Kano shihan - what do you think you know?

In preparation for a project I'm finishing up, I think it would be interesting to see what people think about Kano shihan.

So, I request you enter what you think you know about him here.

Anything is OK.

height
weight
age
born
died
family
philosophies
education
character
judo
other budo
travels
etc
ect.....


I'll try to acknowledge what I can, find what I can, and tell you if I don't know.

NBL

Without looking anything up this is what I think I can recall:

• height   1.50m
  
• weight   ~70kg
  
• age   ~60
  
• born   28.10.1860
  
• died   march? 1940ish( definately before tokyo olympics)
  
  
• family  jiro nango(son?/nephew?) admiral?, risei kano(grandson) I believe he had other children but not as prominent in judo if at all.
  
  
• philosophies  Seiryoku zenyo, jita kyoei
  
  
• education  tokyo university- education and chinese culture? didn't hold a doctorate, but was head of education for tokyo, opened a school for chinese students when it was controversial
  
  
• character  not sure
  
  
• judo  no formal judo rank, learned kito ryu and tenjin shinyo ryu jujutsu, collected scrolls from other schools, created nage/katame/ju no kata with 10 techniques formalised to 15 in 1906? perhaps
  created ju no shiki and kimi no shiki, developed seiroku zenyo kokumin taiku, favourite technique- uki goshi
  
  
• other budo  visited gichin funakoshi(karate) morihei ueshiba(aikido) don't believe he studied any other budo, created a weapons division at kodokan and slo had other unarmed budo taught there
  
  
• travels  travelled frequently- definately visited uk and czech republic, first asian member of the ioc, was present at munich olympics
  

height   1.50m
- close enough
weight   ~70kg
- I guess
born   28.10.1860
- yes
died   march? 1940ish( definately before tokyo olympics)
- Died May 1938, on the Hikawa Maru, a luxury passenger liner crossing the Pacific
- 1940 Tokyo Olympics were cancelled within months of his death

family  jiro nango(son?/nephew?) admiral?, risei kano(grandson) I believe he had other children but not as prominent in judo if at all.
- 3 sons, ? daughters (who cares.... LOL) Eldest and second son died prematurely. Third son Kano Rise becomes the fourth Kodokan kancho
- Rear Admiral Nango Jiro (family name Nango) was his nephew, the son of Kano shihan's older sister and Admiral Nango. He becomes the second kancho after Kano's death

philosophies  Seiryoku zenyo, jita kyoei
- yes, after a fashion - this is a complicated story I just recently understand

education  tokyo university- education and chinese culture? didn't hold a doctorate,
- Graduated 'Tokyo University' before it became the 'Tokyo Imperial University', today's University of Tokyo  
- undergraduate political economy
- graduate study (one year) philosophy
- studied Chinese from age 7 or so

but was head of education for tokyo,
- was the principal of the Tokyo Higher Normal School (teacher training school) for over 20 years, which sent teachers all over Japan and the Empire

opened a school for chinese students when it was controversial
- did but it was not controversial - was asked to do so by the Minister of Education, a long term acquaintance  

character  not sure
- one gent who knew him for decades called him 'the most stubborn man in Japan'

judo  no formal judo rank, learned kito ryu and tenjin shinyo ryu jujutsu, collected scrolls from other schools, created nage/katame/ju no kata with 10 techniques formalised to 15 in 1906?

perhaps created ju no shiki and kimi no shiki, developed seiroku zenyo kokumin taiku,
- latter probably developed by committee under his direction for a very specific purpose not understood today

favourite technique- uki goshi

other budo  visited gichin funakoshi(karate) morihei ueshiba(aikido) don't believe he studied any other budo,
- studied jojutsu - the 50 inch / 127cm staff, was a real fan, wanted that art to be incorporated into judo, wrote a long introduction to a Judo magazine series on jojutsu (called 'bojutsu' at the time)

created a weapons division at kodokan and slo had other unarmed budo taught there
- yes but actually a 'kobudo' = ancient martial arts division, which focused on weapons
- I've never read that 'unarmed' budo were taught in that group, although he was apparently a fan of old jujutsu schools.

travels  travelled frequently- definately visited uk and czech republic, first asian member of the ioc, was present at munich olympics
- yes and other places

Thanks, good to know I had some idea of what I was talking about

Taking up the challenge without references. (only stuff not previously discussed)
- Visited many countries in this trips including Finland (which lot of people don't know about)
- In addition of being founder of Judo was founder of baseball and headed many national sports organisations; Japanese olympic committee, track and field, swimming, …
- was very close to the imperial family
- did translations for extra money
- was kicked out from his first job
- late in his life served in Japanese diet but very little is public of his political record
- emphasised also mondo in addition to kata and randori
- was close to the Navy
- did NOT like public ju-jitsu competitions, but took care that there were big strong guys in Kodokan to take up the challenges.
- had to try several times for Judo to be included in the school curriculum

finarashi wrote:Taking up the challenge without references. (only stuff not previously discussed)
- Visited many countries in this trips including Finland (which lot of people don't know about)
- In addition of being founder of Judo was founder of baseball and headed many national sports organisations; Japanese olympic committee, track and field, swimming, …
- was very close to the imperial family
- did translations for extra money
- was kicked out from his first job
- late in his life served in Japanese diet but very little is public of his political record
- emphasised also mondo in addition to kata and randori
- was close to the Navy
- did NOT like public ju-jitsu competitions, but took care that there were big strong guys in Kodokan to take up the challenges.
- had to try several times for Judo to be included in the school curriculum

Interesting!!!

- Visited many countries in this trips including Finland (which lot of people don't know about)
• Yes

- In addition of being founder of Judo was founder of baseball and headed many national sports organisations; Japanese olympic committee, track and field, swimming, …
• Baseball was introduced to Japan before Kano entered college, by an American professor. He was a fan, liked to pitch in college, but was not its founder.
• I'll have to doublecheck but Kano never headed the Japanese Olympic Committee. He was the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee, and went with the Japanese delegations to the Games, but usually some more elite VIP was the JOC head. He also never joined the 1940 Tokyo Olympic Committee IIRC.

- was very close to the imperial family
• I don't see much evidence for that - certainly some familiarity, and close to people close to them, but not a familiar face around the Palace.

- did translations for extra money
• interesting..... yes, I recall something like that early in his career

- was kicked out from his first job
• he 'left for other opportunities' so to speak, when he went to Kumamoto to head the 5th High School. Later he was relieved once for opposing the powerful administrative vice minister of Education, a long term professional acquaintance, by telling anyone that would listen that the gent was complete unsuited for the position. AFAIK he didn't even try to find another job, just sat around until the guy was gone and the ministry bureaucrats came back and asked him to take his old job again.

- late in his life served in Japanese diet but very little is public of his political record
• detailed public records exist. There is very little in English. He was nominated by the Emperor then 'elected' to a position in the House of Peers, which confuses some European observers to call him 'Baron Kano', which he was not (nobles made up the bulk of the members of the House of Peers). He focused on education - one speech I found he made, a word for word transcription, must have been ≥30 minutes or longer with him rattling on and on and on and on about a new education policy with which he disagreed. (man, did he love to talk. He must've put the entire chamber to sleep.)

- emphasised also mondo in addition to kata and randori
• yes - the terms are mondo and kogi. Lecture and Q&A as well as keiko.

- was close to the Navy
• you could say that, although I'd term it 'was close to many influential Navy officers'.

- did NOT like public ju-jitsu competitions, but took care that there were big strong guys in Kodokan to take up the challenges.
• fair enough

- had to try several times for Judo to be included in the school curriculum
• that a simple statement with a very complex answer, but that's enough for today.

NBK

Something popped into my mind. Jigiro Kano did several tours to Europe and Americas paid by the government.
There must be reports written by him on his learnings. They are probably not interesting, but I'd still like to know what he thought of western culture.
AFAIK there are no references to these so do they exist?

this my show up twice, I had an error

Great minds think alike.  Some of his trips must have been very expensive, and that means paperwork. I started looking for his trip reports last year.

I did find an extract of his European trip report 1889-1891.  

But now I think I have a pretty good idea of where those reports are. And pretty sure where they are not.

Progress of a sort, I guess.

Finarashi,

Well, I can now discount another location - no after action report in another special collection.

But there were a number of other documents that were enlightening and a number I have to wade through to comprehend.

Kano shihan's version of the background of his 1889-1891 European trip is self-serving at best, somewhat misleading in other ways. It is more unusual than it sounds at first glance.

Still there are yet another couple of places to look for the final report.

From Finarishi:
'- was kicked out from his first job'
To which I replied:
• he 'left for other opportunities' so to speak, when he went to Kumamoto to head the 5th High School. Later he was relieved once for opposing the powerful administrative vice minister of Education, a long term professional acquaintance, by telling anyone that would listen that the gent was complete unsuited for the position. AFAIK he didn't even try to find another job, just sat around until the guy was gone and the ministry bureaucrats came back and asked him to take his old job again.

Since posted this I found some other data.

When Kano shihan was vice principal and lecturer at the Gakushuin, it came under the Imperial Household Agency.

When he returned from Europe in early 1891 Lieutenant General Miura Goro was still the Chancellor of the Gakushuin. One could imagine the solution (a very expensive one) decided was to send Kano abroad to punt the problem down the road with the potential that Miura would have left by the time Kano returned to Japan.

Miura did not move.  

Apparently their misunderstandings were not resolved, as within weeks of returning from Europe Kano accepted a very senior position inside the Ministry of Education, thus dismissed from the Imperial Household Agency. He was in this new MidEd position only briefly before he accepted the opportunity to become the principal of the 5th High School in Kumamoto, but it took some months for him to move in the fall of 1891.