Through his Jikishinkage contacts he rose to a position of some political influence; he taught swordsmanship at a government military academy and also served in the personal guard of Japan's last two shōguns.

As a talented swordsman, he once duelled with Yamaoka Tesshū; the two men faced off for over forty minutes without moving, before sheathing their swords with neither striking a blow.

In order that his headmastery of the Jikishinkage-ryū would not interfere with his duties to the shōgun, his student Matsuoka Katsunosuke was temporarily placed in charge of the school.

[1][5] Despite his connections to the shogunate, at the Battle of Ueno in 1868 Sakakibara did not participate in the fighting between the pro-shogunate and Imperial forces, considering it to be his duty to guard the Kan'ei-ji temple.

His motives may have been financial, as without a sponsor he, like many other martial artists of the era, was suffering from penury – his poverty was such that he had to accept help from his wife's uncle Katsu Kaishū in constructing a residence.

[1] He began organising gekiken kogyo (撃剣興行, "sword combat performances"), feeling that such public competitions would instil an appreciation for the art of the swordsman in their audiences.

[8][9] Other martial artists, witnessing the success of the Gekken Kaisha, followed suit,[6] resulting in new forms such as Kenshibu (剣詩舞), the Japanese art of sword dancing [10] As part of his public performances Sakakibara occasionally demonstrated a tameshigiri technique called kabuto wari (兜割り, "helmet breaking"), which involved slicing through a steel helmet with a single stroke of the sword.

[15][16] In his later years Sakakibara returned to coach and train in his dojo in Kurumazaka, after trying his hand unsuccessfully at running a kōdan (講談, "storytelling") theatre and an izakaya (居酒屋) (bar).

Those who trained at the Kurumazaka dojo included Naitō Takaharu, who was to become head of the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, and foreigners such as Austrian ambassador and fencing expert Heinrich von Siebold, and German Erwin Bälz, physician to the Japanese Imperial Family.