Ancient
Japan
We could trace "jiu jitsu" back all the way to at
least 2000 B.C. by tracing the origins of martial arts to
ancient Egypt. However, we will leave that for another page!
In Japan, we can trace jiu jitsu back as far as 23 B.C. to
the origins of sumo wrestling. This ancient form of wrestling
has evolved and has came into it's own as a sport, but before
that, it gave birth to the warrior art of jiu jitsu. The bugei,
or warriors, of ancient Japan were schooled in various ryu
or methods of jiu jitsu depending upon location and which
school had established dominance at the time. There has been
official documentation of 725 schools of jiu jitsu which were
greatly varied in the way that they approached combat. They
dealt with weapons as well as empty hand techniques, but jiu
jitsu was always considered secondary and supplementary to
the bugei's main tools of the trade: weapons of war.
Jiu jitsu had eventually earned quite a bad reputation for
itself. Schools would often battle for supremacy and compete
for the local economy. Injuries were frequent and the schools
had turned into places where only the toughest and roughest
of men could endure. The teaching was often disorganized and
didn't follow a logical set of concepts and principles.
Jigaro
Kano |
Enter
Kano
On October 28, 1860 Jigaro Kano was born in the seaside
town of Kikage. He was to be a great influence upon
Japanese martial arts and change them forever. As Japan
was coming into modern times and adopting to European
influences and industrialization, Kano yearned for the
ancient ways as eagerly as he was absorbing these new
influences. At his mid-teenage years he was reaching
his full growth at 5'2" and literally a 90 pound
weakling. Being so small and frail, he was a perfect
target for the bullies that are so common at that age.
So, he resolved to turn to jiu jitsu as the art had
earned quite a reputation for making young men tough.
However, his father forbade him to begin studying jiu
jitsu; he viewed it as a thing of the past and of no
use. He also thought that jiu jitsu was uncivilized
and uncultured and that he would better spend his time
learning the arts and other more important subjects.
So, of course, Jigaro Kano began looking for a teacher.
He eventually found one and began studying. In fact,
he continued studying until he had studied from many
teachers and many ryu of jiu jitsu. His studies had
included: Seigo Ryu, Yagyu Ryu, Kito Ryu and Tenshin
Shinyo Ryu, which was a fusion of Yoshin Ryu and Shin
No Shindo Ryu jiu jitsu. By the age of 21, Kano had
became a master of Tenshin Shinyo Ryu jiu jitsu. Kano
studied so fervently that he would even wake up screaming
jiujitsu words!
During his studies, Kano met Tsunetoshi Ikubo, a master
of Kito Ryu Jiujitsu. Years earlier, Kuninori Suzuki,
a master of Kito-ryu, had changed the name of Kito-kumiuchi
to Kito-ryu Judo in 1714. Over time, "Kito-ryu
Judo" had slipped into common usage as Kito-ryu
ju jitsu, but later the name Kodokan Judo would come
from this source.
During this time, Kano was finding ways to change, modify
and invent within his Jiujitsu training. He had invented
new throws and had discovered the underlying concept
of what he coined as "kazushi", or off-balancing,
as a way of throwing an opponent rather than just leverage.
One day, he even threw his master, Ikubo, 3 times. "From
now on, you teach me", Ikubo was reported as saying.
It was here that Judo was born. |
Kano's
Revolution
During this time, Kano was studying at the Tokyo Imperial
University. When he graduated in 1881 he immediately received
an appointment to the Gakushin, a private school for the children
of the Japanese elite, teaching literature. In 1882, at the
age of 22, Kano took 9 of his private students to the Eishoji
temple to set up a class for teaching his Judo, although the
training was still more Jiujitsu than Judo. After he started
this class is when the name "Kodokan Judo" came
into usage. He wanted to use this term to set it apart from
the old Jiujitsu and to signify that it was something new
and had a deeper philosophy taken from Chinese Taoism.
When the monks at Eishoji had become tired of the damage that
was being done to the temple from the Judo training, Kano
built a temporary location next to the temple until moving
the group to his own home in 1883.
In 1884, Kodokan bylaws were drawn up. The Kodokan name was
officially established, "taking together all the merits
I have acquired from the various schools of jujitsu, and adding
my own devices and inventions, I have founded a new system
for physical culture, mental training, and winning contests.
This I call Kodokan Judo."
It is interesting to note that Kano had sought to preserve
many of the ancient samurai ideals of the Japanese martial
arts, but he wanted to weed out the ideals that were not fit
for the modern age. One of these was the idea of "sudden
death", or Shobu. "Sudden death" was the losing
of a contest with one "fatal" blow. These contests
promoted too much of a cautious attitude and did not promote
the idea of risk taking that would allow creativeness, strategy
and tactics to flourish. His contests were based on a 3 point
system instead of an "ippon", or one point/sudden
death. Unfortunately, during the 1930's, Japanese militarism
had attempted to revive the Samurai idealism of sudden death
for nationalistic purposes; the idea of complete sacrifice
of the individual for the good of the nation. The military
imposed upon the Kodokan the one point win system. As Kano
had feared, this created a fear of risk taking for fear of
losing and still exists today. However, this created a stronger
growth of "randori"(free-sparring) in practice.
The "randori" or free-sparring attitude of Judo
was also a unique idea of the time. Kano had witnessed that
many of the styles of the time had become a very pale comparison
to their former combative selves. During the decline of the
Tokugawa shogunate period and the modernization of Japan,
competition was looked at as too violent, primitive and even
vulgar. The practitioners of the arts of that time viewed
their arts as too "deadly" to be fully practiced
on a partner or opponent. This attitude was handed down from
kenjitsu, the sword fighting arts. Since they could not practice
on each other, the perfection of movement was considered to
be a test of skill. The kenjitsu masters were the most admired
in the Japanese arts, so this attitude was also adopted by
the other arts as well as the Jujitsu ryu of the time. This
fallacy was also a way to avoid all of the agony, sweat and
the overall ordeal of arduous martial art training. This poison
is still prevalent today in most martial arts.
This promoted the growth of "kata", literally forms,
as the main core of training. Instead of a natural, free competitive
attitude of practice, pre-set and idealized movements were
taught that were supposed to translate into actual fighting
ability. The idea of "Budo" and the image of "Budo"
had become a poor substitute of actually experiencing "Budo",
the "warriors way".
Judo
Makes it's Mark
Remember that in 1884 the Kodokan by-laws were drawn up and
Judo was officially founded. Kano was only 24 years old and
had taken all of the jiujitsu training that he had accumulated
and developed his own method that he named Kodokan Judo. During
this year they held their first tournament.
In 1885, the Kodokan had their first recorded tournament with
the Metropolitan police. This was the first tournament to
test this new Judo with ancient Jiujitsu. The was the first
of many wins to come.
In 1886, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police hosted a historic tournament
between the Kodokan Judo and Totsuka-ha Yoshin-ryu Jiujitsu,
the school considered to be the strongest fighting school
in Japan at the time. Although other masters were included,
the Totsuka-ha was the school to beat as they were greatly
known for thoroughly beating the other styles.
The Kodokan lost two matches, drew one and won the remaining
twelve matches! This small little group of the existing Jiujitsu
ryu at the time had beaten the recognized masters in Japan.
Martial arts were changed forever.
Judo
Makes Changes
In 1893, Kano was able to build a place solely for his Kodokan
Judo. During this time, Judo began to change it's approach
to ground or mat work techniques. Up until this time, Kodokan
Judo had mainly focused on throwing because of Kano's own
personal preference for throws. Kano was now 5' 2" and
165 pounds, he was very strong and powerful from his Judo
training, but preferred to not go to the ground. Students
were left to train their mat work on their own. Before this,
jiujitsu would mainly put the bottom person in a face down
position for defense. Kano had them start to lie face up so
that they would have their arms and legs for defense and counter-attack.
A ranking system had also started to come into use. Previously,
Jiujitsu either had no rank or just had varying degrees of
teaching certification such as "beginning teacher"
and "advanced teacher". Kano saw this as being very
disorganized and left little incentive for a student to continue
training without goals to achieve. Non-black belt grades then
were purely representative of technical levels to achieve
until sufficient material had been mastered to be considered
a true student of Judo. This was the first Dan level, or black
belt. The black belt, then, was considered to be a grade of
beginning, not a finish as most people view it. When you have
achieved the black belt, now you are ready to truly learn
the art. Everything else until now has just been to get you
ready so that you can now learn. In the beginning, the lower
level belts consisted of 3 white belts, 3 brown belts and
3 black belts. Eventually it came to include colors as well
as 10 grades of black. Note that this is the beginning of
all belt systems in the martial arts.
All was not always great with Judo, however, as in 1900 the
Kodokan suffered a school defeat from the Fusen Ryu Jiujitsu.
Fusen Ryu had specialized in grappling techniques, or ne-waza,
and this was the nature of the tournament. The grappling had
out shined the throwing of the Kodokan. Kano saw their weakness
and typically asked the headmaster of the Fusen Ryu to share
with him their core syllabus. He also sought out a similar
style, Jikishin Ryu Jiujitsu, to add to the Kodokan syllabus.
From this moment on, the Kodokan began to incorporate more
ne-waza into the training.
Jigaro Kano
In 1908, Kano was the first Oriental member to be inducted
into the International Olympic Committee. In 1911, he created
the Japan Amateur Athletic Association and in the same year
both Judo and Kendo (the sword fighting sport) were adopted
into the Japanese school system. During this time, Jiujitsu
was fading from the Japanese culture. Kano eventually even
said, "eventually Judo replaced ju jitsu in Japan, and
no one any longer speaks of jujitsu as a contemporary art
in Japan, although the word has survived overseas."
As such, Kano felt that he had a responsibility to preserve
some of the ancient Jiujitsu techniques since this was the
foundation of his Judo and he felt that he owed these arts
everything. Kano became a historian and the Kodokan had become
a place of eduacation. He started to create Kata, or pre-set
forms to preserve many of these techniques for historical
purposes. He himself had studied Seigo Ryu, and Yagyu Ryu,
as well as his Kito Ryu and Tenshin shinyo Ryu. Tenshin shinyo
Ryu was, itself, a fushion of Yoshin Ryu and Shin No Shindo
Ryu ju jitsu. In addition, Yoshin Ryu was Kano's chief asstistant,
Yamashita's specialty. Tenshinshinyo Ryu incorporated striking,
throwing, holding, and choking techniques as well as joint
locks and aiki-type movements. Training also included study
of eighteen battlefield weapons.
Later, Takeuchi Ryu masters helped with the development of
the Kodokan syllabus. Takeuchi Ryu itself was a derivative
of Daito Ryu Jiujitsu. As Daito Ryu itself evolved into subsequent
arts, Kano sent students such as Mochizuki to Sokaku Takeda
and Kenji Tomiki to Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, to
bring back developments that they had made.
In 1912, Kano brought together the remaining leading masters
of Jiujitsu to finalize a Kodokan syllabus of training and
kata. Jushin Sekiguchi and Mogichi Tsumizu participated from
Sekiguchi Ryu, Eguchi from Kyushin Ryu, and Hoshino from Shiten
Ryu, Inazu from Miura Ryu. Aoyagi of Sosusihis Ryu, Yano,
Takano, Kotaro Imei and Hikasuburo Ohshima participated from
Takeuisi Ryu. Takamatsu, a Kukkishin Ryu expert, had worked
with Kano on weapons, at which Kano was recognized as expert,
and contributed his favorite personal technique of hiza guruma,
which remains today as a popular Judo competition technique.
The Kodokan had become THE source of martial art knowledge
in Japan.
Kodokan
Judo Readdresses Grappling
In 1914, the All Japan Special High School championships were
started at Kyoto Imperial University. These championships
focused on grappling techniques, or ne-waza, and the schools
that participated became so proficient at the matwork that
they earned the name "Kosen Judo" or grappling Judo.
In 1925, this form of Judo was becoming so predominant and
popular that Kano began to see throwing techniques as disappearing
from the syllabus of effective Judo skills since matches would
usually go straight to the ground and be decided there. Judo
rules were changed to specifically require that all techniques
had to begin from a standing throwing technique, or tachi
waza, and if a competitor pulled his opponent down without
even trying to throw, the opponent would be declared the automatic
winner.
However, Kano could not deny the effectiveness of Kosen Judo,
and saw a need for specialists to be encouraged in it's growth
and development. So, the Seven Universities Tournament, which
exists in Japan to this day, has been exempt from this 1925
Kodokan rule change. The Kosen Judo students were pretty hardcore
and considered it shameful to tap or surrender. A match would
have to continue until the submission technique that was being
used was taken to its intended goal. This attitude continued
into Gracie Jiujitsu and some schools of BJJ, whose proponents
would sometimes rather have an arm broken than to tap, which
is not surprising since the founding instructors learned Judo
during this pre-1925 period. Kosen Judo exists to this day
in Japan in University tournaments as well as in Gracie and
Brazilian Jiujitsu.
Judo
Takes on the World
Kano's election to the International Olympic Committee in
1908 took him abroad on many trips on Olympic business and
allowed him to teach and spread Judo wherever he went.
Kano's chief assistant, Yamashita, went to America in 1903
where he taught at Harvard University, the US Naval Academy
at Annapolis, and taught Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1904, Tsunejiro Tomita and Mitsuyo Maeda followed Yamashita
to America. Tomita taught at Columbia University, while Maeda
traveled to Europe, and Central and South America.
Other instructors went to different countries all over the
globe spreading their love of Judo.
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