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Thread: Japanese Imperial military martial arts

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    Default Japanese Imperial military martial arts

    I originally posted this on another martial arts forum, but thought I'd start a new thread here.

    I’m doing some research into what martial arts the Japanese Imperial Military practiced.

    It seems that there is some legend amongst certain judoka that Kano Jigoro shihan was assassinated by the Imperial Army because he would not provide training in certain deadly techniques; he hid them in the kata but now the true nature is not understood.

    Arguably the Imperial Navy was more closely aligned with judo from its earliest days than the Army ever was. If the Army wanted to know something about judo that the Kodokan wouldn’t offer, it would have just asked the Butokukai judo division, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, or the Navy (not that they ever asked the Navy anything….) Or almost any individual instructor in the Kodokan, who likely would have been happy to teach whatever they knew. And Imperial Navy Vice Admiral Nango Jiro, Kano-shihan's nephew, was in charge of the Kodokan from Kano-shinhan's death in 1938 'til his resignation in 1946, and surely would have provided everything he could to the Imperial military.

    (in response to a query regarding an apparent tale that Kano-shihan was murdered by the Imperial Army because he wouldn't disclose the secret techniques of the Kodokan, in particular 'the elusive go no kata')

    I recommend applying Occam’s Razor – all things being equal, the simplest theory is likely the best and most correct theory. Ergo,

    - Kano shihan died of a respiratory infection at 78 on an extended trip with limited medical care available in pre-penicillin days. You probably would, too, under the same circumstances.

    - If the Army wanted to know about key, deadly techniques, they’d have a few million superpatriots to show ‘em, including plenty of judoka and koryu jujutsu types (and what happened to the ninja? I’ve never heard of ninja training to Imperial military, and there are all sorts of other records of martial arts interactions. ( NOTE to self: check Japanese military archives for ninja training of Imperial military, documents buried with the mountain of other documentation. Hmmm, maybe someone would have noticed before in the intervening 62 years…. Nah, the ninja probably snuck into the libraries postwar and expunged all their records, only leaving mountains of other things behind…)

    Hence, there was probably no need for the Army to knock off one soon-to-be-octogenarian with a huge group of powerful patrons, both in uniform and out, with no direct payoff involved. But in the 1940's hand-to-hand combat in the military simply wasn't such an important issue / great secret. Treated confidentially, of course.

    While there’s plenty of patriotism in the Kodokan during the war, there may be more fertile ground for the study of ultranationalism in the aikido lot, I reckon, and more fun, too. I mean, just read Ueshiba-sensei’s bio. Then reread and look between the lines. Wa and peace? Ueshiba was teaching at most of the major military facilities around Tokyo and elsewhere, bouncing all over town: Toyama School for Army officers, Nakano School for spies, even down to Etajima for naval cadets, etc. And he wasn’t teaching flower arranging. Stanley Pranin's research is priceless to put this in perspective; while being respectful he pulls apart a lot of pointless and misleading aikido mythology.

    (But some of the misinformation from certain sources is intentional, at least by omission if not commission, but in the Japanese postwar context. Of course the Kodokan played along with the militarists to some degree, even though you’d be hard pressed to get anyone to tell you now. But most today wouldn't even know, would they?)

    Any number of judo techniques can be deadly, or at least crippling, if you reverse engineer them to add lethality rather than to reduce risk of physical injury; reversed arm elbow locked ippon seionage , trapped hands necessitating feet first ukemi, neck cranks that don’t stop, gouges to the eyes, drops on head / not back, etc. And of course the ever elusive atemi. I see it all the time in Takeuchi ryu jujutsu and other styles I practice and watch.

    On occasion a Kodokan instructor adds the odd kick to the base of the skull to a big throw like in the 'good old days', and that brief demo of the koryu technique roots of judo gets distorted in the telling when the visitors gets back home, into a tale of some hidden deadly art in the Kodokan. I dunno....

    Again, Occam’s razor – if you want deadly unarmed techniques, then start with people that live and breathe that, and they were probably not hanging out in the Kodokan. To my way of thinking that’s probably more along the lines of koryu jujutsuka but actually documented in another, surprising place.

    The Army, particularly the infantry units and such, being Army, was of course primarily interested in efficient killing; hand to hand that meant sword work (kendo, Toyama ryu battojutsu, etc.) and rifle bayonet (jukendo). While it taught judo in the basic schools, in their advanced combat elite Army units seemed to have more of a penchant for hand-to-gland aikijutsu – I have an original draft course outline / Kobukan lesson plan (and the followon military manual. Perhaps to undermine my own argument, both documents are marked Secret - Do Not Disseminate!) from Tomiki Kenji sensei that he used to teach a variant of Kobukan aikijutsu to the Kwantung Kempeitai (Military Police) in Manchuria, 1937. (I’m cooperating on an article for a scholarly journal on the topic, might even get it finished before the next Ice Age.)

    To put this in perspective, the Military Police, along with the Special Police, known as ‘Thought Police’, were about the only groups to be completely banned as groups by SCAP from participation in postwar government positions; they were Not Nice People. (One Kwantung Army infantry sergeant I interviewed said he was very scared of the Chinese 'bandits' [we'd say guerillas, perhaps] in Manchuria, but they'd only kill you after a short period of torture; he was really terrified of the Kempeitai, who'd come back from patrols with strings of ears, and would do untold things to their own troops - but rather than kill them, keep them alive for more, later.)

    But what they did is interesting from a martial arts standpoint; they didn’t have a lot of time for the niceties of theory, lots of complex kata, blah, blah. They wanted, and got, direct, simple, principle-based, effective training from a lot of famous martial artists who, completely understandably in context, postwar didn’t exactly want to talk a lot about that part of their martial arts careers, since some, if not most, of their prize students were dead, incarcerated, or banned from public life. (Nakamura Taizaburo of Toyama ryu, as in most things, being a notable exception.) As an example the Toyama ryu battojutsu is sparse, simple, devoid of elaboration. (BTW one of my Army colleagues at Camp Zama, Japan, practiced Toyama ryu while stationed one of the main posts of the Imperial Army’s Toyama officers school, exactly where that sword style was developed.)

    Don't get me wrong - the basic hand to hand combat style taught in both the Imperial Army and Navy was judo, along with its unarmed combat variations neglected postwar (hence the Kodokan goshinjutsu effort to revive it.) There are mountains of documents regarding that. The Imperial Navy Etajima Navy School taught judo up to the day it was shut down. But there were some interesting, minor variations, but at the smaller, sometimes elite unit level, but seemingly not as a matter of national military training policy. Some local commander decided, probably based on his own knowledge and circle of friends.

    A later form of the same Kobukan aikijujutsu taught to the Kwantung Army's Military Police was taught to the SAC lads at the Kodokan, and I’ve had the fun of practicing a directly descended gendai jujutsu version of that art in Japan for years. (Hiding in plain sight; ninpo is only one of the many arts of the true samurai! )

    Regards,
    Lance Gatling ガトリング
    Tokyo 東京

    Long as we're making up titles, call me 'The Duke of Earl'

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    Mr. Gatling,

    That's an interesting standpoint. J. Osano wrote a piece on pre-war judo taught by a rogue judo instructor with more focus on strikes and disabling tactics in an early edition of "Yawara-ge". On the other hand though, one of my seniors in the martial arts has told me his father studied Nen-ryu and Sekiguchi-ryu Jujutsu at a naval academy in Yokohama in the lead up to the war. I haven't examined modern military martial arts instruction, but thought these points might serve as data for your study.
    Daniel Lee

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    I find it most plausible that Kano just died of a respiratory infection in environs where medical care was limited in pre-penicillin days.

    Conspiracy theories are fun but seldom hold water. As you said, Lance, if the Imperial Army wanted "deadly" methods, they could have gone to Takeda Sokaku (Daito-ryu), Takenouchi/Takeuchi-ryu, Araki-ryu or a number of other koryu jujutsu people who would have obliged in showing the "deadly techniques" that Kano removed from his system so judo could be practiced as a sport and health regimen.

    Or they could just have resorted to using guns and other more contemporary methods of killing that drew on modern technology embraced starting in the Meiji period, as hand-to-hand and sword/old-weapons combat started being considered obsolete.
    Cady Goldfield

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    Am I too picky... Lance starts so many sentences with "But..." that I completely fail to grasp his intended meaning. Also, as some of the sections appear to have been cut and pasted from something else, I wondered if I was reading a comment form Lance, or being given a statement that he was then commenting on.

    Maybe I just need a coffee and another read-through.
    David Noble
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    I'll think of a proper sig when I get a minute...

    For now, I'm just waiting for the smack of the Bo against a hard wooden floor....

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tripitaka of AA View Post
    Am I too picky... Lance starts so many sentences with "But..." that I completely fail to grasp his intended meaning. Also, as some of the sections appear to have been cut and pasted from something else, I wondered if I was reading a comment form Lance, or being given a statement that he was then commenting on.

    Maybe I just need a coffee and another read-through.
    No great message in the thread. All words are mine, including the buts.... As I mentioned, it is edited from another entry.

    Just wanted to see if anyone knows anything on Japanese imperial military martial arts, if my research is right, or interesting, or whatever.

    Cheers,
    Lance Gatling ガトリング
    Tokyo 東京

    Long as we're making up titles, call me 'The Duke of Earl'

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