So...recently I got my Shodan in Bojitsu. Problem is I have no idea what my "brand" of kobudo is. In my dojo things are only referred to as "Kobudo" I'm hoping gone of you will have some info or know a good place for me to go and read.

Here are the clues:
-I am a Shito-ryu practitioner in a dojo that was formerly Hayashi-Ha
-My current sensei learned kobudo directly from Hayashi and his senior students
-Hayashi was a deshi of Kenwa Mabuni and Hayashi learned kobudo at one point from Shinken Taira

I had to perform the following kata at my test:

Shiho no Bo
Shodan no Kon
Shushi no Kon Sho
Shushi no Kon Dai
Kubo no Kon
Sakugawa no Kon

Thanks for any answers!

Hi, I may be mistaken but I think that I saw somewhere that Hayashi learned Shinken Taira's Ryukyu kobudo that was from Moden Yabiku. Hayashi then added his own taste to it and formed his kobudo system called Kenshinryu. In your shoes though I would ask your sensei.

Don't take this as a definitive answer, but when we did Shuri Ryu, we also did three of those kata, and those that wanted to "go further" and get ranked in kobudo had "other kata" that they did (probably the other three) since they were affiliated with a primarily Shito-Ryu organization at the time. I never heard anyone mention a "style" of kobudo, or "brand", other than "kobudo".

We had a number of people who took rank in kobudo, some specializing in bojutsu and some in "bladed weapons", but all of them only talked about being ranked in kobudo, never mentioning any "style" or brand of it. FWIW

I do remember some of the people who trained with us calling their kobudo "Ryukyu Kobudo"... which would indicate an Okinawan type...

thanks guys, this has given me much fuel for my google fire

Why don't you just ask your instructor or dojo leader?

Hello Borreck:

Try www.Vivismo.com type in ALL the terms you listed. I like their meta search feature and have found it excellent for precisely this kind of search...

Any chance that rank certificates were issued? I don't remember Mark Bishops Kobudo book having one particular ryu with those specific criteria, nor any of Syd Campbells materials. I'll glance through some of my Draeger materials tomorrow see if anything jumps out.

Good luck, up us posted... internet is designed for this exactly this type of thing....

Jeff