Yagyū clan

The Yagyū (柳生氏, Yagyū-shi) were a family of daimyō (feudal lords) with lands just outside Nara, who became the heads of one of Japan's greatest schools of swordsmanship, Yagyū Shinkage-ryū. The Yagyū were also Kenjutsu teachers to the Tokugawa shoguns and descendant of the famous Taira clan, hailing from prestigious Imperial Lineage with the Kabane rank of Ason.

Yagyū Muneyoshi (1527-1606), the first famous Yagyū swordsman, fought for a number of different lords before meeting Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun. In 1563, he was defeated by the great swordsman Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, praised as one of the very few Kensei throughout Japan. Humbled by his defeat, Muneyoshi became Nobutsuna's disciple, and was later named his successor, founding the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū school of swordsmanship.

In 1594, Muneyoshi was invited to Tokugawa Ieyasu's mansion in Kyoto, where he provided such an incredible display of sword skills that the warlord asked that the Yagyū become sword instructors to the Tokugawa family. Among other things, Muneyoshi demonstrated Shinkage-ryū techniques of sword catching on Ieyasu himself, to convince him his martial art was no hoax. Muneyoshi suggested that his son Munenori be Ieyasu's teacher; Muneyoshi then retired from swordsmanship, and died in 1606, by which time Ieyasu had become shogun. It was at this time also that the Yagyū swordsmanship school split in two, Munenori and his nephew Toshiyoshi each becoming the hereditary heads of the Owari and Edo schools of Yagyū Shinkage-ryū.

The Nara area bears many memorials to the Yagyū family, and their family graveyard lies on the grounds of the Hōtoku-ji. Perhaps the most interesting one is a rock called Ittō-seki, probably split by lightning, which Muneyoshi is supposed to have cut in half with his sword.

The mon (crest) of the Yagyū family was a wide-brimmed black hat with ties.