Martial History Team

  "The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever...  So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Text: Thucydides (471/455- c.399 BCE), The Peloponnesian War , as cited in The Classical Greek Reader , Kenneth J. Atchity, 1998/2014 Image: Roman copy (c. 100 CE) of an early 4th Century BCE Greek original, Pushkin Museum; photo by Shakko Kitsune

  Introduction While working on the monthly Martial History Team book survey, I needed to research the famous late 19th century paper on "jiujutsu" by professor Kano Jigoro and the Reverend Thomas Lindsay. A quick Google search yielded the version hosted by Judoinfo titled "Jujutsu and the origins of Judo, by Jigoro Kano and T. Lindsay, 1887, (Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Volume 15)." In addition to seeing the word "judo" in the title, I saw it throughout the online text, e.g., "Amongst these was the art of jujutsu, from which the present judo has sprung up." This did not seem right to me, so I investigated further. Going to the Source Thanks to the wonderful Internet Archive , I was able to find a copy of the original article in its original form. It appeared in Volume XVI (16), not volume "15", of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, published in 1889, not 1887. The paper notes that the authors read it t...

A Facebook post prompted me to take a look at a few old martial arts manuals today.  Introduction  This post mentioned that a book published in the 18th century in Japan, titled Morokoshi Kinmō Zui, or Illustrated Encyclopedia of China, contained copies of Chinese texts, specifically texts from Chinese generals Qi Jiguang and Yu Da You. I had mentioned them before in the post Mail Call: Sword Treatise . I decided to track down the aforementioned encyclopedia and see what it looked like. I preface this post by saying I am not a Japanese or Chinese language or history expert. I was simply interested in finding the original texts I read about on Facebook. Here I am documenting what I am learning. Before getting to the documents, I want to say a few words about the two main characters mentioned earlier.  General Yu Da You and the Sword Treatise Sword Treatise, Jack Chen Edition The first is General Yu Da You 俞大猷, who lived 1503-1579. For the purposes of this post, we ar...

Slap - bump - roll! Introduction  Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist who lived during the Edo period. He is presumed to have been born in 1760 and he died in 1849. He is likely the most famous Japanese artist of all time, and you have probably already seen his wonderful painting titled "The Great Wave off Kanagawa." Hokusai also produced sketches of martial arts scenes. The ones with which I am currently familiar appear in several volumes of his "manga" or sketchbook series, published beginning in 1814. All 14 volumes are available online courtesy of the Smithsonian .  I wanted to highlight a few I thought were interesting in this post. Sumo and Grapplers in Volumes 3 and 11 The following picture of Sumo wrestlers appears in Hokusai manga 北斎漫画, Vol. 3, FSC-GR-780.233.1-14 pp 12-13 : Hokusai Manga Vol 3 pp 12-13, http://pulverer.si.edu/node/663/title/3/7 The Sumo wrestlers appear to be much thinner than today's version, and they appear to be engaged in more...

Did Socrates really say "I swear it upon Zeus, an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler"? TL;DR: The image says it all. For the research, and what Socrates and others really said about wrestlers and runners, read on! Introduction Recently I debunked a quote falsely attributed to a Japanese thinker and warrior , so I thought it was time to do the same for a Greek thinker and warrior -- Socrates. First, some background. Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from approximately 470 BC to 399 BC. He did not write anything on his own, or at least nothing he wrote survives to this day. Everything we know about him comes from his students and biographers. Chief among these are students Plato and Xenophon, and biographers Plutarch (46 AD to about 119 AD) and Diogenes Laërtius (third century AD) and Plutarch.  To see if Socrates said anything like the quote attributed above, I queried many sources online, and then I reviewed the following works. Each initia...

Are there any techniques in judo or jiu-jitsu that have no precedence, at least prior to the 20th century? Professor John Danaher addressed this subject in two videos from December 2018. I watched them today after YouTube suggested them to me. Apparently Google knows I'm a big fan of Prof Danaher. I've watched several of his videos, I own the book he co-authored with Prof Renzo Gracie, and I even bought both of the Danaher Diaries published by another fan! Ude Hishigi Juji Gatame (腕挫十字固) - The Armbar John Danaher Juji Gatame, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GshEzcqlUbY The first video I watched showed Prof Danaher talking about [udi hishige] juji gatame (腕挫十字固), or the armbar from the mount as shown above. In the video , Prof Danaher says: "In the case of juji gatame we don't see any renditions of juji gatame outside of one country, Japan, until the 20th century , when Japan had opened up and began spreading it, their grappling technology, around the world... To th...

Facebook Post by Heme Baban,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/209635812396449/permalink/3606718996021430/ Introduction I'd like to make a brief point about the history of martial arts technique. The image above appeared in a Facebook post to the Kosen Judo Academy group, which is private. The comment said "Before Eddie or the gracies were born, we had these techniques in JUDO! HIDARI ASHI JIME known as The Rubber Guard within the Jiu Jitsu and MMA community." Is this a fair comment? Mikinosuke Kawaishi I recognized the image on the left as being from the French edition of Ma Methode du Judo by Prof Mikinosuke Kawaishi: Hidari Ashi Jime, Ma Methode du Judo, Mikinosuke Kawaishi, 1960 The image depicts Hidari Ashi Jime, or "left leg strangle," a submission that involves a combination of using the left hand grasping the opponent's gi collar while the right hand holds one's left leg. Yes, this is the same professor as mentioned in a rece...