Part 18 – Maki Uchi Men
Conclusions
Who is Andrea Re
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Glossary
About the Author
Andrea Re holds Menkyo Okuden in Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū and is a Jōden-level Shihan in Hōki-ryū Nakazono-ha. He also holds 6th Dan in Aikikai Aikidō and teaches at his Zanshin Dojo in Milan.
He began studying Katori Shintō-ryū in 1984, training with Yoshio Sugino and Goro Hatakeyama. His principal teachers have also included Kazuhiko Kumai in Hōki-ryū iaidō and Yoji Fujimoto in Aikidō. Over the years, he has trained with many leading Aikidō teachers, including Hiroshi Tada, Hideki Hosokawa, Kisshomaru and Moriteru Ueshiba, Yoshiaki Yokota, Tsuruzo Miyamoto and Hayato Osawa. He regularly travels to Japan to continue his sword and Aikidō practice.
His books reflect an approach centred on the fundamentals of Katori Shintō-ryū. Kamae, the first volume in the series, explores the fundamental guards of Katori Shintō-ryū and the structural and tactical principles behind them. Suburi develops those foundations through the strikes, footwork and linked movements that form the groundwork for kata. Bōjutsu, the third volume, applies the same method to the long staff, progressing from its fundamental handling and individual actions to the exchanges found in the school’s bōjutsu kata.
His work as an author reflects the same commitment to sustained, detailed study. Rather than presenting Katori Shintō-ryū as a collection of techniques to be memorised, his books examine the foundations on which its practice is built and the way those foundations develop through movement.
