Ogasawara Nagakiyo (1162-1242)

Nagakiyo Ogasawara, founder of the Ogasawara-ryu, came from Yamanashi  prefecture.

At the age of 26 he become horse archery and ceremonial archery  personal teacher of Minamoto no Yoritomo (founder of the Shogunate and first Shogun).

The Ogasawara-ryu  is the most ancient kyudo school of Japanese Archery that survived until today. The Nagakiyo Ogasawara original technique were however lost because his school split into several branches.

The Tokugawa Yoshimune Shogun(1684-1751) charged a progeny of the Ogasawara family, Ogasawara Heibei Tsuneharu (1666-1747), to recuperate the original technique of the school by studying several text about kyujutsu, coming from various parts of Japan. The Ogasawara-ryu technique that we know today was thus defined.