Totsuka-ha Yōshin-ryū jūjutsu was taught at the Kōbusho and lasted only about a year and five months before being dropped.
Totsuka Hikosuke Hidetoshi (戸塚彦介英俊, 1813–1886; gō Isshinsai), born in Edo Nishikubo, became head of the Kōbusho jūjutsu instructors. His prominence gave Totsuka-ha Yōshin-ryū its name. In 1837 restored the old name “Yōshin-ryū” and is called the father of early-modern randori. Totsuka served the Numazu-han Mizuno house as jūjutsu instructor. He entered Numazu-han service under Mizuno Tadanaga in 1830, and in 1860 was appointed jūjutsu kyōju-kata at the Kōbusho. When the Mizuno relocated to Kazusa Kikuma at the Restoration he moved to Bōsō, becoming a Chiba-prefecture jūjutsu instructor in 1885.
Totsuka-ha was the hard, randori-centric school of its day. Totsuka himself was a big man (178 cm, 86 kg) whose rough training was famous across Edo; even a Tenjin Shin’yō-ryū menkyo holder like Matsuoka Katsunosuke lost two of three randori bouts to him, and Kōbusho randori routinely produced injuries — there are accounts of a man dying from a chest kick and a large man choked unconscious who didn’t revive. The randori system Hisatomi Tetsutarō compiled from Totsuka’s teaching held 56 techniques across four categories — throws (nage), chokes (shime), holds (katame), and joint locks (kansetsu).
