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View Full Version : Two questions to Mr. Svinth (Uyenishi, Sager)



Robert Reinberger
26th January 2001, 08:34
Dear Mr. Svinth,

1.)
Some time ago you wrote in a thread, regarding Sada Kazu "Raku" Uyenishi: S.K. Uyenishi was Kodokan, and a pioneer of British judo.

I always was under the impression, that Uyenishi originally was a Tenshin Shinyo Ryu adept (maybe of a Butokukai 'variant' of that school), and, like many others, was 'adopted' to the Kodokan by Kano Shihan at one of his Europe-trips. Am I wrong?

2.)
There is an Austrian pioneer of 'Jiu Jitsu' by the name of Franz Sager, better known under his assumed name 'Willy Curly'. He is said to have studied in Japan, and opened the first commercial Jiu Jitsu - school in Vienna in 1919.

http://www.oejjb.or.at/bilder/sager.jpg
A picture featuring Franz Sager

Do you have any information about this man, especially regarding his time in Japan?

BTW, these questions regard the two most important, independent 'starting points' of Jiu Jitsu in Austria.

Thank you,
Robert

Joseph Svinth
26th January 2001, 11:16
So far as I know, Kano was never in Britain at the same time as Uyenishi. I could be wrong, however, and offline I just sent you a couple addresses of folks to write in Britain regarding the earlies in that country.

Your premise that Kano adopted him is not implausible, however, as he was doing that throughout the world well into the 1930s.

On Sager, I apologize, but I've never heard of him.

On tracking him down, some questions.

1. Where was he was during WWI? For example:

a. Was he in one of the POW camps in Japan? Japan's WWI camps were not the hellholes of WWII; for proof, see Herr Tittle's article on sumo at JCbtSport at http://ejmas.com . If so, he could have trained in Japan for a couple years during the war, and then opened a club following repatriation.

b. Was he instead in the US? Lots of Austrian and German wrestlers in North America, and Issei judoka too. So he could have trained in Los Angeles, say, with Tokugoro Ito, and then returned to Austria after the war.

2. What kind of immigrations records are available on microfilm in Austria? To enter the country, normally you need to go through customs. Obviously these weren't working as well as usual in 1919, but there still could be something. This is doing research the hard way.

3. Have you read the Vienna sporting papers? If not, and they exist on microfilm, check the sections on professional wrestling. George Hackenschmidt was wrestling in Vienna in the 1890s, so there was clearly a market for such stuff. Okay, you can't trust it too far, but it still provides a place to start.

4. In the US, you can track deceased people online through Social Security records. Does something similar exist in Austria? If so, then perhaps you can find an obituary, and thereby find relatives.

5. Have you researched:

a. Kano's visit to Vienna during the summer of 1933? There is probably something in the newspapers, and if there is, I'd dearly love copies. Be that as it may, in those articles should be some background on local judo, and I know there were pictures. (Accompanying Kano were two judo 6-dans, Sumiyuki Kotani and Masami Takasaki. Takasaki was Kano’s son-in-law, and the winner of the All-Japan Championships of 1930 while Kotani had wrestled for Japan during the 1932 Olympics. Photos of Kotani and Takasaki demonstrating judo throws in Vienna appear in *Asia*, 34 [Jan 1934], 7-10.)

b. The European Judo Union that the Germans were trying to put together during the early 1930s. The German goal was to get judo into the Olympics, and toward that end there were tournaments with Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Austria, etc. If you can find some of the contemporary documents, again there may be some historical background. And, once you find names, then you start hunting phone books, typical genealogical stuff.

6. Finally, a German-language research question. Jigoro Kano spent most of 1890 in Germany, yet I have never seen anything written about this. Which is too bad, as I am REALLY curious to know how German sport pedagogy affected Kano's philosophy.

[Edited by Joseph Svinth on 01-26-2001 at 05:21 AM]

Robert Reinberger
26th January 2001, 12:11
Dear Mr. Svinth,

thank you very much for your response. You gave me a lot of valuable hints, and it will be very time consuming to follow them, in the future. This is why I asked you, because if that researches would have been done already (and been published) I thought you'd be the one who would know about.
1. Where was he was during WWI?I don't know.
For example:

a. Was he in one of the POW camps in Japan? Japan's WWI camps were not the hellholes of WWII; for proof, see Herr Tittle's article on sumo at JCbtSport at http://ejmas.com . If so, he could have trained in Japan for a couple years during the war, and then opened a club following repatriation.I know that, and recently there was a report on one of our cable-channels, where the different treatment of foreign POWs in Japan during WWI and WWII was mentioned and documented. But I'm not even sure if Sager was in Japan immediately before he opened his school. I think it is possible, that he was there earlier, and simply wasn't able to open a school and teaching "something Japanese" before the end of WWI for obvious reasons.
b. Was he instead in the US? Lots of Austrian and German wrestlers in North America, and Issei judoka too. So he could have trained in Los Angeles, say, with Tokugoro Ito, and then returned to Austria after the war.I don't think so, as I assume that this would have been reported and therefore known. But, in contrary, all cites I found so far said that he "learnt Jiu Jitsu in Japan", without further explanations.
2. What kind of immigrations records are available on microfilm in Austria? To enter the country, normally you need to go through customs. Obviously these weren't working as well as usual in 1919, but there still could be something. This is doing research the hard way.I don't know. I will have to find out.
3. Have you read the Vienna sporting papers? If not, and they exist on microfilm, check the sections on professional wrestling. George Hackenschmidt was wrestling in Vienna in the 1890s, so there was clearly a market for such stuff. Okay, you can't trust it too far, but it still provides a place to start.I don't know. I will have to find out.
4. In the US, you can track deceased people online through Social Security records. Does something similar exist in Austria? If so, then perhaps you can find an obituary, and thereby find relatives.I dont think that that kind of information is publicly available in Austria. I will check.
5. Have you researched:

a. Kano's visit to Vienna during the summer of 1933? There is probably something in the newspapers, and if there is, I'd dearly love copies. Be that as it may, in those articles should be some background on local judo, and I know there were pictures. (Accompanying Kano were two judo 6-dans, Sumiyuki Kotani and Masami Takasaki. Takasaki was Kano’s son-in-law, and the winner of the All-Japan Championships of 1930 while Kotani had wrestled for Japan during the 1932 Olympics. Photos of Kotani and Takasaki demonstrating judo throws in Vienna appear in *Asia*, 34 [Jan 1934], 7-10.) So far as I know, Kano Shihan was in Vienna two times. All I've seen about this visits so far didn't answer the questions on hand.
b. The European Judo Union that the Germans were trying to put together during the early 1930s. The German goal was to get judo into the Olympics, and toward that end there were tournaments with Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Austria, etc. If you can find some of the contemporary documents, again there may be some historical background. And, once you find names, then you start hunting phone books, typical genealogical stuff.I haven't researched this yet. But, and this might be of interest for you, Jiu Jitsu was a disciplin of the "2. Arbeiter-Olympiade" ("Worker's Olympics") 1931 in Vienna.
6. Finally, a German-language research question. Jigoro Kano spent most of 1890 in Germany, yet I have never seen anything written about this. Which is too bad, as I am REALLY curious to know how German sport pedagogy affected Kano's philosophy.I also dont have informations regarding that year, that I'm aware of yet. Interesting object for a study, I think!

Mr. Svinth, thank you very much for your efforts, I will pay for it with some materials coming your way.

Regards,
Robert

Joseph Svinth
27th January 2001, 08:14
That Arbeiter Olympiade sounds as if it might have been a socialist group, sort of like the Soviet Spartakiads. The Socialist aspects of sport are always worth looking at, but frequently ignored.

It occurs to me that the University of Vienna is supposed to have one of the best Japanese studies departments in the world. You might get lucky asking some questions there.

As for time-consuming, that's putting it mildly...

Robert Reinberger
27th January 2001, 13:42
Originally posted by Joseph Svinth
That Arbeiter Olympiade sounds as if it might have been a socialist group, sort of like the Soviet Spartakiads. The Socialist aspects of sport are always worth looking at, but frequently ignored.In Austria between WWI and WWII the 'worker's sport movement' was the biggest stronghold of Jiu Jitsu, beside the police.

Heinz Kowalski, the 8 years younger brother-in-law of Franz Sager, introduced Jiu Jitsu to the worker's sport movement. His club had 500 active members. He served Jiu Jitsu in the ASKOE (the socialdemocratic workers sport association that still exists in Austria), from the founding of the organization in 1924 until 1928. In 1938 there were 3.500 active followers of Jiu Jitsu in Austria.

The 2. Arbeiter-Olympiade was held in Vienna, Austria from July, 19th to July, 26th, 1931. Austrian participants won 5 weightclasses in the discipline Jiu Jitsu. The most successful Austrian were:

Fliegengewicht (flyweight):
1. PAPESCH Anton

Bantamgewicht (bantamweight):
1. SOBOTKA Paul
2. PAPESCH Franz

Federgewicht (featherweight):
1. NIMFUEHR Franz
3. GOGELA Josef

Leichtgewicht (lightweight):
2. WUNSCH Leopold
3. BUCHELLE Prosper

Weltergewicht (welterweight):
2. DWORAK Wilhelm

Mittelgewicht (middleweight):
1. HANL Josef
3. SINN Ludwig

Halbschwergewicht (light heavyweight):
1. HAUSLEITNER Leopold
3. KUEHR Josef

____________________________________________________________________

BTW, regarding POWs in Japan in WWI, at

http://www.bisp.de/Produkte/

I found a description of the following title in SPOLIT (data bank):

Titel:
"Unseren europaeischen Kampfspielen das japanische Jujitsu
gegenueberzustellen, war ein guter Gedanke. Die sportlichen Aktivitaeten
deutscher Kriegsgefangener in Japan im Ersten Weltkrieg
Autoren:
Yamada, Rie
Quelle:
Soz.- u. Zeitgeschichte d. Sports; Koeln; (1994), 8, S. 7-19, Lit.; DE228
Sprache:
German
Sonstige Information
ND:
9505076440 BASE: SL74
DT:
Zeitschriftenaufsatz
UT:
Sportaktivitaet; Deutschland; Japan; Sportgeschichte; Erster Weltkrieg; Judo; Jiu-Jitsu; Sportspiel;
Turnspiel; Kulturaustausch
AB:
Verf. berichtet ueber die Sportgewohnheiten deutscher Kriegsgefangener in Japan im Ersten Weltkrieg
am Beispiel des Lagers Bando, in dem 1917 bis 1920 eintausend deutsche Kriegsgefangene lebten. Aus
ihren Turn- und Sportaktivitaeten konnte man die Begeisterung der Deutschen fuer Sport und
Leibesuebungen ersehen. Diese Turn- und Sportaktivitaeten waren in der Geschichte des Sports in
Japan neu. Im Lager Bando waren Sportspiele wie Fussball und Tennis populaerer als deutsches
Turnen. Verf. beschreibt die Organisation der Turn- und Sportaktivitaeten, die Einrichtungen fuer
Turnen, Spiel und Sport sowie die Sportveranstaltungen im Lager. Die deutschen Gefangenen kamen
auch mit traditionellen japanischen Sportarten wie z.B. Judo (Jujutsu) und Sumo in Beruehrung, und es
kam zum Kulturaustausch zwischen den deutschen Gefangenen und den Japanern. Schiffer

Regards,
Robert

Joseph Svinth
28th January 2001, 08:25
Oh, I like it when a plan comes together!

To see just how much attention at least some Germans paid to sumo at Bando, see:

"Sumo, the Japanese Wrestling," by H. Tittle (Prisoner of War Camp Bando: Prisoner of War Camp Bando Print Shop, 1919). http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_svinth1_0600.htm .

Assuming there was an instructor, certainly there is no reason why a fit young fellow couldn't have been dan-graded after 3-4 years in captivity. I mean, it's not like he had so much else to do with his time.