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Lacadio Hearn was one of the earliest Western chroniclers of Japan in the Meiji era. He taught English at the 5th High School in Kumamoto where Kano shihan was the head of the school. The chapter below is from Hearn's book 'Out of the East'; the entire text is available at https://archive.org/stream/outofeastreverie00hearuoft/outofeastreverie00hearuoft_djvu.txt
It is one of, if not the first, firsthand English descriptions of judo by someone other than Kano shihan. Dated 1891. Kano shihan started teaching judo in the entrance hall of one of the student buildings, just threw mats on the dirt floor. He noted there was no money to hire teachers so he had to teach himself. They started with kata, then yakusoku randori, and finally full on randori. Apparently Kano shihan was able to collect the funds for a dedicated dojo pretty quickly. He was well connected in Kumamoto for a number of reasons.
The White Tiger band was a group of teenaged samurai who sacrificed themselves after a famous battle.
Count Katsu was Katsu Kaishu, who wrote the famous poem that we've discussed here upon seeing the kata at the Kodokan.
I have a couple of candidates for the 'prince of the noble blood', but can't be sure. Maybe someone in Kumamoto knows.....
NBK
JIUJUTSU
I
There is one building in the grounds of
the Government College quite different in
structure from the other edifices. Except
that it is furnished with horizontally sliding
glass windows instead of paper ones, it might
be called a purely Japanese building. It is
long, broad, and of one story ; and it contains
but a single huge room, of which the elevated
floor is thickly cushioned with one hundred
mats. It has a Japanese name, too, — Zui-
hokwan, — signifying " The Hall of Our Holy
Country ; " and the Chinese characters which
form that name were painted upon the small
tablet above its entrance by the hand of a
184 OUT OF THE EAST
Prince of the Imperial blood. Within there
is no furniture ; nothing but another tablet
and two pictures hanging upon the wall.
One of the pictures represents the famous
"White-Tiger Band" of seventeen brave
boys who voluntarily sought death for loy-
alty's sake in the civil war. The other is a
portrait in oil of the aged and much beloved
Professor of Chinese, Akizuki of Aidzu, a
noted warrior in his youth, when it required
much more to make a soldier and a gentle-
man than it does to-day. And the tablet
bears Chinese characters written by the hand
of Count Katsu, which signify: "Profound
knowledge is the best of possessions."
But what is the knowledge taught in this
huge unfurnished apartment? It is some-
thing called jiujutsu. And what is jiujutsu?
Here I must premise that I know practi-
cally nothing of jiujutsu. One must begin to
study it in early youth, and must continue the
study a very long time in order to learn it
even tolerably well. To become an expert re-
quires seven years of constant practice, even
presupposing natural aptitudes of an uncom-
mon order. I can give no detailed account
JIUJUTSU 185
of jiujutsu, but merely venture some general
remarks about its principle.
Jiujutsu is the old samurai art of fighting
without weapons. To the uninitiated it looks
like wrestling. Should you happen to enter
the Zuihokwan while jiujutsu is being prac-
ticed, you would see a crowd of students
watching ten or twelve lithe young comrades,
barefooted and barelimbed, throwing each
other about on the matting. The dead silence
might seem to you very strange. No word
is spoken, no sign of approbation or of amuse-
ment is given, no face even smiles. Absolute
impassiveness is rigidly exacted by the rules
of the school of jiujutsu. But probably only
this impassibility of all, this hush of numbers,
would impress you as remarkable.
A professional wrestler would observe more.
He would see that those young men are very
cautious about putting forth their strength,
and that the grips, holds, and flings are both
peculiar and risky. In spite of the care ex-
ercised, he would judge the whole perform-
ance to be dangerous play, and would be
tempted, perhaps, to advise the adoption of
Western " scientific " rules.
186 OUT OF THE EAST
The real thing, however, — not the play, —
is much more dangerous than a Western
wrestler could guess at sight. The teacher
there, slender and light as he seems, could
probably disable an ordinary wrestler in two
minutes. Jiujutsu is not an art of display at
all : it is not a training for that sort of skill
exhibited to public audiences ; it is an art of
self-defense in the most exact sense of the
term ; it is an art of war. The master of that
art is able, in one moment, to put an un-
trained antagonist completely hors de combat.
By some terrible legerdemain he suddenly dis-
locates a shoulder, unhinges a joint, bursts a
tendon, or snaps a bone, — without any appar-
ent effort. He is much more than an athlete :
he is an anatomist. And he knows also
touches that kill — as by lightning. But this
fatal knowledge he is under oath never to
communicate except under such conditions as
would render its abuse almost impossible.
Tradition exacts that it be given only to men
of perfect self-command and of unimpeachable
moral character.
The fact, however, to which I want to call
. attention is that the master of jiujutsu never
JIUJUTSU 187
relies upon his own strength. He scarcely
uses his own strength in the greatest emer-
gency. Then what does he use ? Simply the
strength of his antagonist. The force of the
enemy is the only means by which that enemy
is overcome. The art of jiujutsu teaches you
to rely for victory solely upon the strength of
your opponent ; and the greater his strength,
the worse for him and the better for you. I
remember that I was not a little astonished
when one of the greatest teachers of jiujutsu l
told me that he found it extremely difficult to
teach a certain very strong pupil, whom I had
innocently imagined to be the best in the
class. On asking why, I was answered : " Be-
cause he relies upon his enormous muscular
strength, and uses it." The very name " jiu-
jutsu " means to conquer by yielding.
I fear I cannot explain at all ; I can only
suggest. Every one knows what a " counter "
in boxing means. I cannot use it for an
exact simile, because the boxer who counters
opposes his whole force to the impetus of the
1 Kano Jigoro. Mr. Kano contributed some years ago to
the Transactions of the Asiatic Society a very interesting
paper on the history of Jiujutsu.
188 OUT OF THE EAST
other ; while a jiujutsu expert does precisely
the contrary. Still there remains this resem-
blance between a counter in boxing and a
yielding in jiujutsu, — that the suffering is in
both cases due to the uncontrollable forward
impetus of the man who receives it. I may
venture then to say, loosely, that in jiujutsu
there is a sort of counter for every twist,
wrench, pull, push, or bend : only, the jiuju-
tsu expert does not oppose such movements at
all. No: he yields to them. But he does
much more than yield to them. He aids
them with a wicked sleight that causes the
assailant to put out his own shoulder, to frac-
ture his own arm, or, in a desperate case, even
to break his own neck or back.
With even this vaguest of explanations,
you will already have been able to perceive
that the real wonder of jiujutsu is not in the
highest possible skill of its best professor, but
in the uniquely Oriental idea which the whole
art expresses. What Western brain could
have elaborated this strange teaching, —
never to oppose force to force, but only to
JIUJUTSU 189
direct and utilize the power of attack; to
overthrow the enemy solely by his own
strength, — to vanquish him solely by his own
effort ? Surely none ! The Occidental mind
appears to work in straight lines ; the Ori-
ental, in wonderful curves and circles. Yet
how fine a symbolism of Intelligence as a
means to foil brute force ! Much more than a
science of defense is this jiujutsu : it is a phi-
losophical system ; it is an economical system ;
it is an ethical system (indeed, I had forgot-
ten to say that a very large part of jiujutsu-
training is purely moral) ; and it is, above all,
the expression of a racial genius as yet but
faintly perceived by those Powers who dream
of further aggrandizement in the East.
Twenty-five years ago, — and even more
recently, — foreigners might have predicted,
with every appearance of reason, that Japan
would adopt not only the dress, but the man-
ners of the Occident; not only our means
of rapid transit and communication, but also
our principles of architecture ; not only our
industries and our applied science, but like-
wise our metaphysics and our dogmas. Some
190 OUT OF THE EAST
really believed that the country would soon
be thrown open to foreign settlement; that
Western capital would be tempted by extraor-
dinary privileges to aid in the development of
various resources; and even that the nation
would eventually proclaim, through Imperial
Edict, its sudden conversion to what we call
Christianity. But such beliefs were due to
an unavoidable but absolute ignorance of the
character of the race, — of its deeper capaci-
ties, of its foresight, of its immemorial spirit
of independence. That Japan might only be
practicing jiujutsu, nobody supposed for a
moment: indeed at that time nobody in the
West had ever heard of jiujutsu.
And, nevertheless, jiujutsu it all was.
Japan adopted a military system founded
upon the best experience of France and Ger-
many, with the result that she can call into
the field a disciplined force of 250,000 men,
supported by a formidable artillery. She
created a strong navy, comprising some of the
finest cruisers in the world; — modeling her
naval system upon the best English and
French teaching. She made herself dock-
yards under French direction, and built or
JIUJUTSU 191
bought steamers to carry her products to
Korea, China, Manilla, Mexico, India, and the
tropics of the Pacific. She constructed, both
for military and commercial purposes, nearly
two thousand miles of railroad. With Ameri-
can and English help she established the
cheapest and perhaps the most efficient tele-
graph and postal service in existence. She
built lighthouses to such excellent purpose
that her coast is said to be the best lighted in
either hemisphere ; and she put into operation
a signal service not inferior to that of the
United States. From America she obtained
also a telephone system, and the best methods
of electric lighting. She modeled her public-
school system upon a thorough study of the
best results obtained in Germany, France, and
America, but regulated it so as to harmo-
nize perfectly with her own institutions. She
founded a police system upon a French model,
but shaped it to absolute conformity with
her own particular social requirements. At
first she imported machinery for her mines,
her mills, her gun-factories, her railways, and
hired numbers of foreign experts : she is now
dismissing all her teachers. But what she
192 OUT OF THE EAST
has done and is doing would require volumes
even to mention. Suffice to say, in conclu-
sion, that she has selected and adopted the
best of everything represented by our indus-
tries, by our applied sciences, by our econom-
ical, financial, and legal experience ; availing
herself in every case of the highest results
only, and invariably shaping her acquisitions
to meet her own needs.
Now in all this she has adopted nothing for
a merely imitative reason. On the contrary,
she has approved and taken only what can
help her to increase her strength. She has
made herself able to dispense with nearly all
foreign technical instruction ; and she has
kept firmly in her own hands, by the shrewd-
est legislation, all of her own resources. But
she has not adopted Western dress, Western
habits of life, Western architecture, or West-
ern religion ; since the introduction of any of
these, especially the last, would have dimin-
ished instead of augmenting her force. De-
spite her railroad and steamship lines, her
telegraphs and telephones, her postal service
and her express companies, her steel artillery
and magazine-rifles, her universities and tech-
JIUJUTSU 193
nical schools, she remains just as Oriental
to-day as she was a thousand years ago. She
has been able to remain herself, and to profit
to the utmost possible limit by the strength of
the enemy. She has been, and still is, defend-
ing herself by the most admirable system of
intellectual self-defense ever heard of, — by a
marvelous national jiujutsu.
##
It is one of, if not the first, firsthand English descriptions of judo by someone other than Kano shihan. Dated 1891. Kano shihan started teaching judo in the entrance hall of one of the student buildings, just threw mats on the dirt floor. He noted there was no money to hire teachers so he had to teach himself. They started with kata, then yakusoku randori, and finally full on randori. Apparently Kano shihan was able to collect the funds for a dedicated dojo pretty quickly. He was well connected in Kumamoto for a number of reasons.
The White Tiger band was a group of teenaged samurai who sacrificed themselves after a famous battle.
Count Katsu was Katsu Kaishu, who wrote the famous poem that we've discussed here upon seeing the kata at the Kodokan.
I have a couple of candidates for the 'prince of the noble blood', but can't be sure. Maybe someone in Kumamoto knows.....
NBK
JIUJUTSU
I
There is one building in the grounds of
the Government College quite different in
structure from the other edifices. Except
that it is furnished with horizontally sliding
glass windows instead of paper ones, it might
be called a purely Japanese building. It is
long, broad, and of one story ; and it contains
but a single huge room, of which the elevated
floor is thickly cushioned with one hundred
mats. It has a Japanese name, too, — Zui-
hokwan, — signifying " The Hall of Our Holy
Country ; " and the Chinese characters which
form that name were painted upon the small
tablet above its entrance by the hand of a
184 OUT OF THE EAST
Prince of the Imperial blood. Within there
is no furniture ; nothing but another tablet
and two pictures hanging upon the wall.
One of the pictures represents the famous
"White-Tiger Band" of seventeen brave
boys who voluntarily sought death for loy-
alty's sake in the civil war. The other is a
portrait in oil of the aged and much beloved
Professor of Chinese, Akizuki of Aidzu, a
noted warrior in his youth, when it required
much more to make a soldier and a gentle-
man than it does to-day. And the tablet
bears Chinese characters written by the hand
of Count Katsu, which signify: "Profound
knowledge is the best of possessions."
But what is the knowledge taught in this
huge unfurnished apartment? It is some-
thing called jiujutsu. And what is jiujutsu?
Here I must premise that I know practi-
cally nothing of jiujutsu. One must begin to
study it in early youth, and must continue the
study a very long time in order to learn it
even tolerably well. To become an expert re-
quires seven years of constant practice, even
presupposing natural aptitudes of an uncom-
mon order. I can give no detailed account
JIUJUTSU 185
of jiujutsu, but merely venture some general
remarks about its principle.
Jiujutsu is the old samurai art of fighting
without weapons. To the uninitiated it looks
like wrestling. Should you happen to enter
the Zuihokwan while jiujutsu is being prac-
ticed, you would see a crowd of students
watching ten or twelve lithe young comrades,
barefooted and barelimbed, throwing each
other about on the matting. The dead silence
might seem to you very strange. No word
is spoken, no sign of approbation or of amuse-
ment is given, no face even smiles. Absolute
impassiveness is rigidly exacted by the rules
of the school of jiujutsu. But probably only
this impassibility of all, this hush of numbers,
would impress you as remarkable.
A professional wrestler would observe more.
He would see that those young men are very
cautious about putting forth their strength,
and that the grips, holds, and flings are both
peculiar and risky. In spite of the care ex-
ercised, he would judge the whole perform-
ance to be dangerous play, and would be
tempted, perhaps, to advise the adoption of
Western " scientific " rules.
186 OUT OF THE EAST
The real thing, however, — not the play, —
is much more dangerous than a Western
wrestler could guess at sight. The teacher
there, slender and light as he seems, could
probably disable an ordinary wrestler in two
minutes. Jiujutsu is not an art of display at
all : it is not a training for that sort of skill
exhibited to public audiences ; it is an art of
self-defense in the most exact sense of the
term ; it is an art of war. The master of that
art is able, in one moment, to put an un-
trained antagonist completely hors de combat.
By some terrible legerdemain he suddenly dis-
locates a shoulder, unhinges a joint, bursts a
tendon, or snaps a bone, — without any appar-
ent effort. He is much more than an athlete :
he is an anatomist. And he knows also
touches that kill — as by lightning. But this
fatal knowledge he is under oath never to
communicate except under such conditions as
would render its abuse almost impossible.
Tradition exacts that it be given only to men
of perfect self-command and of unimpeachable
moral character.
The fact, however, to which I want to call
. attention is that the master of jiujutsu never
JIUJUTSU 187
relies upon his own strength. He scarcely
uses his own strength in the greatest emer-
gency. Then what does he use ? Simply the
strength of his antagonist. The force of the
enemy is the only means by which that enemy
is overcome. The art of jiujutsu teaches you
to rely for victory solely upon the strength of
your opponent ; and the greater his strength,
the worse for him and the better for you. I
remember that I was not a little astonished
when one of the greatest teachers of jiujutsu l
told me that he found it extremely difficult to
teach a certain very strong pupil, whom I had
innocently imagined to be the best in the
class. On asking why, I was answered : " Be-
cause he relies upon his enormous muscular
strength, and uses it." The very name " jiu-
jutsu " means to conquer by yielding.
I fear I cannot explain at all ; I can only
suggest. Every one knows what a " counter "
in boxing means. I cannot use it for an
exact simile, because the boxer who counters
opposes his whole force to the impetus of the
1 Kano Jigoro. Mr. Kano contributed some years ago to
the Transactions of the Asiatic Society a very interesting
paper on the history of Jiujutsu.
188 OUT OF THE EAST
other ; while a jiujutsu expert does precisely
the contrary. Still there remains this resem-
blance between a counter in boxing and a
yielding in jiujutsu, — that the suffering is in
both cases due to the uncontrollable forward
impetus of the man who receives it. I may
venture then to say, loosely, that in jiujutsu
there is a sort of counter for every twist,
wrench, pull, push, or bend : only, the jiuju-
tsu expert does not oppose such movements at
all. No: he yields to them. But he does
much more than yield to them. He aids
them with a wicked sleight that causes the
assailant to put out his own shoulder, to frac-
ture his own arm, or, in a desperate case, even
to break his own neck or back.
With even this vaguest of explanations,
you will already have been able to perceive
that the real wonder of jiujutsu is not in the
highest possible skill of its best professor, but
in the uniquely Oriental idea which the whole
art expresses. What Western brain could
have elaborated this strange teaching, —
never to oppose force to force, but only to
JIUJUTSU 189
direct and utilize the power of attack; to
overthrow the enemy solely by his own
strength, — to vanquish him solely by his own
effort ? Surely none ! The Occidental mind
appears to work in straight lines ; the Ori-
ental, in wonderful curves and circles. Yet
how fine a symbolism of Intelligence as a
means to foil brute force ! Much more than a
science of defense is this jiujutsu : it is a phi-
losophical system ; it is an economical system ;
it is an ethical system (indeed, I had forgot-
ten to say that a very large part of jiujutsu-
training is purely moral) ; and it is, above all,
the expression of a racial genius as yet but
faintly perceived by those Powers who dream
of further aggrandizement in the East.
Twenty-five years ago, — and even more
recently, — foreigners might have predicted,
with every appearance of reason, that Japan
would adopt not only the dress, but the man-
ners of the Occident; not only our means
of rapid transit and communication, but also
our principles of architecture ; not only our
industries and our applied science, but like-
wise our metaphysics and our dogmas. Some
190 OUT OF THE EAST
really believed that the country would soon
be thrown open to foreign settlement; that
Western capital would be tempted by extraor-
dinary privileges to aid in the development of
various resources; and even that the nation
would eventually proclaim, through Imperial
Edict, its sudden conversion to what we call
Christianity. But such beliefs were due to
an unavoidable but absolute ignorance of the
character of the race, — of its deeper capaci-
ties, of its foresight, of its immemorial spirit
of independence. That Japan might only be
practicing jiujutsu, nobody supposed for a
moment: indeed at that time nobody in the
West had ever heard of jiujutsu.
And, nevertheless, jiujutsu it all was.
Japan adopted a military system founded
upon the best experience of France and Ger-
many, with the result that she can call into
the field a disciplined force of 250,000 men,
supported by a formidable artillery. She
created a strong navy, comprising some of the
finest cruisers in the world; — modeling her
naval system upon the best English and
French teaching. She made herself dock-
yards under French direction, and built or
JIUJUTSU 191
bought steamers to carry her products to
Korea, China, Manilla, Mexico, India, and the
tropics of the Pacific. She constructed, both
for military and commercial purposes, nearly
two thousand miles of railroad. With Ameri-
can and English help she established the
cheapest and perhaps the most efficient tele-
graph and postal service in existence. She
built lighthouses to such excellent purpose
that her coast is said to be the best lighted in
either hemisphere ; and she put into operation
a signal service not inferior to that of the
United States. From America she obtained
also a telephone system, and the best methods
of electric lighting. She modeled her public-
school system upon a thorough study of the
best results obtained in Germany, France, and
America, but regulated it so as to harmo-
nize perfectly with her own institutions. She
founded a police system upon a French model,
but shaped it to absolute conformity with
her own particular social requirements. At
first she imported machinery for her mines,
her mills, her gun-factories, her railways, and
hired numbers of foreign experts : she is now
dismissing all her teachers. But what she
192 OUT OF THE EAST
has done and is doing would require volumes
even to mention. Suffice to say, in conclu-
sion, that she has selected and adopted the
best of everything represented by our indus-
tries, by our applied sciences, by our econom-
ical, financial, and legal experience ; availing
herself in every case of the highest results
only, and invariably shaping her acquisitions
to meet her own needs.
Now in all this she has adopted nothing for
a merely imitative reason. On the contrary,
she has approved and taken only what can
help her to increase her strength. She has
made herself able to dispense with nearly all
foreign technical instruction ; and she has
kept firmly in her own hands, by the shrewd-
est legislation, all of her own resources. But
she has not adopted Western dress, Western
habits of life, Western architecture, or West-
ern religion ; since the introduction of any of
these, especially the last, would have dimin-
ished instead of augmenting her force. De-
spite her railroad and steamship lines, her
telegraphs and telephones, her postal service
and her express companies, her steel artillery
and magazine-rifles, her universities and tech-
JIUJUTSU 193
nical schools, she remains just as Oriental
to-day as she was a thousand years ago. She
has been able to remain herself, and to profit
to the utmost possible limit by the strength of
the enemy. She has been, and still is, defend-
ing herself by the most admirable system of
intellectual self-defense ever heard of, — by a
marvelous national jiujutsu.
##
