Tsukahara Bokuden

During the Ashikaga Shogunate's turbulent Sengoku era, when the country was divided and essentially ruled by a small number of strong warlords known as daimyos, Tsukahara Bokuden rose to fame as a renowned samurai warrior. Tsukahara Bokuden, one of many outstanding samurai fighters to come out of this time period, learned on his own from a young age and even created his own combat technique, the Kashima Shinto-Ryu, also known as the "single cut" method.

Bokuden swiftly established himself as one of Japan's top swordsmen during his military career as a daimyo by defeating many of the famed fighters of the era in duels. After retiring, he established a school for other aspiring swordsmen, which in turn served as an inspiration for numerous other schools of Japanese swordsmanship in the years after his passing at the age of 83.