Takeda Motsugai

Place: Matsuyama

Born: 1795

Death: 1867

Biography:

Motsugai Fusen, also known as Takeda Motsugai, was a Japanese Zen priest and martial artist born in Matsuyama, Japan in 1795. He is best known for founding the Fusen-ryū school of jujutsu. According to popular belief, he was a descendant of Shingen Takeda, a famous samurai lord. At the age of 16, he became a Sōtō Zen monk and traveled around Japan as a takuhatsu. He was ordained as a priest at Saihoji Temple in Kyoto. Takeda was skilled in calligraphy, painting, haikai poetry, tea ceremony, and antiques restoration, but he was more famous for his martial skills and his immense strength. He was trained in eighteen styles of martial arts, both armed and unarmed. Takeda was a founder of Fusen ryu jujutsu (Fusen school of classical Japanese martial art). He was a possessor of phenomenal strength, and many anecdotes about him including his childhood are known. He enjoyed the friendship of 'loyalists of the Meiji Restoration period' of Choshu domain in his later years, and also worked hard as a mediator of the First conquest of Choshu. He was good at haikai (popular linked verse), and made a collection of poetry, 'Jinshihendai.' He died in 1867.