I’m sure people can do better. I have a vague idea that Westerners had heard of asian MA by the beginning of the 20th century. I know that Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes practicing a made up japanese wrestling style he called ‘Baritsu’ at the end of the 19th century for example.
Not rumours of centuries old exchanges mind (e.g. the undocumented assertion that Savate came from asian MA which was brought back to France by sailors). Properly documented stuff.
Anybody who posts a pic of David Carradine in reponse to this will be getting neg repped.
To up the stakes, the Budokwai dates back to 1918.
Edit: Depends on the question. First teaching of Asian arts to a Westerner probably dates back way further, but would be on Asian soil. First teaching of Asian arts in Europe would probably predate bartitsu c. 1898. Are we looking for the oldest surviving dojo here, or the oldest documented teaching of Asian martial arts on European or American soil?
Edit: Depends on the question. First teaching of Asian arts in probably dates back way further, but would be on Asian soil. First teaching of Asian arts in Europe would probably predate bartitsu c. 1898.
If you can find documented evidence of a Westerner learning Asian MA in Asia, go for it. ‘Shogun’ doesn’t count!
Are we looking for the oldest surviving dojo here, or the oldest documented teaching of Asian martial arts on European or American soil?
William Adams was an Englishman who was made a samurai; whether or not he learned koryu arts is debatable, but it seems highly likely. That would push the date back to about 1600. The Portuguese had already been trading there for about 50 years, so it’s plausible that some martial interchange took place there; there were certainly duels between the sailors and Japanese fighters.
Bartitsu is not made up -> search for Edward Barton-Wright; it’s only partially derived from jujutsu, though, and as to whether how good it was and how much it was B-W’s own invention is a different question… But he definitely had a school and Japanese people taught there, around 1890.
“1889 Jigoro Kano left Japan for a European tour, as a member of the ministry of the Japanese Imperial house .The first demonstration in Europe was in Marseille ,south of France”
OK, the answer to “which was the first dojo established in a Western country” is almost certainly E.W. Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu Club, also known as the Bartitsu Institute of Self Defence and Physical Culture, which was opened in late 1899 and located at 67b Shaftesbury Avenue, London. The school taught Barton-Wright’s eclectic Bartitsu system, which was a combination of at least two and possibly three jiujitsu styles - Tenshin-shinyo Ryu, Shinden-Fudo Ryu, and probably early Kodokan jiujitsu/judo - blended with street savate, scientific boxing, and Pierre Vigny’s walking-stick self defence method. Barton-Wright had trained with various sensei in Japan and created Bartitsu when he returned to England in 1898. We had a good thread on this subject in this Forum a few months ago.
We don’t know why Doyle wrote “baritsu” rather than Bartitsu into his Sherlock Holmes stories - he might have mis-remembered the term or he might have been worried about infringing a copyright, or indeed about giving free publicity to Barton-Wright’s system.
The senior Japanese instructors at the Bartitsu Club were Yukio Tani and Sadekazu Uyenishi, who went on to successful careers as music hall wrestlers and eventually opened their own dojos in London during the first decade of the 1900s. N.B. that this was the origin of the first Asian martial arts “boom” period (roughly 1898-1914), also the origin of the modern self defence/MA publishing industry, MMA-style competition, etc. - quite a time to be alive!
Various jiujitsu ryu had been demonstrated in Europe (especially in Paris and London) prior to 1900, but as far as I know, and I have researched this quite extensively, the Bartitsu Club was the first ever dojo to be established in a Western country.
See http://www.lulu.com/content/138834 for the newly-published Bartitsu Compendium which deals with all of this subject matter in depth.
Pff I know someone who was older then that. Ever seen Shanghi Noon? Theres this white man who attacks Jackie saying, " I learned this moves from a Chinaman." Thats waaay older then 1899, since the wild west era was around 18-1900…
Read EJ Harrison’s Fighting Spirit of Japan, about his time training in Tenshin -ryu jiu jitsu , then judo at the Kodokan. If you can find an original edition, you will even find pictures of some guy named Maeda.
Look at W.E. Fairbairn learning jiu jitsu in shanghai from 1908. John O’Brien learning jiu jitsu in Nagasaki before coming to America, and teaching Teddy Roosevelt, amongst others. Capt Smith receiving his black belt at the Kodokan(while wearing a kilt for the ceremony) in 1916.
Between 1895-1898, E.W. Barton-Wright was studying at a Shinden-Fudo Ryu dojo in Kobe under Terajima Kuniichiro sensei (along with another Westerner, the Dutch anthropologist Dr. Herman ten Kate); a Tenshin-Shinyo-Ryu dojo in Yokohama; and at the Kodokan in Tokyo under Kano Jigoro sensei.
I’m not sure, but I think it might be possible that Asian MA could have been taught to westerners during the Mongol empire. During the mongol empire people could travel safely anywhere from eastern Germany to eastern China because all of that area was ruled by Genghis Khan. Because of this there was probably a lot of trade between the east and the west.