Kosen judo

Looking around in my files this morning I found a Technical Note dating from 2002 entitled "What is Kosen Judo?" written by the then Technical Director of the USJA, Dr Steve Cunningham. It featured in the Fall 2002 issue of "American Judo" (pp.23).

What is Kosen Judo? by Steve Cunningham
With the rise in popularity of Brazilian Jujutsu (BJJ),there has been a resurgence of interest in matwork and the style of Judo called Kosen judo. Many people have asked me to explain the historical roots of Kosen judo and the meaning of the term “kosen.”

“Kosen” is an abbreviation for koto senmongakko, which is, in turn, a compound of two words— “koto gakko” meaning “senior high-school” and “senmon gakko” meaning “professional or technical university.” Specifically, the term “Kosen” refers to a network of prestigious prep schools and universities. It is analogous to the American phrase “the ivy league.”

In the early 1900s, when rules for Judo competition weretaking form, the rules that came to be used for interscholastic contests in this “ivy league” tended to encourage and reward newaza more than rules used elsewhere. As a consequence, Kosen newaza tactics became highly developed and refined.

So Kosen judo is not something distinct and separate from Kodokan Judo; rather it is one of the many varieties of judo within the Kodokan tradition. As such Kosen judo could not defeat Kodokan Judo, because Kosen judo is Kodokan Judo.

Thx

Building on Cunningham, Kosen Judo is not something different it just Kodokan Judo with more time dedicated to newaza. Moreover, it originates from schoolboy/collegiate judo. The whole issue of Kosen Judo is a massive red herring and its significance both within judo, as well as any influence it may have had outside of judo, has been significantly inflated due to recent interest in ground fighting emerging from MMA/BJJ etc.. Kosen Judo does not exist independent of Kodokan Judo and anything labelled "Kosen Judo" could equally be labelled"Kodokan Judo - Newaza".

The origins of what is known as Kosen Judo are as follows.

Judo was introduced to the Japanese school system in 1914. The judo syllabus for the middle school was almost entirely ne-waza in order to minimize injuries. By secondary or high school, more tachi-waza was added and at the college or university level, the ratio was more like 50/50 tachi-waza to ne-waza.

The so-called Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used are the same. Also, there was the so-called "Kosen Rule" that permitted you to enter directly into newaza without first applying tachiwaza. In other words, they explicitly permitted "drag-downs" as well as tactics like walking into the centre of the mat and sitting or lying down, before coming to grips. This was the rule that Kano later changed.

Kosen is actually a contraction of:

Koutogakko 高等学校 = High School

PLUS

Senmongakko 専門学校 = Technical or Professional College

EQUALS

Koutosenmongakko 高等専門学校 = High Schools & Universities i.e. "Scholastic," in this case referring to what we might label an Interscholastic Judo League.

Also, for the people who think the Gracie's learned Kosen Judo from Maeda--the timeline is wrong.

However, George Medhi, a Gracie Student, moved to Japan and was Kimura's disciple for 6 years. There is no doubt in my mind he was exposed to training at various Japanese Universities while studying under Kimura. Medhi then returned to Brazil and is one of the most respected Judoka and highly ranked Judoka. Many Gracies and their students earned their Judo black belts under Medhi.

Jonesy wrote:Building on Cunningham, Kosen Judo is not something different it just Kodokan Judo with more time dedicated to newaza. Moreover, it originates from schoolboy/collegiate judo. The whole issue of Kosen Judo is a massive red herring and its significance both within judo, as well as any influence it may have had outside of judo, has been significantly inflated due to recent interest in ground fighting emerging from MMA/BJJ etc.. Kosen Judo does not exist independent of Kodokan Judo and anything labelled "Kosen Judo" could equally be labelled"Kodokan Judo - Newaza".

The origins of what is known as Kosen Judo are as follows.

Judo was introduced to the Japanese school system in 1914. The judo syllabus for the middle school was almost entirely ne-waza in order to minimize injuries. By secondary or high school, more tachi-waza was added and at the college or university level, the ratio was more like 50/50 tachi-waza to ne-waza.

The so-called Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used are the same. Also, there was the so-called "Kosen Rule" that permitted you to enter directly into newaza without first applying tachiwaza. In other words, they explicitly permitted "drag-downs" as well as tactics like walking into the centre of the mat and sitting or lying down, before coming to grips. This was the rule that Kano later changed.

Kosen is actually a contraction of:

Koutogakko 高等学校 = High School

PLUS

Senmongakko 専門学校 = Technical or Professional College

EQUALS

Koutosenmongakko 高等専門学校 = High Schools & Universities i.e. "Scholastic," in this case referring to what we might label an Interscholastic Judo League.

So Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used were the same? isn't that what BJJ effectively is just Judo with different rules and therefore trained differently, with more emphasis on groundwork?

JudoStu wrote:

Jonesy wrote:Building on Cunningham, Kosen Judo is not something different it just Kodokan Judo with more time dedicated to newaza. Moreover, it originates from schoolboy/collegiate judo. The whole issue of Kosen Judo is a massive red herring and its significance both within judo, as well as any influence it may have had outside of judo, has been significantly inflated due to recent interest in ground fighting emerging from MMA/BJJ etc.. Kosen Judo does not exist independent of Kodokan Judo and anything labelled "Kosen Judo" could equally be labelled"Kodokan Judo - Newaza".

The origins of what is known as Kosen Judo are as follows.

Judo was introduced to the Japanese school system in 1914. The judo syllabus for the middle school was almost entirely ne-waza in order to minimize injuries. By secondary or high school, more tachi-waza was added and at the college or university level, the ratio was more like 50/50 tachi-waza to ne-waza.

The so-called Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used are the same. Also, there was the so-called "Kosen Rule" that permitted you to enter directly into newaza without first applying tachiwaza. In other words, they explicitly permitted "drag-downs" as well as tactics like walking into the centre of the mat and sitting or lying down, before coming to grips. This was the rule that Kano later changed.

Kosen is actually a contraction of:

Koutogakko 高等学校 = High School

PLUS

Senmongakko 専門学校 = Technical or Professional College

EQUALS

Koutosenmongakko 高等専門学校 = High Schools & Universities i.e. "Scholastic," in this case referring to what we might label an Interscholastic Judo League.

So Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used were the same? isn't that what BJJ effectively is just Judo with different rules and therefore trained differently, with more emphasis on groundwork?

Certainly some folks see it that way....

JudoStu wrote:So Kosen Judo rules differed from Kodokan Judo rules in that matches were allowed to continue in ne-waza even if no progress in technique was evident, but the techniques used were the same? isn't that what BJJ effectively is just Judo with different rules and therefore trained differently, with more emphasis on groundwork?

Yes, and it allowed drags to the ground.

fozzit wrote:Also, for the people who think the Gracie's learned Kosen Judo from Maeda--the timeline is wrong.

However, George Medhi, a Gracie Student, moved to Japan and was Kimura's disciple for 6 years.  There is no doubt in my mind he was exposed to training at various Japanese Universities while studying under Kimura.  Medhi then returned to Brazil and is one of the most respected Judoka and highly ranked Judoka.  Many Gracies and their students earned their Judo black belts under Medhi.

Did not know that, thanks.

In some of the older pics of the Gracies from the late 40s and 50's you see alot more Nege Waza and standing Jujutsu waza. I wonderd if it was them continuing on what Maeda taught (and there the stories go from 6 months to 6 years under him for the original Gracie Jujutsukas, depending on who's book you read, even Gracies argue about this.) or if they bennifited from the fact that Judo has a lot of popularity in Brasil and they were crosstraining.

Other than some of their BS claims and marketing by some, I take nothing away from them I just like strait history when possable.

Here is a nice video about Kosen Judo and with some waza I hadn't seen before.

Ian Shiparii wrote:Here is a nice video about Kosen Judo and with some waza I hadn't seen before.

This is Hirata sensei he regularly trained at the Kodokan in the 80's and early 90's, we called him the "python". He was in his 60's les than 60kg. I saw many of these waza as he regularly used them on us. I can't tell you how many times Hirata the Python choked, pined and armbared me, oh by the way he enjoyed telling you what he was going to do before he did it.   

old thread, but i am curious about the timeline of the kosen schools.
the current kosen schools were started in the 60's.
were there kosen schools around prior to the national schools being created?
perhaps a different system from the one now?

overthehill wrote:old thread, but i am curious about the timeline of the kosen schools.
the current kosen schools were started in the 60's.
were there kosen schools around prior to the national schools being created?
perhaps a different system from the one now?

I'm not clear what you meant by 'current kosen schools', but certainly there are many such schools that were established post-WWII, with the boom in population and attendant schools.

But none of them, new or old, even those that teach or have judo clubs, use 'kosen judo' rules today. Standard Japanese judo rules apply.

NBK

sorry....i tried to cut corners.

in the original post, the author mentions kosen schools being in existence in the early 1900's. the 70 some odd national colleges of technology that exist in Japan today were all started from the 1960's onwards.

i wasn't aware that there were kosen schools in the early 1900s. the article was just a little confusing since the author compares kosen schools with ivy league schools in the US. as far as i can tell, the kosen schools in japan are not even remotely close to an ivy league as they are all engineering schools. it just made me wonder whether there were kosen schools different from the ones in japan today.

im wondering if there were kosen schools that were different from the ones that we are familiar with today. not really anything to do with judo i suppose....

overthehill wrote:sorry....i tried to cut corners.

in the original post, the author mentions kosen schools being in existence in the early 1900's. the 70 some odd national colleges of technology that exist in Japan today were all started from the 1960's onwards.

i wasn't aware that there were kosen schools in the early 1900s. the article was just a little confusing since the author compares kosen schools with ivy league schools in the US. as far as i can tell, the kosen schools in japan are not even remotely close to an ivy league as they are all engineering schools. it just made me wonder whether there were kosen schools different from the ones in japan today.

im wondering if there were kosen schools that were different from the ones that we are familiar with today. not really anything to do with judo i suppose....

Just for clarity, I made the original post, but I am not "the author". That is Dr Steven Cunningham, a respected economist and academic who is a high dan holder in judo and once held a senior technical position in the USJA. I have not seen anything new for him in the field of judo for several years now and do not know of he is still active.

jonesy, sorry to write in a misleading way. I was aware that you were quoting another source, which is why i wrote referred to him as "the author". i would have been confused myself had i not been the one to write it that way.

anyways, i wonder if cunningham mistook kosen schools with the imperial universities. the imperial universities had a unique set of judo rules as well, and the comparison with ivy league schools would make more sense.

are the kosen rules and nanatei rules the same?

I guess that Dr. Cunningham might have been more clear in that section.

The 'nanatei' or 'shichitei' (an alternative reading of 7), the seven former Imperial universities, are certainly separate from the original 'kosen' high schools and technical schools. They were the elite public schools in Japan, and are now national universities (funded by the central government). The universities are:Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University and Kyushu University.

The had a separate judo competition circuit among themselves, and judo is also part of the overall Seven Universities sports competition, which includes some thirty sports (some pretty bad, frankly, as the number of teams fielded with zero prior experience is quite high, but they give it the old college try!!). Somewhere along the way they decided to continue to use the old rules; there is a great deal of pride in these schools regarding their distinct judo history.

I think what is unappreciated is that beyond the simple question of which rules are used in an individual match, these are team competitions. The possibility of a judoka less skilled in tachiwaza (standing techniques = throws) to drag down and have a draw with a superior, more rounded player opens a whole range of opportunities for tactics and opponent matching.

NBK

NBK, thank you for the input...the team tournaments are indeed interesting. my old university competes at a nanatei rules tournament in kyoto every year....most of the matches are snooze fests, but they are interesting sometimes.

bruno carmeni, who ive had the privilege of being taught newaza by on a few occassions had this to say about the school history:

http://brunocarmenisjudoblog.com/512/the-historical-backbround-of-kosen-judo-%E2%80%93-part-2/

The Kosen style is a kind of judo, which has been picked up by the main high schools and technical institutes during the Meiji Period going from 1816 until1914, year in which the First National Japanese High School Championship took place at the Kyoto Imperial University.

Following several developments in time the school system changed. The old schools have become universities and nowadays Kosen Judo is practiced only in seven universities, which have a dedicated championship. The former Imperial Universities are those of Hokkaido, Kyoto, Kyushu, Nagoya, Osaka, Tohoku and Tokyo

it was all a bit confusing to me since there are a network of national kosen schools in japan that are publicly funded polytechnic schools. it seems the modern kosen institutions have no relation whatsoever to the kosen school system that developed kosen style judo.

I can understand some confusion regarding that. Correct -AFAIK the real 'kosen' schools, if they practice judo at all, practice modern rules judo.

I confirmed it all yesterday w a judoka bud who graduated from Nagoya U. and he provided this:

The single largest Kosen rules judo tournament, the Shichiteisen (7 imperial universities competition) is coming up soon. Jun 14-15 in Kyoto.

http://hichitei.jimdo.com/
At the Budokuden in Kyoto, very historic place.

NBK

PS - the same bud told me that the Nanadai are to field a team to go to France later this yr and train and compete under Kosen judo rules!! I wonder what the Kodokan thinks.

NBK

NBK wrote:PS - the same bud told me that the Nanadai are to field a team to go to France later this yr and train and compete under Kosen judo rules!! I wonder what the Kodokan thinks.  

NBK

Do you have some news about that competition?

makoto wrote:

NBK wrote:PS - the same bud told me that the Nanadai are to field a team to go to France later this yr and train and compete under Kosen judo rules!! I wonder what the Kodokan thinks.  

NBK

Do you have some news about that competition?

Actually tried to find it on the net but couldn't.

Typically it will show up buried in Gendai Judo mag in a month or so. I don't know if the Kodokan even covers it.

NBK wrote:

makoto wrote:

NBK wrote:PS - the same bud told me that the Nanadai are to field a team to go to France later this yr and train and compete under Kosen judo rules!! I wonder what the Kodokan thinks.  

NBK

Do you have some news about that competition?

Actually tried to find it on the net but couldn't.

Typically it will show up buried in Gendai Judo mag in a month or so.  I don't know if the Kodokan even covers it.

Thank you for your efforts!

Does the Gendai Judo mag have a homepage? I could not find one with Google.

makoto wrote:Thank you for your efforts!

Does the Gendai Judo mag have a homepage? I could not find one with Google.

近代柔道

NBK wrote:

makoto wrote:Thank you for your efforts!

Does the Gendai Judo mag have a homepage? I could not find one with Google.

近代柔道

どうもありがとうございました。

Just in case, you are interested: