Yōshin-ryū

Yōshin-ryū (楊心流) ("The School of the Willow Heart") is a common name for one of several different martial traditions founded in Japan during the Edo period. The most popular and well-known was the Yōshin-ryū founded by physician Akiyama Shirōbei Yoshitoki at Nagasaki Kyushu in 1642. The Akiyama line of Yōshin-ryū is perhaps the most influential school of jūjutsu to have existed in Japan. By the late Edo Period, Akiyama Yōshin-ryū had spread from its primary base in Fukuoka Prefecture Kyushu throughout Japan. By the Meiji era, Yōshin-ryū had spread overseas to Europe and North America, and to Australia and South Africa by the late Shōwa era.

Together with the Takenouchi-ryū (竹内流), and the Ryōi Shintō-ryū (良移心当流), the Yōshin-ryū (楊心流), was one of the three largest, most important and influential jūjutsu schools of the Edo period (江戸時代 Edo jidai 1603 - 1868) before the rise of judo.