Demonstrating Jiu-Jitsu in the Edwardian Period; was it all just a show?
Jiu-Jitsu is, in the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, “the Japanese system of wrestling”. It may have a long and noble warrior tradition, it may employ scientific principles, it may channel the philosophies of Confucius and Zen Buddhism, but it is fundamentally and essentially a particular style of wrestling.
It therefore makes sense that, following the closure of the Bartitsu club in 1901, one of the Jiu-Jitsu instructors – Yukio Tani – went on to carve a career for himself as a challenge wrestler. Tani, who is rumoured never to have lost to a european, is supposed to have beaten over 500 challengers during his tours of England. At 5’6″, he was usually giving a lot in height and weight to his opponents, many of whom were seasoned wrestlers themselves, however the rules of the challenge stipulated that any challenger must wear a Gi (the Japanese practise Kimono) and that victory was to be by submission. These two rules did help to ensure Tani’s victory; submission wrestling was a foreign concept to Europeans at the time, so while Tani was well versed in chokes and locks most of his opponents were having to invent submissions while in the ring; used as they were to fighting for position and pin. Even if they secured a dominant position, they were then at a loss how to capitalise on it and defeat the plucky Japanese. Additionally, most were used to fighting without Gi, and would have found the jacket at best alien and at worst a weapon to be used against them. Ask any Judo player; the Gi presents oportunities to control and submit your opponent that are not there otherwise. (It is a point of trivia to note that the length of the Gi one wears technically differs depending upon which art one practises; Judo gi reputedly had the sleeves and trousers lengthened in 1907, to improve control and safety. Aikido, which boasts a different lineage of Jujitsu, still tend toward Gi with 3/4 length sleeves).One wonder’s how many seasoned wrestlers were bemused by a deftly applied collar choke; a move of which they had never heard until it knocked them out.
This is not to impugn Tani’s skill; rumour has it that he did once accept a challenge from a wrestler who did not wear the Gi. As usual, this man enjoyed the advantages of weight and size. After a struggle which lasted hours, Tani submitted him. He then went on to perform his usual show later that same evening, where he submitted a succession of opponents in Gi. There can be no doubt that he was a proficient fighter.
Yet the only match he is recorded as losing (at least in England) is to a fellow Japanese; Taro Miyaki (with whom he would later go on to open a school and publish a book). Miyaki was the only opponent Tani is known to have faced who had experience both in Gi and in submission wrestling. It seems reasonable to postulate that, in an environment less favoured to his own rules, Tani would have seemed significantly less impressive. Obviously, he had a living to earn and a product to promote – Jiu-Jitsu would not have seemed half as impressive if he had not been able to build up a win streak of hundreds – however given that one of the ostensible aims for touring in this period was the promotion of knowledge of the art the set up cannot be seen as other than partial, and designed to overplay the prowess the study of Jiu-Jitsu could bring.
Meanwhile, Tani’s former colleague from the Bartitsu club, Sadakazu Uyenishi had set up his own Jiu-Jitsu academy in Picadilly Circus; the “School of Japanese Self Defence”. Uyenishi also fought as a challenge wrestler, however his most notable ability was as a teacher. He was attracting pupils from the most fashionable classes, and two of his most notable students were Edith and William Garrud (who would respectively go on to teach Jiu-Jitsu to the suffragette bodyguard and the special constables recruited during WW1 respectively). A 1905 article from Lady’s Realm Magazine suggests that Uyenishi was particularly good at recruiting female students, deigning to teach them individually – in accordance with Edwardian manners and beliefs about the gentleness if the female character.
Perhaps the reason so many women were interested in his Jiu-Jitsu (there were notably few female wrestlers or pugilists) was that during demonstrations, women themselves would be used to show how effective the art could be.
The demonstration mentioned in Annesley Kenealy’s article, and pictured above, was clearly impressive. There was a demand both for Uyenishi to instruct the army’s physical trainers and to set up a club for the officer’s wives and daughters. There are some hints from the article that the sales pitch was at least embellished. For example,the claim that “in Japan, proficiency in jujitsu is compulsory in the army, navy and police forces” is at best optimistic; Judo was only adopted as the official training method of the Tokyo police department under the leadership of Mishima san, who organised the now famous shiai between the Kodokan and traditional Jiu-Jitsu schools in 1896. To assume it had spread so widely from this start point seems overconfident. Of course, one could argue that any unarmed combat style native to Japan could be called Ju-Jitsu; though that would then render the point tautological. (“Japanese soldiers are instructed in Japanese fighting… well d’uh!”).
And that leads me to wonder how much of the demonstration was, like Tani’s against unwilling opponents, and how much was down to Uyenishi’s abilities as a teacher, or – more accurately, as an uke (one who receives a technique).
In professional wrestling, where we all confess to knowing the moves are fake, wrestlers practise what they call “bumps” and “sells”. What this means is they practice how to fall very safely, and then how to make it look like it hurt. A lot. In jiu-Jitsu, where we are told the throws are “real”, ukemi, or “the art of receiving techniques” is incredibly important in making those same throws look real. A Jiu-Jitsu demonstration looks like this (note that the first 40 seconds of the video are all practising falling), while a judo contest looks like this; it took him three attempts to get a clean throw, and in a self defence situation either of the two failed attempts would have been bad news.
This is not to say that the throws don’t work, they do, just not always. And if you are putting on a demonstration then, just like in professional wrestling, you are looking to entertain and “sell” your performance so, just like in professional wrestling, you end up working with your partner to make the moves look good. A skilled uke can make mediocre technique look flawless and Fred Ettish look like Ronda Rousey. (P.S. Sorry, Fred – we’ve all been there man. If it helps, your comeback fight was awesome).
I don’t know what to make of the drawing above; is it artistic license to capture the impression of how high Uyenishi flew? His student is in a perfect tomoe-nage position, indicating that whoever drew it either had some knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu or some help (possibly from Uyenishi’s 1905 instructional manual). However, the professors position relative to the tori (thrower) could suggest artistic license or could suggest that an artist who was not present was simply told to draw a woman throwing him. (He could only have reached the position in which he is shown by breaking free of the throw halfway through and deciding the next logical step was to backwards somersault to freedom). Either way, I strongly suspect that Uyenishi had good reason to jump for his students during these shows, and that his compliance and contrivance were part of an act to sell Jiu-Jitsu which over-emphasised the skills of his female pupils. It is probably no accident that, by 1908, he had a job teaching martial arts to military trainers.
Whether this criticism is fair or not, I don’t know. We know professional wrestling is “fake”, and that gloved boxing is “real”, but isn’t just about everything in combat displays “fake” to some degree? In the ring, boxing may look “real”, but take away the referee and the rules, and you get a brawl. Even with such greats as Muhammad Ali, the fight looks different outside the ring. In Judo, Jujitsu and Aikido demonstrations, Uke “jumps” for Tori; often it’s sold as “protecting yourself”, but in reality it is all jumping, and it all makes the technique look better. Uyenishi almost definitely did it, and it almost definitely made Jiu-Jitsu look more impressive to the uninitiated than it actually was. Does that make it in some way wrong? All I can say is that the practice is incredibly common, so at the very least he cannot be uniquely faulted.
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