~WHAT IS THE TEST FOR THE SUPERIOR METHOD OF HAND-TO-HAND-COMBAT?~

~Jigoro Kano, being a small, weakly, young man studied Japanese Koryu Jujutsu for merely four years and later developed his own approach to Jujutsu, calling it Kano Jujutsu and later Judo, which removed the injurious atemi strikes (eye gouging, testicle kicking, throat striking, etc) and focused upon the standing grappling techniques which could be practiced in full-contact (Randori).

~The traditional Japanese Koryu Jujutsu only trained 'kata' against willing, unresisting, partners and utilized maiming, even lethal, atemi strikes to set up the grappling manuevers and crippling small joint manipulations. This made it almost impossible to safely train against an actual resisting partner in full-contact randori.

~Jigoro Kano believed that safer methods would permit full-contact randori sparring which would build experience and skill that would transition better to actual self-defense. So at only 22years of age Jigoro Kano opened his own school of Kano-Jujutsu aka 'Judo'.

~In 1886 the Tokyo Police Tournament set the stage for Jigoro Kano's modified Kano-Jujutsu, aka Judo, to be tested in full-contact matches against Japan's Koryu Experts. The rules forbade atemi striking, for safety purposes (to avoid eye gouges, ruptured testicles, or a broken hyoid bone with collapsed trachea) and victory was achieved by submission or a throw to one's back (ippon). Kano recruited top practitioners from various Koryu schools, even Aiki-Jujutsu schools, and put them through the full-contact training of his Kano-Jujutsu aka 'Judo' method.

~The Tokyo Police Tournament of 1886 witnessed Kano's Jujutsu/Judo overwhelmingly defeat all of Japan's Koryu masters in full contact challenge matches under the less than lethal rules. ~This led to the Japanese police adopting Kano's Jujutsu/Judo as their official training method for unarmed close-combat. And Kano’s school became the largest and most renown in Japan overnight.

~One school of Koryu Jujutsu trained to specialize in 'ground-grappling', while at that time Kano's school specialized in standing grappling and most often defeated their challengers with standing throws (ippon) to the mat rather than submissions. The school that specialized in 'ground-grappling' with ground-submissions was called Fusen Ryu Jujutsu and they decided to challenge Kano's school in full-contact randori.

~It's been documented by many that the Fusen Ryu practitioners, during the challenge matches, avoided the Kano Jujutsu/Judo practitioners' strength by not remaining standing up but rather going straight to the ground and pulling guard. Thus forcing the Judo grapplers to meet the Fusen Ryu grapplers in their area of expertise which resulted in a shocking first time defeat of Kano's school of Judo in a full-contact challenge. The Fusen Ryu grapplers utilized ground-submissions, not ippon/throws, to defeat the Judo opponents.

~ Immediately Jigoro Kano recognized the weakness in his method of Kano Jujutsu/Judo and quickly began cross-training with the Fusen Ryu to develop viable ground-fighting skills which were integrated into his Kano-Jujutsu/Judo school.

~Yukio Tani was a five foot tall, one hundred and twenty pound, Japanese immigrant to England who gained fame in 1900AD for his full contact challenge matches against all comers. He was renowned for defeating much larger and stronger thugs, brawlers, pugilists, and wrestlers in no-holds-barred matches with only one requirement: that they had to wear a Japanese Jujutsu Gi (a type of jacket) which allowed him to take hold of them to take their balance or to strangle them into submission. When Jigoro Kano visited England, for the purpose of spreading his Judo, and met with Yukio Tani it was a fortuitous moment for Jigoro Kano. He recruited Yukio Tani to help him spread the reputation of Kano’s Judo, via Yukio’s fame as a fighter, and awarded Yukio Tani a second dan on the spot. Yukio Tani accepted for the benefit of being under the umbrella of such a large, growing, organization.

~Years later a man named Carlos Gracie, of Brazil, would study merely four years with a Japanese immigrant whom also was a Kano Jujutsu/Judo expert by the name of Mitsuyo Maeda. This four years of training would be shared with his brothers during practice and eventually led to the development of Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after some modifications by Helio Gracie. Like Yukio Tani, Helio Gracie was a very small and physically weak young man. By all accounts of his family members he was never able to perform one body pull-up in all of his life, yet using his modified Kano Jujutsu/Judo he was able to defeat many challengers in full-contact matches throughout Brazil (much like Yukio Tani had done in England) and thereby attract attention to his family’s brand of Jujutsu/Judo.

~Just like the Fusen Ryu ground-grappling specialists that defeated Kano’s early school, before being incorporated into Kano’s school, the Gracie’s also preferred to take down or lure their challengers into fighting them on the ground rather than remaining on their feet.  This strategy placed boxers, karateka, kick boxers, and street brawlers at a distinct disadvantage since they couldn’t utilize the power of their strikes while on the ground at extreme close-quarters.

~The Gracie family soon took their brand of Jujutsu/Judo to North America and began accepting challenges from boxers, wrestlers, kick-boxers, and practitioners of all unarmed Asian martial arts in order to spread their family’s brand of Jujutsu/Judo.  This culminated into a large challenge event with a great deal of marketing and profit for the city of Las Vegas Nevada, U.S.A., where the Gracie family challenged brawlers, fighters, martial artists, and professional fighters from all over the U.S. A. to a full-contact fight match better known as the Ultimate Fighting Challenge. The rules forbade small-joint manipulations, digital chokes, strikes to the knee, strikes to the throat, finger jabs to the eyes, eye gouging, tearing/clawing the face, ripping the ears, seizing the testicles (as well as other rules) although it was promoted to the public as a no-holds-barred fighting challenge to all hand to hand combat experts and empty-hand fighters. The Gracie family sent in one of their smallest family members to represent their family style of Jujutsu in this venue and Gracie Jiu-jitsu earned worldwide recognition as a result of his successes against much stronger and larger fighters of all backgrounds.

~Just as Jigoro Kano’s school was able to defeat all of the other Koryu Jujutsu schools in the 1886 Tokyo Police Tournament by removing small joint manipulations, neck cranks, and atemi striking (which some schools, like Daito Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu, rely heavily upon)  to gain victory and establish a reputation that drew Jigoro Kano’s Judo much respect, fame, and prosperity…Just as the Fusen Ryu school was able to defeat Jigoro Kano’s early school by finding a technical loophole in Jigoro Kano’s approach to hand to hand combat and the rules sanctioned in the match, in refusing to fight standing up (where Judo was strongest) but forcing the Kano Jujutsu/Judo fighters to engage the Fusen Ryu fighters on the ground where the Fusen Ryu practitioners specialized in ground-grappling submissions…Just as the Gracie Family was able to dominate the early Ultimate Fight Challenge (like Jigoro Kano) by removing small-joint manipulations, neck cranks, digital chokes, strikes to the knees, fish hooking the mouth, seizing the testicles (which some martial arts, like Aiki-Jujutsu, almost exclusively rely upon small joint manipulations, neck cranks, and digital chokes to neutralize an attacker) and by forcing the fighters into their area of operation on the ground (like Fusen Ryu ) where Gracie Jiu-jitsu specializes in submissions…I would argue that today one could modify the rules and the venue once again in order to lay the advantage to one’s own method of unarmed combat while also claiming (as did the Gracie’s) that it would provide a more realistic imitation of a real street fight/self-defense situation.

~In the experience of this writer and many others whom have lived an ‘interesting’ life full of actual, real-world, close combat situations for survival and even life or death, a more realistic challenge to provide a test of a combat (martial) art would be to ‘forbid’ all lethal techniques as well as maiming eye gouges from the tournament, but ‘permitting’ small joint manipulations, kicks to the side of the knee, digital chokes, and fish hooking the mouth.  And making it a rule that should or when the fight goes to the ground one party must submit the other party or escape and get back to their feet within two seconds (approximately the amount of time one would have before one’s attacker or opponent could receive violent, or lethal, intervention from his battle-buddies, comrades, brothers, friends, or fellow gang members).

~By placing a 'two or three second max time limit' for one of the fighters to either submit his opponent or escape and get back to his feet, this would make any challenge match more realistic for proving which hand-to-hand-combat method (unarmed martial art) or, better yet, which application of the various unarmed-combat (martial) arts more realistically functions for hand-to-hand-combat and unarmed self-defense.

~The understanding here is that historically it’s been ‘less’ about the techniques from any school of unarmed martial art, or hand-to-hand-combat, that is superior in a close-combat encounter but more so about which school incorporated full-contact randori during their training to develop a relatively safe and realistic simulation of real-world hand-to-hand-combat. Then in the competitive, challenge, aspect against other schools, styles, and practitioners the decisive factor had been more about forcing the opponent to meet you on your own terms, either by imposed rules or by other methods.

~In the safety of a one verses one, man-to-man, hand-to-hand, fight with rules and a referee, with no threat of others jumping in to the aid of one’s opponent, the ground-grappling game ‘certainly’ has historically proven itself advantageous (if not superior) as a method of hand-to-hand-combat.

~However, in real-world combat situations, be it on a battlefield, in the streets, or in a violent prison, working the fight from the ground (like the Fusen Ryu and Gracie Jiu-jitsu schools preferred for defeating their opponents in challenge matches) would be suicidal as an approach to hand-to-hand-combat/self-defense. The ‘ground-escape’ methods, perhaps the best in the world, certainly are efficient for self-defense. It is the preferred method of ‘fighting on the ground’, which certainly is advantageous in a challenge match, that we find to be impractical and suicidal for hand-to-hand-combat/empty hand self-defense in a possible life or death situation.  

~So let’s implement the aforementioned ‘two or three second ground-rule’ and let’s permit  small joint manipulations, digital chokes, fish-hooking, strikes to the knee joint, and ‘no-hand-protection’ and demonstrate how  this would change the outcome of an ultimate fighting challenge designed to study which methods are more efficient and effective for a hand-to-hand-combat situation in the real-world (I/E: violent street gang assault, prison assault, assault during a riot, or hand-to-hand on a battle-field.)

27June2016

AnDrew Soldier, in collaboration

 with Author N. Cognito.


Recommended source of historical information:
'Mastering Jujutsu' by Renzo Gracie and John Danaher.