Soryukan Dojo

Soryukan Dojo is dedicated to preserving and promoting the martial arts of Danzan Ryu Jujutsu. This webspace is intended to assist current and future students by providing an informational resource on both Soryukan, its instructors and events, and the arts which are practiced at the dojo.

At left, the kanji (Chinese hieroglyphic characters) for "So Ryu Kan Do Jo" are seen. As with many things that is Japanese in origin or design, there are multiple intentions to their meaning. Japanese culture often includes the concepts of omote and ura. Omote is the term that roughly means the obverse, public, or displayed aspect of something. It's what you see on the surface, what you get when you "take something at face value". Ura is the reverse, the private, the non-descript aspect. It's the "inner meaning".

Soryukan, then, has an omote and ura meaning to us, as well. The translation works something like "Hall of Two Rivers". "Dojo" is generally accepted as a school, however it really translates to "place to learn the way." A dojo can exist anywhere that instruction takes place, not simply for martial arts. Taken together, then, Soryukan Dojo is the Hall of Two Rivers, a place for learning the way. And in our case, "the way" is twofold-- Jujutsu and iaido. Similarly, there are two instructors at Soryukan, Tom DeAngelo and Jeremy Schoener. That's the omote meaning of our name.

What's the ura meaning? Well, that's a little more....reserved.