ryu

Noun

1. A Japanese school of a specific discipline, usually martial arts.
   • When Nakanishi became the headmaster of his own ryu, in the later 1700s, he began looking for a way to make swordsmanship less hazardous, concentrating on the improvement of practice equipment. - 1982 April, Dave Lowry,...
   • In these ways, the ryu system differed little from the European custom of apprenticeship. The Japanese ryu were distinctive, however, in that an imparting of the mechanics of the craft, the shoden and chuden (“first and...
   • Dave notes that the only people capable of such precise destruction were bone-breakers from an ancient Japanese ryu. - 1986, Kirtland C. Peterson, Mind of the Ninja: Exploring the Inner Power, Chicago, Ill.:...

   Synonyms: ryuha