小野次郎右衛門忠明

Ono Jiroemon Tadaaki (1565–1628) was the foremost disciple of Itō Ittōsai Kagehisa and the man who established Ittō-ryū as the official sword art of the Tokugawa shogunate. Appointed as sword instructor to the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, he raised Ittō-ryū from a traveling master's personal style to the premier school of the Edo period. His systematization of the Five Forms (Gogyō-no-kata) and the principle of 'ten thousand techniques from one sword' defined classical Japanese swordsmanship. The central stance of modern kendo — chūdan-no-kamae — traces directly to his teachings. The Ono family continued as shogunal sword instructors throughout the Edo period, and Ittō-ryū's influence on later schools such as Hokushin Ittō-ryū and Kenjutsu in general cannot be overstated.