1952 Footage of G. Funakoshi M. Nakayama

[Gibukai]

Hello,

The following clip shows some footage of Strategic Air Command's (SAC) 1952 martial arts programm. Among others G. Funakoshi (1868–1957) with some of his students gave karate lessons as part of the programm. The clip contains two short karate sections:

0:08 – 0:09 M. Nakayama (1913–1987) demonstrating a side-kick

0:27 – 0:30 G. Funakoshi observing partner work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPjsWPVve4Y

Regards,

Henning Wittwer

[Andrew S]

An interesting find indeed.
Too bad the footage of the judo, karate and aikido is mixed and the title is misleading.

[Andrew S]

By the way, I stumbled across a sample of Steven Kaplan's TAIHO-JUTSU: The Art of Arrests, and the first chapter includes notes from SAC instructor Larry Lent.


Finally, after long anticipation, we boarded a plane for Japan..... After we landed at Tokyo International Airport, we were taken to Army Hall which is located just across from the Imperial Palace. This was to be our home for the next two months. However, we did not see too much of it. Our schedule went something like this:

0745 We departed for the Kodokan. After an hour of warm-up exercises, we studied Karate under Obata, Nishiyama, Okazaki, and Terada.

1200 We took a break for lunch.

1400-1500 We had Combative Measures.

1500-1645 We had Judo under Kotani, Otaki, Takagake (all Eighth Degree Black Belts), Sato, Shinojima (Seventh Degree Black Belts), and Yamaguchi (Fifth Degree Black belt).

.....This schedule went on for the first, third, fifth, and seventh week. The second, fourth, sixth, and eighth weeks we studied Aikido under Tomiki (Eighth Degree), Yamada, and Inuzuka. These same weeks we also studied Taiho-Jutsu under Hosokawa (Seventh Degree), and Kikuchi (Seventh Degree).

If all this training was taking place at the Kodokan, the film makers could be excused for thinking it was all judo. (in 1953)