A History of Jiu Jitsu: Part Two

Part Two: The Emperor Meiji and the Judo Schism

In my previous article, I looked at the origins of Jujitsu in Samurai warfare and its evolution until Commodore Matthew Perry and his small fleet of steamships entered Tokyo Bay.

July 8th, 1853 is a watershed moment in Japanese history, when Perry displayed the power of a modern navy. Until then, Japan had imposed a closed-door policy concerning foreigners, locking out any influences that Daimyos thought would subvert their power.

The Japanese considered themselves a military power, and protected by divine powers, but Perry's intrusion and display of power shattered that image.

Just two years after this incident, the Emperor Meiji took the throne of Japan. Meiji was determined that Japan should aggressively modernize to become powerful to compete with Western powers, rather than become a colony like their neighbors China or Korea.  

One of the core moves of the bevy of reforms (that would become known as the Meiji Restorations) was the abolishment of the Samurai warrior class. Meiji wished to institute a Western style army drawn from the general population; the Samurai resisted these changes strongly.

Tensions came to a head in the Satsuma Rebellion, when the Samurai rose up to fight the new modernized army. The utter defeat of the Samurai at the Battle of Shiroyama marked the end of major resistance to Meiji’s reforms.

As the Samurai fell out of favor, so did their arts...Jujitsu included. A young Jujitsu student named Kano Jigoro grew up during this tumultuous period, and in the 1880s began experimenting with new techniques and theory.

Over the course of several years, Kano developed his own style of Jujitsu, which became known as Kano Jiu-Jitsu, and later simply Judo.

Kano took traditional Jujitsu, which was a very overly complicated, disjoined art, and attempted to unite the techniques under one principle. That principle was the use of momentum and leverage to defeat an opponent with minimal effort.

Kano removed any techniques that used weapons, strikes, eye gouges, fishhooks, and superior brute force. Kano focused on disrupting an opponent’s balance, throwing him to the ground, and then using dominate position to control or submit him.

It is important to remember that this isn’t sport Judo as many know it today, original Judo included techniques to defend against swords, knives, guns, and strikes, and did not include Ippon pins, so the ground work was far more extensive.

The result was a highly effective, comprehensive martial art that could be mastered in a much shorter time that the traditional Jujitsu, while not losing any success in combat.

In 1886 the newly formed Tokyo police department was seeking a hand-to-hand style to instruct their officers in, and they decided to pit to the traditional favorite of Jujitsu against the upstart art of Judo in 15 matches.

Kano’s Judo school won 12 of the matches, becoming the official self-defense art of Japanese police officers, which persists to this day.

Judo has continued to grow since then, and the introduction of sport Judo has changed the art. It is important to say that the self-defense Judo doesn’t just persist to this day, it flourishes. Judo is one of the most useful and respected "real world" martial arts globally.

Judo also had a sporting aspect emerge while it still a very young art, and that has greatly affected how it has developed. In sport Judo, points are awarded for throws and pins, and matches are often stood back up if the action of the mat is stalling.

The result is that Judo schools tend to focus on the tachi-waza (standing) phase of matches rather that the ne-waza (ground) phase of matches. Around the world, no martial artist is feared in a standing grappling match quite like a Judoka.

Judo was Japan’s evolution of its traditional Jujitsu, but Jujitsu and Judo have influenced a great number of East Asian martial arts. Influences can clearly be seen in Aikido, Hapkido, Shooto wrestling, and Sambo, but Judo’s greatest legacy is not found in Asia.

To find that we must travel to early 20th century Brazil… (keep reading)