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In the Jigen ryū there are no upper, middle and lower positions of the sword but only one position called hassō. The sword is raised as if to thrust into the sky. Then, with a bloodcurdling kiai36, one makes a step forward or lowers the stance, crashing the tachi sword down.

The philosophy of the Jigen sword technique demands full control of the oncoming situation and the readiness to win with the first strike. Kondō Isamu, member of the Shinsen gumi37, remembered that there was nothing they were more afraid of than this first strike by the Satsuma men using the Jigen sword technique and that they were repeatedly instructed to evade it. During the war to overthrow the Tokugawa government in 1868 as well as during the samurai rebellion against the new Meiji government in 1877, the Satsuma samurai were feared because of their first strike technique that intimidated their enemies whose corpses were often found cut open by a “sash strike” from the shoulder to the navel. Some even had the guard of their own sword stuck between the eyebrows. They had tried to stop the Satsuma sword by raising their own sword above their heads. But they had underestimated the speed of attack by far so that the defending sword was smashed into the defender’s skull.