Because Judo got formalized as an effective system and sport so early on in modern martial arts history, I wonder: how much has Judo effected how other sytems have defined themselves? Possible examples:
-In TKD I’ve some interesting stand-up grappling they never actually spar with: it seems like the TKD sparring rules were in some way trying to offer something not already available in Olympic Judo - sort of a justification-for-existance.
-The same could be said of kickboxing rules for example (we aren’t Judo, so only Muay Thai throws allowed, because we are trying to kick and punch here.) If Judo hadn’t been formalized first, I bet there would be much more throws tolerated in the “sabaki challenge” (which in turn exclude some of the clinching from the older sport of Muay Thai.)
-Even BJJ guys sometimes define themselves by explaining the differences between their system and Judo.
-How many local grappling styles got assimilated into local Judo clubs (as Judo was the basic international “submission wresting” sport)?
-Any martial art that has a colorful ranking-system is at least indirectly comparing itself to Judo, since that originated with Judo (including many a CMA.)
-Judo has been around as an international competition for a very long time, making it a gold-standard by which to evaluate other martial art systems.
Just from the POV of grading structures alone, judo has defined a hell of a lot of ma. The belt system has been adopted by all modern japanese arts and bled thru into their various korean american haiwaian and brazillian offspring, and a lot of CMA have adopted the whole “sash” (what? its different to how the japanese do it, okay!) system since.
Along with this comes in the idea of a definitive, standardised level of both knowledge and profiency required for each progression. You could go into any judo school with your nice belt and the instructor would have an extremely good idea as to what you were capable of as a student. This broke down the traditional reliance* on your master- you could train at any judo school you wanted, and find the same cirriculum and be at the same place in your training. It made instructors lives easier too- a student from within the judo could move to their new area, walk into your club with their nice gi and nice belt- and you know what? You pretty much know what he has learned already and what you can expect from him without having to watch him train for a couple of months and keep asking does he know this technique, do you know what I’m talking about etc…Its simple and its genius. No wonder its been implemented in most other widespread systems- its brilliant and its proven to be the easiest way to train people on a mass scale in societies where people have more freedom of movement.
This helped pave the way for expansion out of japan as well. As you point out judo has been an international competition for a long time now. This is because judo has been a standardised system for a long time- and become as ubiquitous as the dollar.
But then is the matter of wrestling and boxing where your record is the important thang…:hello:
I think this standardization is one of the things that brought me back into judo after a long absence. I like the fact that it’s techniques are straight to the point and belts levels aren’t all over the place. It may not look cool or have many movies to its credit, but damn if it isn’t fun.
Judo was THE MA for almost half a century.
It gave alot to the MA world:
-The DOGI. The GI was NOT a standard part of MA training. Koryu arts trained in Kimono. Kano formalized a training uniform and it was later adopted by Funakoshi for his Shotokan. The rest is history.
-The Kyu/Dan system. The colored belts, as mentioned, has been adopted by almost every MA, but its the Kyu/Dan system of grading is what really changed the Japanese community.
-Training. Judo revived what alot of MA were NOT doing at the time. They started “Alive” training in Japan.
That I did not know. I knew this thread would be cool.
Could you expand on that, Asia? It seems like there is a whole lot more to tell.
Prior to the Kyu/Dan grade system you had traditional rankings which were not really structured. You had Shoden, Chuden, Okuden, and finally Menkyo Kaiden which was a teaching liscence. The teachings varied from school to school, or form branch to branch in the same school. The Kyu/Dan grades was structured and you had requirements for each promotion, your performance played a big factor in it.
Judo has had a lot of influence on other martial arts, but not nearly enough, seeing as most TMA are absolute suckfests.
Judo isn’t a “TMA.” In fact it is the very definition and framer for what “Modern Martial Arts” would be, both in its inception by Kano and its development towards becoming mainly definable as a sports form.
Well Judo is only considered a TMA in the US. In Japan it is called a GENDAI, or Modern, MA.
The term TMA is really not well defined. As I said many times Aikido, Karate, and TKD are considered TMA, but again in Japan they are Gendai Budo. BJJ is older than Aikido, TKD, and most of the forms of Karate practiced today but its not considered a TMA.
Yeah, I’ve been kind of perplexed by the usage of “TMA” by Americans, though I understand how it came about.
Just about none of the arts considered “TMA” are traditional and few of them claim to be in any way, at least among Japanese/Okinawan Martial Arts. Things get a little fuzzier among Chinese Arts, but even then most of those arts point towads recent codifiers/redactors as holding the major influence over how their arts are practiced today. Korean arts seem too mind bogglingly weird when they turn towards their history to really be taken seriously, though I’d love to have someone school me on that scene’s history.
I sometimes get the sense that if an art originates in an Asian country, retains some of the cultural character of the place it is from and wears fancy pajamas it is considered “TMA” by default.
Was Tai Chi a victim of Judo being too cool?
If I understand correctly, Kano wasn’t trying to make a “grappling system” per say, he was actually trying to put together the best of the Japanese martial arts in a way that could be trained in athletically/modernly. Two guys grabing each other and struggling to the ground certainly is what most fights turn into.
Some schools of Tai Chi are very focused on stand-up grappling, and I wonder if part of why Tai Chi has become the worst-case-scenerio of a martial art being watered down has something to do with many of it’s techniques covering the same general catagory of techniques found in Judo.
I’ve heard rumors of Tai Chi push hands competitors in China cross training in Judo. (My source competed in push-hand in Hong Kong in the late 80’s, and noted that a competetor had also been on some kind of competition Judo team (which came up when that competitor got a warning for partially executing an Ippon Seionagi type throw.) He showed me the tape.) This would make at least as much sense as Tai Chi guys doing boxing or kickboxing. (In the Yang Tai Chi I did it was considered part of training for stand up grappling in the “Chinese rules” kickboxing that we were also doing.) I’ve also seen another Tai Chi school (Wudang Dan Pai) practice in a way that was not totally unlike judo: http://www.bullshido.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&file=viewarticle&id=235
So maybe Judo being so good is a big part of what made a lot of this other stuff suck - trying to seperate your style from Judo could make your art exclude some of its most important fundamentals - a focus on important fundamentals being Kano’s intention of forming Judo in the first place. Trying to be “new and original” is an important part of marketing a martial art (so that martial arts will focus on their most unorthodox aspects - like high-slap-kicking in TKD or slow forms in Tai Chi - just to show what they offer that Judo (or boxing) does not already offer.)
That’s not exactly true.
Kano was tryng to produce a form of jujutsu that would be acceptable to the social climate of Modern Japan above all othe things. In order to do that he adopted an approach that relied upon scientific principles of anatomy and physics (or invoked those things as his rationale) for the efficiency, were safe for general practice and did not contain deadly methods, and could be taught to nearly anyone interested in learning.
Behind these intentions was a real love for jujutsu and a hope that it could be made into an acceptable part of Japanese culture rather then lost to Japan’s modernization. As such Kodokan Judo presented a non-combative form of jujutsu and attempted to collect and preserve as much of older jujutsu ryuha in their archives and among its practitioners.
Beyond the motives the major contribution that Kano made to martial arts was the introduction of randori early and often in training. Since the core methods of Kodokan Judo were safe enough for this kind of training the people traning could push themselves to 100% of their skills and capacities, learning quickly and with a huge amount of feedback.
Now some things have actually suffered in Judo because of the emphasis on randori as the primary feature of Kodokan Judo rather then as mainly a training device. The atemi waza of Judo have almost been entirely lost to most practiioners as Kano never figured out a safe way to integrate it into Judo randori (oh to send an MMA glove back in time). The non-randori methods such as all of the joint locks other then elbow locks have also been lost, this time not because Kano didn’t think they were useful but because of the white washing of Kodokan Judo to get past the post-WW2 ban on martial arts in Japan and then to qualify as an Olympic Sport.
If you’re interested in seeing what Kodokan Judo looked like before the sports-izing check out The Complete Kano Jiu-jitsu by H. Irving Hancock and Katsukuma Higashi. It’s kind of an eye opener and is a really serious contrast to the current form that Kodokan Judo has.
Yep, the dogi and kyu/dan system were inventions of Kano Sensei.
The gi was an attempt at clothing that would stand up to grappling. Before then practitioners wore their regular clothes - kimono and whatnot. Unfortunatley, even the good ones can get shredded pretty quickly. Legend has it that the dogi was a modification of firemen’s heavy quilted clothing. The jackets were dense enough to resist sparks and could be soaked in water for added protection. When Karate made its big marketing push people were used to the gi, so karateka adopted a lighter version.
Before Judo there weren’t ranks in the modern sense. Various ryu-ha issued teaching certificates.
Another thing that Kano Sensei was responsible for was the title “Professor”. I point and laugh when martial artists with barely a highschool education call themselves “Professor”. Kano is often called Professor Kano because he really was one. He founded and ran universities as his day job.
Thank you. I had wondered where people got off calling themselves “professor.” I now continue to feel justified asking at what university they teach.
–J.D.
From my understanding Kano’s intention was also to resurrect a form of Physical Culture in Japan that he had felt was dying out. There are a lot of parrellels between Judo and the Muscular Christianity and Gymnastics movements in Europe. The notion that through diligent training and testing one would also become a more noble (purer) person. (please feel free to school if I’m off on this one)
The other key art I think would be Shotokan Karate. It was Judo, plus the mainstreaming of Karate in to Japanese School systems and in Korea, that solidified many of the cultural practices that we know.
Ditto on all the TMA points raised thus far.
- Matt
According to at least one major martial arts researcher, Hancock’s book is not judo
according to Joseph Svinth:
“Richard Bowen has quoted Trevor Leggett as saying that Kano was rather upset by Hancock’s usage, but as Japan was not a signatory to the Berne Convention at the time, there wasn’t much he could do.”
"The first edition of Hancock’s book was published in New York in 1905, and the conference that codified judo did not take place until July 1906. The style shown is more likely the jujutsu practiced by Higashi, which may have been Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu. Therefore, for an idea about what judo looked like in the early days, a better source would be Arima’s “Judo: Japanese Physical Culture,” published in 1904 and introduced by Kano
That is one of the things that have always fascinated me about Judo. There is a strict rationale that explains why a judo throw works they way it does, why it carries so much power, why hitting the mat with your hand at a 45 degree angle helps break a fall, and so on. That is, almost everything has a explanation based on physics. I recommend reading “The Secrets of Judo” by Jiichi Watanabe and Lindy Avakian, in particular chapter 7 - “How to Practice Throwing” - it explains all the scientific principles behind a powerful throw.
There are some things I hate about Judo, though… like the insistence in giving your back to your opponent (crazy Judo comp rules) at times. :tard: :tard: :tard:
This is corrrect. Higashi was a Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu jiu-jitsu exponent and many of the techniques in that book seem to come from that school than from the Kodokan.
Matt’s right - the influence of European educational models, especially physical education, was highly influential on Kano’s reform of the traditional martial arts in Japan. As a professional educator and passionate Europhile, Kano was concerned with preserving his own country’s traditions and simultaneously reforming them to fit the emerging internationalism.
He is said to have been inspired by the philosophy of “Muscular Christianity” (one of the founding concepts of the modern YMCA). Similarly, consider the German Turnverein gymnastics program and the “Swedish system” devised by Pehr Ling. A bit later, the French physical educator George Hebert created his “Methode Naturelle”. All of these systems encouraged highly scientific programs of physical culture, often combining combat sports (various wrestling styles, bayonet fencing, savate, etc.) with gymnastics, calisthenics and specific apparatus exercises.
Most importantly for Kano, these systems offered a model of “physical culture” which also stressed moral and intellectual development, at a time when physicality and especially close-combat training was generally associated with the lower classes and even with gangsterism. This was as true in Japan as it was in Europe. The highly structured European systems made physical training respectable and even desirable, and could be successfully integrated into high school and university curricula.
A close parallel to the development of Judo would be the scientific style of boxing, which was created at a time when prize-fighting was the subject of a great deal of moral controversy. Much-derided by professionals and traditionalists as an effort by “gentlemen” to co-opt a sport that had previously been associated mostly with the working classes, the scientific style was still largely successful in democratising and preserving the art of pugilism at a time when it came close to being banned in many countries. In a sense, the developers of scientific boxing did for that sport when Kano did for jiujitsu.
Wow, great stuff here. So:
A) Judo had it’s own cultural pressures that it was developing under.
B) Kano was the Japanese equivalent of Horace Mann, so he was also making a statement about “how to educate” (he’s also the Horace Mann of Martial Arts because Kano what trying to make “martial arts education” socially something more people could do, ie “standardization of training process.”)
C) Judo didn’t actually cover “all the basics” (namely atemi was missing. Sort of like Boxing, Judo tried to cover the basics of “fighting arts” but wasn’t able to cover everything.)