Did Mitsuyo Maeda Meet President Theodore Roosevelt?

Prof Renzo Gracie, from Legacy (2008)

I just watched a video recorded during the taping for the excellent documentary "Legacy" featuring Renzo Gracie. In the video, Prof Renzo claims Mitsuyo Maeda met president Theodore Roosevelt at the White House.

There is no evidence that this happened.

It's an unfortunate mixing of related stories, perpetrated by author John Stevens in his 1995 book Three Budo Masters, and picked up in later books that never bothered to verify the story.

Those false retellings may include "The Toughest Man Who Ever Lived" (basically historical fiction) and "No Rules Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Techniques for Mixed Martial Arts and Self-Defense," a technique book.

You can read information from Maeda's point of view in his biographies. There's an archive of a 1998 review of a Maeda biography, "A Lion’s Dream, the Story of Mitsuyo Maeda”, by Norio Kohyama. The author of the review, a gentleman who can apparently read Japanese, is listed as Mark Gorsuch. The book review was originally published in the second edition of Judo Forum Magazine in July 1998, according to this post, but it's now available here. In the biography, Maeda does not mention going to the White House, but he does describe other historically important grappling events.

How else do I know Stevens is wrong? Besides the fact that I can cite reliable sources, I noticed that Stevens doesn't repeat the Maeda White House story in his later books on the same topic.

It's noteworthy that Stevens' 2013 book, The Way of Judo: A Portrait of Jigoro Kano and His Students, which I read and enjoyed, makes no mention of Maeda at the White House.

Instead, we have the more accurate and historically validated version that Maeda accompanied Tomita and Satake at the 1905 West Point demonstration and saw Tomita get manhandled by a football player.

Somehow, in Three Budo Masters, Stevens mangled that story into taking place at the White House. He apparently confused that football player story with the real event Roosevelt witnessed, which was the 1905 encounter at the White House between Yamashita and Grant, a boxer/wrestler. That did not take place at the Naval Academy, as mentioned in the Gorsuch review. You can read Roosevelt's account of the Grant vs Yamashita demo in his own typewritten letter.

You can also read more about Maeda in Stevens' 2013 book via Google Books.

If you want the best summary of Roosevelt's experience with jiu-jitsu (and no, he was neither a black belt, nor a brown belt -- until he posthumously received his dan grade), this is worth reading.

Historians make mistakes all the time. History evolves as new sources appear. I've changed views over the years as new evidence influences my views. It would be nice to see other historians acknowledge that they've changed their views when they write later works.

Update 11 Apr 2020: I had a brief exchange with Professor Renzo about this post. After a couple exchanges, he added the following and I promised I would post it:

Renzo Gracie, Tweets, 11 Apr 2020

As an historian it's important to consider all sources, and integrate them where important. There's definitely a role for person-to-person communication, so I include Renzo's contribution here.

I also think we got a Renzo Gracie endorsement of Martial History Team too!

Renzo Gracie Tweet, 11 Apr 2020

Thanks Professor! I hope to visit you in New York and bring my copy of your book to get a signature!