Judo Kodokan atemi waza

You can find this book by Jose A Caracena, 120 p. ISBN 9781366626738 described here The book I comment is an Italian translation in 2017 ISBN 9781364204785

"When Shihan Jigoro Kano developed his new method of jujutsu, Kodokan Judo, he established three major technical groups: nage waza, katame waza and atemi waza. It has been more than 130 years since the founding of Judo and both, techniques and goals have evolved in different ways. Nowadays, judo is practiced mainly as a sport competition, giving priority to nage waza and katame waza, while atemi waza and the study of vital points (kyusho) are hardly practiced. After many years of researching, compiling and translating old writings with Jigoro Kano's opinion about atemi and self-defense, we have performed this study of the official classification of atemi and kyusho, where are included unpublished documents of the founding master of Judo. Color book."

When you find a book that promises to show "unpublished" things of Judo one should be cautious. When you open the book and see the recommendations by Bruce R. Bethers, Pedro R. Dabauza and Ricardo Mercado Sierra you know that the book is not from "mainstream judo". The good thing is that they do caution you "color book" and color with bold fat fonthas been used, similar to someone who just has found that after black and white there are colors and some parts can be made bold.

The main line is; Where is the Judo atemi-waza and the book tries to answer "here". It is true that atemi waza was part of many Japanese schools. The first 60 pages is spent on putting together information from official Kodokan sources of the meaning and purpose of Judo. Putting together information means that one is quoting without proper references. So the reader does not know what is fact and what is opinion. The obvious goal is to "prove" to the reader that atemi waza was an important part of Judo. The discussion is nice, but having almost the full page with bold font kind of destroys the reading pleasure. It is true that Atemi waza is part of various Judo kata and part of self-defence in Judo. But being interested in Atemi and having defences against atemi does not mean that attacking with atemi was ever a goal in Judo. The obvious Kano and Funakoshi discussion is there, which has been discussed to death. To me the point is that Kano was interested in new things and all forms of self defence. This does not mean that he actively promoted every and all methods he was interested in as integral part of his Judo.

In the 30 page section about vital points this book referes to Takenouchi ruy jujutsu, Seigo ruy jujutsu, Kyushin Ichi ruy jujutsu, Sekiguchi ruy jujutsu, Shinto ruy jujutsu, Tenjin Shinyo ruy jujutsu without further reference to the documents of those arts. Most interesting are ~10 copies of "old slides from 60s?" maybe from Scientific bulleting of Kodokan Volume 4, chapter 6 and 7, showing the vital points of various schools.

The book finishes with 25 pages of photos showing how to do the atemi in various kata of Kodokan Judo. Not the defence, but just the attack.

So apart of the awful type and colors the book is solid, but does not IMHO bring any new vital info to Judo.

Without looking at the book, I am convinced that they missed the point on atemi in judo.

There are some very well documented discussions of the importance of atemi waza in the prewar Kodokan. Those discussions are not mentioned in the main histories of judo; I am not sure why (but then again, newaza also gets almost no mention, either).

I will disclose a lot of this and other lost (some hidden) aspects of judo history in a later book.

NBK, any guess as to when your book might be published ?
I'm a bit long in the tooth now and would like to see the result of your efforts while I still can see

Udon wrote:NBK, any guess as to when your book might be published ?
I'm a bit long in the tooth now and would like to see the result of your efforts while I still can see

Hahhhhaaa... me, too!

The goal is before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics - I may be able to sell a couple to people other than judoka if timed correctly. I have professional work that gets in the way time to time. Also got to figure out if I want to submit myself to a normal publisher, which will probably have a completely different notion of how to present my objective.

It's going slowly but at least the research is winding down- I'm now digging through newspapers archives on Kano shihan. He gets over 1,000 hits on one single paper's search function alone. From 1900 on he shows up on the front page of that paper a surprising number of times - Kano Jigoro, the headmaster of the Tokyo Higher Normal School, visited Sapporo where he attended the Hokkaido Physical Education Society's annual general meeting, and a concurrent Dai Nihon Butokukai exhibition, Schoolmaster Kano came back from a study tour of Korean education, Schoolmaster Kano met the Foreign Ministry to talk about his program teaching Chinese students, Schoolmaster Kano returns from his China excursion / study tour, blah blah..... He truly was a national figure, even in his middle age.

He belonged to an astonishing number of organizations, often in some leadership capacity, related to education, physical culture and education, morality, Confucianism, Chinese studies, international relations, you name it.

There's one he apparently chaired that simply disappears after he dies, and its documents are proving impossible to find so far (there are references to it in other publications). I'm starting to think someone burned the records, a friend searched and searched, and engaged several academics - no one has anything on it. Their objective was something pretty antithetical to the militarists, so without the protection of his status, I think they just pulled the plug on it and never met again. That one keeps nagging me, and I keep looking.

In the process I learned a lot about his extended family. The ties are diverse, from artists to hardcore military guys. There's a very strong Navy connection, too.

I've found things I'm sure have never seen English, obscure side references that he privately taught a famous person judo in secret for years, etc.

Fascinating fellow, all in all, and in many ways not what the sycophant hagiographies would have one think.

Lance Gatling

Sounds like an enormous amount of research and work. All the best with it. I look forward to reading it.

I like to buy and read in future.

Thanks, gents.

One of the more interesting aspects of this complex man I'm trying to frame was his thoughts (and actions) regarding women. He had fairly traditional thoughts for the time, and sometimes promoted those thoughts in terms that would drive Stacey and other modern ladies around the bend. At any rate, despite certain personal writings that would seem misogynistic, but at the same time championed the education of women, and had ground breaking efforts to set up judo instruction for women at a time that such things really were not done in Japan.

NBK wrote:At any rate, despite certain personal writings that would seem misogynistic, but at the same time championed the education of women, and had ground breaking efforts to set up judo instruction for women at a time that such things really were not done in Japan.  

Or anywhere else, for that matter.
J-F.

Jihef wrote:

NBK wrote:At any rate, despite certain personal writings that would seem misogynistic, but at the same time championed the education of women, and had ground breaking efforts to set up judo instruction for women at a time that such things really were not done in Japan.  

Or anywhere else, for that matter.
J-F.

True enough I guess - although it makes me understand that I don't know how far ahead or behind the notion of female hard physical education Japan was at the time.

Thanks for the comment - additional food for thought.

Perhaps not coincidentally after this thread started I finished reading an article by Kano shihan about atemiwaza.

Written in the Showa era not in a Kodokan related publication, he talks of the importance of atemi waza in effective judo training. He also admits that he himself had not much experience in large competitions, but rather mostly depended on his stronger students.

He also notes that randori for 'old men' is pretty much impossible, but that striking technique practice is suitable for men and women, young and old. He then oddly cites the historic example of the Kodokan tournament with the Totsuka dojo in 'around 1886 or 1887'.

That is very interesting.
Thanks.