This was one of two official sword styles patronized by the Tokugawa shogunate (the other one being Ittō-ryū).

Shortly before his death in 1606, Sekishusai passed the leadership of Yagyū Shinkage-ryū to his grandson Toshiyoshi.

[1] Following a period of musha shugyō, Toshiyoshi entered the service of a cadet branch of the Tokugawa clan that controlled the Owari province.

In about 1632, Munenori completed the Heihō kadensho, a treatise on practical Shinkage-ryū swordsmanship and how it could be applied on a macro level to life and politics.

The text remains in print in Japan today, and has been translated a number of times into English.