The association game
The modern European martial arts history, including the Danish one
There are quite a few stories about travelers from the Far East for more than 500 years, and the last few hundred years of diplomatic delegations, where there are demonstrations or shorter courses are offered in Chinese or Japanese martial arts. In step with the massive expansion of the British Empire after the Napoleonic Wars (1797-1815), with France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Portugal right on their heels, a much wider contact with Chinese as Japanese martial arts was opened up. But it was sporadic, unorganized and ad hoc in demonstrations and crash courses around Europe's capitals and big cities.
The entrepreneur and the Englishman Edward William Barton-Wright (1860-1951) was one of the first Europeans to train Japanese martial arts in Japan in the period 1895-1898. These were Tenjin Fudo-ryu Jujutsu and Kodokan Judo. When he returned to London, he established his own system Bartitsu, in which Jujutsu, Judo, and European Savate, boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling were trained. The Bartitsu club at Piccadelli only existed from 1898-1903, but quickly became a gateway for the English Rogue upper middle class and upper class, who always sought the interest of novelty and the latest fashion phenomenon. Barton-Wright had persuaded Judo's founder, Jigiro Kano, to send some Judo instructors to London, who taught Judo and Jujutsu from 1900-1901, after which they returned to Japan.
Edward William Barton-Wright (1860-1951)
Two stayed; Tani and Uyenishi who supplemented their directorial income as professional fighters in arcades, markets and other show events. Professional Jujutsu and Judo fighters were very popular in Europe from approx. 1890-1920 and in the USA from 1920-1940. Miyake and Maeda are two other Japanese professional Jujutsu fighters who traveled around Europe. The French and British in particular really got their eyes on Japanese jujutsu and judo fighters, who in more than 9 out of 10 cases beat all their own European fighters, even though these were often more than twice or three times their size and weight. Miyaka and Maeda are often credited with the establishment and popularity of the later MMA - Mixed Martial Arts money sport. Maeda was the most successful prizefighter with more than 2,000 bouts won in Spain, Portugal, UK, France, and Brazil, where he lived with his family. One of his students was Carlos Gracie, who was the father and uncle of two handfuls of later MMA world champions.
Japanese prizefighters who traveled around Europe, the USA and South America gave great respect to Japanese martial arts, as a very effective and recognized self-defense system. However, due to the circumstances of the spread of the martial arts in very few established schools with regular training in Europe, Japanese martial arts gained a mixed exotic reputation along the way. In Europe there was great fascination and admiration, but there were few schools where you could train regularly. Until the beginning of the 1900s and until before World War 1, there was prestige, respect around the effectiveness of Japanese Jujutsu and Judo at various institutes and later police and military courses.
Arthur Conan Doyle recorded it in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories that the reason Sherlock Holmes defeated Professor Moriaty was because of his superior Bartitsu. Presidents Ulysses Grant and Roosevelt have trained Jujutsu and Judo with great interest and actively supported the spread of Judo in the United States.
Mitsuyo Maeda (1878–1941)
Bartitsu: The Martial Art of Gentlemen | The Art of Manliness
The Japanese Jujutsu, Kendo and Judo instructor Gunji Koizumi (1885-1965) founded several schools in London under the name The Budokwai (The Way of Knighthood Society), which today is one of Europe's oldest Japanese Budo schools, but the oldest Judo school in Europe . Black belts were marketed as "Kodokan Judo knights". Already in 1906 he was teaching in London with the help of the other Japanese instructors as previously mentioned. Koizumi is considered the founder of English Jujutsu and Judo.
In 1920 Jigiro Kano taught for the first time in Budokwai. After Koizumi's death, he was awarded 8th dan Kodokan Judo. Koizumi Sensei was also the head teacher of Danish Judo and Jujutsu. Danish Judo and Jujutsu also received training aid from France. Where one of Koizumi's later students, Mikinosuke Kawaishi (1899-1969, 7th dan Kodokan Judo and 10th dan French Judo Federation) together with his successor Shozo Awazu (1923-2016, 9th dan Kodokan Judo) helped to develop Danish Jujutsu and Judo to a higher level of competence.
Gunji Koizumi (1885-1965)
It must be said that in Denmark Jujutsu is referred to as something from West Jutland, and Jiujitsu and Judo as the original Japanese names. But it is therefore a Danish designation in its origin from the beginning.
Even now there will be many in modern society who ask the question:
Why is it only Jujutsu and Judo that are mentioned, and not also karate-do, Kendo, Iaido, and Korean Taekwondo, Chinese Wushu, which are also part of the Western and European martial arts history before World War II?.
The simplified version is that Korea was largely a protectorate of China until the 1870s, when they unofficially became a Japanese protectorate. In 1910, Korea was officially incorporated as part of Japan, with the Joseon Yi Korean royal family given official Japanese princely and noble titles, as part of the Japanese imperial retinue. Blood and family alliance were mixed through marriage with the Korean king and a Japanese imperial princess from a pile family side house.
From 1912-1949, China was a chaotic civil war-torn republic, and before that an official imperial colossus on feet of clay, which was constantly pushed into place by both Western powers such as Japan.
In 1949, China became communist under Mao and only after Mao's death did a gradual opening take place. Including official cultural, Chinese and Japanese martial arts grandmaster exchange in the 1980s. The Chinese national treasure, Shakuasei – Sun Wind Shine was one of them and another was Tonegawa Sensei, and therefore Yakami Shinsei-ryu Taijutsu & Karate-do also has an original Chinese system package, which we call Shakuasei Hsingi, Bagua and Taichi.
Kodokan Jujutsu, as Judo was first called, was promoted by the first Japanese IOC – International Olympic Committee member from 1909; Jigiro Kano, who was the founder of Japanese Judo in 1882.
Coubertin's Olympiad idea from 1896 had become the new variety of the time. In 1912, Japan participated for the first time in the Olympiad held in Stockholm. For a sport to become an official Olympic sport, all athletes must be able to compete on an equal footing in the "Olympic spirit". So it's about participating and not winning and nobody gets hurt, as it damages the reputation. Therefore, Judo was gradually adapted to the scale of the Olympic qualifying sport.
Shakuasei – Sun Wind Shine (1904-1992)
Jigiro Kano (1860–1938), who was the founder of Japanese Judo in 1882.
Eg. were the Judo rules during Shiai – freestyle very simple in the beginning; Everyone is equal and the winner is the one who stands up. There was no weight, gender or grade distinction. You won when there was no doubt. This meant an optimal, perfectly executed technique, where the opponent was left defenseless with 100 % security either through throwing or immobilization through floor combat. It was objective.
The problem was that people understood Greco-Roman wrestling, but not Judo, which was too true to life and thus realistic, and therefore was put in the exotic box, instead of the sports box. For Kodokan Judo, this meant an Olympic competition targeting, where floor combat was taken out and subjective judges' judgments came into play with assessments. It changed the judo fight from absolutes (Life/Death) to harmless gentleman sport with a dangerous origin (Jujutsu), as it was also marketed as. All the dangerous techniques were taken out like a tame paper tiger.
However, floor fighting (Ne-waza) was quickly reintroduced at the Greco-Roman wrestler level, as all the Kodokan's best practitioners lost to the old Judo kaes, who were not restricted by so many Olympic rules. This happened when the Japanese European Judo/Jujutsu Prizefighters came back to Japan. It was pretty bad marketing for Judo, which aspired to be an Olympic sport. Judo, which was designated as Kano sports, should have been a demonstration sport during the Olympics in Tokyo, 1940. It did not materialize as there was a world war going on.
Only in the Tokyo 1964 Olympics did Judo appear on the official program with three weight classes, which quickly became seven before the year 2000.
Judo comes on the Olympic program in Tokyo 1964 Olympiad
Karate will be on the Olympic program in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Until 1992, Olympic Judo was ONLY for men. Only in 1992 was women's Judo included as an official part of the Judo sport. It took just over 100 years!
Until the First World War, Jujutsu and Judo were ONLY marketed as a real men's sport, which had to defend the weak women behind the meat pots in the home. It actually continued that way until after World War II. Women were offered self-defense courses by male instructors, and the advertisements were often extremely sexist or erotic in nature - created by men. After all, judo was close combat with throws, locks and floor combat, just like in Greco-Roman wrestling, where training between men and women was often completely forbidden or divided according to gender. But the self-defense ads were always scantily clad, often scantily clad women being molested by animalistically hungry men.
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 was the day when karate-do officially became an Olympic sport with kumite (freestyle) and kata (figure exercises). There were 4×3 medals to fight for for both men and women, which are equally competitive.
The WKF - World Karate-do Federation, which is one of the world's main karate organizations, was selected as the official Olympic body responsible for Japanese Karate-do. This means that Karate-do, like Judo, will be unified and put into the same box all over the world, so that there are as many as possible who can meet the conditions to participate in an Olympics. It is pure sport and has very little to do with the origins in Okinawa and Japan.
After World War II (1939-1945), Japan was occupied by between 3-500,000 Allied soldiers, typically with three-year deployments. With Japan at peace and a new anti-pacifist constitution written by the US and the Allies adopted in 1947, the Japanese authorities, with the permission of the Allies, began to slowly reopen Japanese martial arts, which had been banned since 1945.
Illustrations of Brigitte Bardot using Jujutsu as self-defense
Fight in civilian clothes against "bully". From Denmark's first Jiu Jitsu book from 1906 (Source Faber).
After the Second World War, many deployed European soldiers therefore returned home from Japan after typically three-year contracts. Many had trained in Japanese martial arts in Japan and some now introduced this in their European homelands.
The level of competence set natural limits and the successful ones now reached out to their Japanese network. The problem was simply that the Japanese skills had to move to Europe, as the transport time only improved in the 60s. This, in turn, meant an explosion in the 60s of Japanese martial arts in Europe and the Western world.
In the early 50s it was Karate-do's turn. Many Japanese karate black belts taught at the Allied bases around Japan. Both Shukumine Sensei from Gensei-ryu and Yukio Noro Sensei also did it just outside Tokyo. That's how they met. Thousands of Allied soldiers with 3 years of Japanese martial arts training behind them were repatriated to their respective home countries, where many established various Japanese martial arts schools.
They quickly found out that with 1-2.dan, black belt degrees, you don't have much to offer after a few years to talented students, and therefore they invited their old Japanese martial arts masters to visit. And this is how the spread of Kendo, Aikido, Karate, Kyodo, Iaido and other martial arts systems really began to spread throughout the world from Japan.
Most European Jujutsu and Judo federations were officially established right after the Second World War after 1945. In the 1950s it was the turn of Karate-do, Aikido and Kendo. First in the major allied countries such as the USA, UK and France, and as dominoes in all other countries.
The historical development of martial arts in Denmark
The development followed the European one with a delay of a few years, and most likely originated from the boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling institutes, which offered self-defense courses to the military, police and citizens.
Gunji Koizumi together with Esther Louise "Lise" Thomsen in Billedbladet December 1946.
Esther Louise "Lise" Thomsen (1914-2003), who was one of the hottest Danish actors of the time.
The first writings and books in Denmark were published in the early 19th century in limited editions. Viktor Faber and PL Jakobsen were some of the first from 1906. Just as in Europe, the new fashionable wave from the exotic Far East was called Jiu-jitsu or the Kano system. The term Jiu-jitsu and Jiu-jujutsu has stuck in Denmark, instead of the more normal Japanese term which is Ju-Jutsu.
Like the rest of Europe, Kano Jujutsu was mainly aimed at men, which all the published books also showed with male demonstrations. Arthur Smith's book from 1930 and the jurist Ole Kringelbach's books from 1943 and 1945 showed this clearly. In addition, Kringelbach's view on Jiu-jitsu, alias Jiu-do or Kano Jiu-jitsu, that it was a real men's sport, which contained effective techniques that women could benefit from in assault situations, but that regular training in these would be and work unattractive for women.
The German occupation of Denmark during the Second World War changed this picture – for a short while. Denmark was occupied in April 1940 without major fighting and the Danish government chose the cooperation policy until 1943. The resistance struggle with female and male resistance fighters then grew explosively. Several Judo clubs were established by resistance fighters as a cover for the actual activities.
After the World War, both sexes were taught Jiu-jitsu or Judo by Faber, who was an army self-defense instructor. But after a few years, this was tried to be stopped or reduced, since the weaker sex was not supposed to become the stronger! In the newly established DIF federations for Judo and Jiu-jitsu, this was even written into the rules.
Even when Koizumi Sensei from Budokwai in England taught in Denmark in the late 40s, only men could be invited. That only changed in the late 50s and early 60s, when Japanese instructors from France came to Denmark to teach. In addition, competition had also come from another side; Karate-do and other martial arts systems.
Bengt Flagstad and Ole Kringelbach: Danish Jiu Jitsu textbook
