The Kano Society

Bulletin 9  September 2003                    The Bulletin - Editor’s comment

News - The Society has held a successful Kata course and will be having another Kagami Biraki film show in January 2004. Please look at the web site for details of future events—there will be further film shows, kata courses and other events.

A Matter of Life and Death—John Cornish

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, NOT SHOWMANSHIP

The first article in the Bulletin number 6, was on Yukio Tani. The heading was “Traditional Judo or Showmanship?”. The heading is, in my opinion, in bad taste. It’s the sort of thing that someone unthinkingly says about someone else’s religion. I was offended, and thought if this was said about someone in modern times there would be a case for libel. In another period, instead of a modern trial for libel, we could have had a Trial by Battle, or in a nearer time in history, a duel in Hyde Park.

To me showmanship means actors, (it seems they don’t talk about actresses now) anyway they all want to be called “Stars”. These actors rely on total illusion and look for their Heaven to Hollywood with it’s “paper moon over a cardboard sea”. And can there be showmanship without pop groups, plastic surgery, drugs, scandals used to enhance ratings, big fat fees, etc.

Talking about fat fees, I have never heard how much Yukio Tani and the other Japanese got, but I bet it was nothing like stars get. There may have been money made, but did the lions share go to the organisers or to the Japanese?.

What ever I think about showbiz folk and their life style, can their training and skill compared to that of Tani? I can’t believe what Tani did was basically anything but a true demonstration of skill and spirit. I am sure we only know a little about the techniques Tani knew, and even less about the spirit that had to go with the techniques. This spirit of the Martial Arts, not only about the Bu-gei but the Bu-shi-do is real esoteric, so outsider’s can’t know. As an outsider I am willing to be told there are esoteric things in Show-business that I can’t know and wait to be told by someone that does know.

I believe this because of the strict training system people like Tani took part in. Their acceptance of harsh training and discipline imposed by the Master and the school. The acceptance of a duty towards the Master and the Group, to say nothing of that to the Country and the Emperor.

Donn Draeger tells us how hard a time Prof. Kano had when he was learning Ju-jutsu. It seems he had so many bruises and so had to use so much liniment, when he was on the way to the Do-jo, he could be smelt before he could be seen.

There are some films, where a young lad, or girl, after only a couple of lessons wins contest against the reigning champion, I hope nobody is fooled by this kind of rubbish. The individual is modified into a Martial Artist only after an arduous and long period, and I am sure this was reflected in their outlook.

I have never been a Monk, but I think they must have the same acceptance, as the Martial Artist, through training, of attitudes that change them and can never really be lost. Shall we compare Monks also to Showmen?

It is fairer to compare the Martial Artist to the Monk, than showmen, as there is an historical event where the Monks of Sho-rin-ji temple were trained in Martial Arts. This event has become oversimplified to become the source of all Eastern Martial Arts.

To cover every detail of the training of the Monk or the Martial Artist would take a book or two, maybe we could talk a little about Ju-jutsu training that the Japanese went through in another article, and while we are about it touch on Martial Arts in general as well. Maybe someone could try to convince me that the training of actors is more arduous, than that for a Martial Artist. Let me here stick to the Showmanship subject.

A Martial Artist that takes up acting, can be said to have sold his soul, as the business will not allow the pure and unadorned Art to be shown, and they become no better than any other Actor. An actor may play the part of a martial artist or a fighter and if they have had dance-training can, seemingly, emulate what the martial artist can do. Actors have their stand-in-stunt- men if there is the slightest chance of discomfort let alone danger, and “special-effects” can handle any shortcoming. If anyone thinks what they see on film, or stage, is in any way connected to any kind of real fighting or Martial Arts they must be at least unthinking. There are schools that teach this “stage combat”.

What did people at the time of Tani think? It would be nice to have the space to take a long look at the background both here and in Japan, around the period talked about, and try to see things through their eyes. For example the older people in England would have seen public hangings, there were “players and gentlemen” in sport. Clubs would be closed, by price and rules, to keep out the hoi polloi. In Japan they were not long out of the feudal period and the Martial Arts teachers would have been “Samurai”( see Koizumi’s book), and would not accept any old Tom, Dick or Harry. Even with the accepted students there would be some techniques kept secret from the whole only to be passed on to certain students. Just as the military today, keep their secrets.

Taking these things into account did the people then have differing values and outlook to us? There are books we can look at. In “The text book of Ju-Jutsu”, by Uyenishi, he mentions the Budokwai. He talks about the displays they were giving, and says ”the idea of which (the displays) has been to educate the public as to the true nature of Judo, not to provide the Western sports “fan” with entertainment”. So the Budokwai of those days didn’t go in for showmanship. In the same book Percy Longhurst in his “word portrait of Uyenishi” says the English wrestlers and athletes called Uyenishi’s art “Japanese wrestling”.

The Japanese, Longhurst said, term it a “war exercise” the art of self defence. He goes on to say the Japanese are utilitarians, and when Ju-jutsu was developed they had no conception of it as a sport, an athletic recreation. It was, and to them is, a serious exercise for a serious purpose. He goes on to say about Uyenishi “there was none of the theatrical element, the playing to the gallery, the attempt to “make a fool” of his opponent. I imagine it never entered his mind that he was providing the spectators with an entertainment”

I think we should give Yukio Tani, and the other Japanese at the time the courtesy of saying that they were in no way showmen, but very serious followers of their art. It would be no exaggeration to say that they followed their art religiously, even in a literal sense. I have met many Japanese, and some Westerners, in Martial Arts that today have this approach to their art, and I hope that members of the Kano Society have this same fervour over Judo.

How about the other part of the heading “ Traditional Judo”?

Even when I started Judo, which was much later than the time of Tani, many books made no difference between Judo and Ju-jutsu. Some books used the spelling “Ju-jitsu” or even “Jiu-jitsu”. The spelling, in what is called Romanji”, of Japanese words is interesting to the academically inclined, but can’t be gone into here. What was taught by some instructors, while interesting, I would not now call Judo. The thing is the books were for the Westerner who more that likely knew only one of the names and would not know the difference between them anyway. The Japanese, reading the characters, would see there were differences. I have never read anything saying that the Japanese on the halls in those days claimed they were doing Judo and not Ju-jutsu.

There are differences between Judo and Ju-jutsu, which we could also discuss some other time. Judo like Aikido did come from Ju-jutsu but when there is a change can we say they are still the same? I’ll use a religious example again, I could use as an example Hinduism and Buddhism, but I’ll stick to religions of the West. Christianity came from Judaism, Christ after all was a Jew, but who would dare say Christianity and Judaism were the same? The Christians and the Jews both would be angry.

Like these religions the two arts of Ju-jutsu and Judo, have grown apart even more than they were to begin with. If we were to say Judaism was or is traditional Christianity would everybody be happy?.

We are given a date when Professor Jigoro Kano set up his Kodokan Judo in Japan (1882). In England it was much later. Gunji Koizumi says the London Budokwai was set up in 1918 for Ju-Jutsu, Kenjutsu (please note not Kendo, that is another discussion!) and other Martial Arts of Japan. He says on Kano’s visit, in 1920, he and Mr. Tani joined the Kodokan. So they at least became Judoka then. The first Judo instructor at the Budokwai came with Pro. Kano and was Mr Hikoichi Aida, so Koizumi says.

In the body of the Yukio Tani article it said “One should not commit the error of considering the ancient Ju-jutsu as being inferior to modern Judo”.

I expect that the term “modern Judo” was a misprint in the “Kano Bulletin”, so I’ll ignore the word modern and take it that what was meant was (real) Judo.

As with the religions mentioned above, the followers of the arts of Judo and Ju-Jutsu each must think their art, for whatever reason, is better for them than the other. Do not the founders and members of the Kano Society think the Judo they want brought back is superior to “Modern Judo”? Maybe there should be regular articles, in the Bulletin, telling what is wrong with Modern Judo” and the kind of Judo needed. In the Martial Arts it is said the mountain does not criticise the river because it is so low, and the river does not criticise the mountain because it cannot move. This does not mean those in one Martial Art don’t like their Art better than other Arts, if one is not fully committed the Art cannot be mastered.

In Japan today, there are groups that continue with, more or less, all the Traditional Martial Arts, and they claim that these Arts are carried out in as near as possible the same way they were in the past.

Martial Arts were banned for a short time, in Japan, after the Second World war, because they were thought to be part of the reason for Japan’s aggression. The Arts did not go out of business, and very little of their methods changed. Later in the Martial Arts displays I took part in, while I was in Japan, one could see that attitudes were still war-like.

One way to backtrack to find what the old attitude must have been, is by the many stories, still handed on, that are used to illustrate how the training should be carried out and also tell the ultimate aims of the Martial Arts. Is this another subject for more articles?

Unlike in Judo, where we have the founder’s Dojo as the fountain of knowledge, Ju-jutsu has many schools and no one headquarters that can speak for Ju-jutsu as a whole. We should therefore talk about the schools (Ryu) of Ju-jutsu of Yukio Tani and the others, but I for one don’t know what they were, and can only talk about Ju-jutsu in general. We have books on techniques but the more important spirit and training methods is not covered in them, not even in the secret writings of the schools (Den-sho).

I was waiting, and hoping that someone in the Kano Society, more eloquent than I, that support the Aims of the Society, would have written to point out the error of one part or the other of the heading of the article. Now I have kicked off maybe others can have a go.

 Bulletin 9 part 2