While travelling in an open coach through Edō in September 1867 the brothers were attacked by anti-foreign samurai from Numata, who, by drawing his sword, in a private vendetta was trying to enforce the Sonnō jōi policy.
In any case the ryuha eventually fragmented as the bōjutsu tradition was discovered to be practiced in Kyoto; the torite is recorded in Numata-han and Yoshida-han and still another branch was recorded as practicing the bōjutsu (as well as naginata) in Yonezawa-han.
Professor Richard F. Gombrich has pointed out in several publications, and in his recent Numata Visiting Professor Lectures at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), that the literal meaning of upādāna is "fuel".