Kodokan Judo Weapons

[pboylan]

I was flipping through the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten the other day, and glanced at the entry for Kodokan Ryu Judo. I'd been told that prior to World War 2 that weapons had been part of the Kodokan curriculum, but I'd never seen any documentation. Watatani lists the pre-war curriculum as being jujutsu, bo, and naginata. The kata from Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu were taught for bo instruction. This is wear Sugino Yoshino of Aikido fame was first introduced to TSKSR. Watatani even lists the TSKSR people who taught at the Kodokan. For the naginata, they seem to have had a set of kata that were developed from a number of different koryu. I wonder if these were similar to the naginata curriculum being taught in the school system at that time.

Has anyone seen or heard anything about these weapons at the Kodokan since WW2? I do a Shinto Muso Ryu Jo and Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu kenjutsu/iai, but I'd love to be able to add Judo Weapons to my practice.

Peter Boylan
Mugendo Budogu LLC
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[Don Cunningham]

Wow! This is really interesting stuff. I wish I could add something to it, but other than the weapons employed by tori in Kime-no-Kata and Kodokan Goshinjutsu, I've never heard of any weapons training within the Kodokan syllabus. I have a fairly extensive library of English books on judo, many from the early part of the last century, and there is no references to any weapons training in any that I am aware. In fact, I thought this was one reason the Kodokan was allowed to continue training during the post-war ban on martial arts. Please let us know if more information turns up on this.

[Jon S.]

We practice a double-handed naginata kata which may very well have come from pre-WWII Kodokan. I really don't know for sure, but it requires some pretty advanced ukemi. It's not like goshin jutsu or kime no kata in that it's not a series of techniques which are seperated by a return to position, rather it is continual action from beginning to end. It's interesting in that uke emerges as the final victor.

Jon Small

[Brian Griffin]

Steve Cunningham touches on this topic in some articles on his website:
The World of Judo & Jujutsu (http://members.aol.com/Cunningham/)

for example:
The Root Arts of Judo (http://members.aol.com/Cunningham/ju01002.htm)
Judo: Its Evolution from Martial Art to Sport (http://members.aol.com/Cunningham/ju01014.htm)

[pboylan]

The problem I have with Steve Cunningham's writings is that I have never found any evidence to support many of his claims and some of them are clearly untrue. For example, Cunningham's claims that Kano's first teachers were Karagiri and Yagi. The problem with this claim is that Kano's budo history is quite well documented by independent sources AND his own diaries (which were kept in English as practice), and they don't include these teachers.

He also claims that Takeunchi Ryu is a branch of Daito Ryu. The only problems with this are that the history of Takeuchi Ryu is pretty clear and doesn't include Daito Ryu (ask Wayne Muromoto for more details), and that there is no historical evidence of Daito Ryu predating Takeda Sokaku.

His description of Mochizuki learning Daito Ryu is also highly suspect, since Mochizuki is known to have been a student of Ueshiba's. He also claims that Mochizuki achieved judan in Daito Ryu, despite the fact that Daito Ryu did no use a dan system at that time (and none of the main lines use it now).

There are some other questionable comments in Cunningham's articles, but I think the above is sufficient to get across why I don't put much faith in their accuracy.

Peter Boylan

[Don Cunningham]

Please note that Steve Cunningham and I are not related as far as I can tell. We are definitely not the same person. Furthermore, Steve holds no rank whatsoever in Crusader Rabbit Ryu. ;)