combat sports with martial

[Pegasus]

You make an important distinction here. There's many different fitness programs based on kickboxing, etc. There's a marked difference between training for fitness, competitions, and self defense.

Well yes but my distinction is not the black/white one that some attempt to make .

[Big Al]

Well yes but my distinction is not the black/white one that some attempt to make .

There's plenty of room for variety with martial arts training There's also going to be a lot of ancillary progress in other areas- intended or not. For longevity, it should have a fun aspect to it.

[Pegasus]

Was saddended to hear of the death of Syd Hoare who i used to train with at the Budokwai London. A multi talented martial artist i knew him through Judo he was also Godo trained so an example of what this thread refers to . I recently learned he was also a 5th dan in Sumo.

[Pegasus]

My original judo coach is ill I hope to speak to him on martial arts he had a wide ranging history .

[Big Al]

My original judo coach is ill I hope to speak to him on martial arts he had a wide ranging history .

[Pegasus]

Been doing some historical research might post some things of interest.

[Pegasus]

Quote

Posted by u/DaShoota

3 years ago

Know your roots: false myths I found about the Fusen-Ryu

I am pretty sure that most people here knows the story of how the Fusen-Ryu jujutsu school, led by a guy named Mataemon Tanabe, defeated the Kodokan in competition and gave it its newaza, which over time became the BJJ we practice and love. At least, that was what Renzo Gracie and John Danaher say in their Mastering Jujitsu book. They give it an ample but rather superficial covering, and most interestingly, they give basically no sources for their info. As it tickled my curiosity due to a recent mention on r/judo, and because I love to unveil historical conspiracies and propaganda in general, I started a search binge about the matter in Wikipedia and its sources, as well as some old martial arts forums. After some interesting discoveries, my conclusion is that we are being treated with skewed history again. Gracie and Danaher's book presents as true a lot of myths which, at least according to the available info, aren't any truer than your typical Gracies in Action statements.

• The Fusen-Ryu defeated the Kodokan in an inter-school competition

There is no solid source about a full-on inter-school competition. It's very well recorded that Mataemon Tanabe defeated personally many judokas in challenges and tournaments, but it was down to just him. A probable proof of it is that his school never grew very much: in the time and place, and inter-school victory over the Kodokan with any number of students would have been devastating and would have make Fusen-Ryu become a force instead of the niche style it turned out to be. Tanabe worked as a police instructor for most of his life and seemed to have few formal apprentices.

• The Fusen-Ryu school specialized in groundfighting

No, it didn't. Its focus was in gyaku-waza, which is basically aikido-like standing wristlocking. Indeed, if you search for a Fusen-Ryu demonstration in YouTube, you will see something similar. Specialties aside, however, it seems Fusen-Ryu was just as well rounded as most of the jujutsu schools of the time, even those which went to form judo. It trained striking, wrestling and chokes, as well as fighting with a ridiculous number of weapons. Tanabe himself favored ground grappling, but it was entirely due to his personal experience in challenge matches, not unlike Mitsuyo Maeda would do some years later.

• The judokas lost because their opponents pulled guard

Can't find a match account in which Tanabe does explicitly hikikomi (pulling down) or jumping to guard. His favourite takedown was stated to be tomoe nage, which admittedly can end up like a guard pull if missed, but he instead liked to transition into an ashi garami and go for a leglock instead of guarding up. Aside from tomoe nage, he was good in kuchiki taoshi and morote gari, which are your typical wrestling takedowns. Finally, a source has him doing a buttscoot in a match, but even that is disputed by another source.

• Tanabe was bad at stand-up and that's why he pulled guard

No, he wasn't - he was probably as much of a beast standing as he was on the ground. Most accounts have him as the one who takes the fight to the ground with a throw or a takedown, and moreover, he once fought to a draw against Hajime Isogai entirely on their feet, without going to the ground. Isogai was a judo prodigy who was said to be able to throw anybody with his hane goshi; going toe to toe with him in a standing match was a proof that your stand-up was freaking awesome. Tanabe always sought to go to the ground because he was better on it than most judokas/jujutsukas, but it wasn't by any means his only field of strength.

• Tanabe was the only who knew groundwork

Absolutely not. He might have been the best groundfighter of his time (and even that is doubtful), but not the only good one. The Takenouchi-Ryu, Totsuka Yoshin-Ryu and Ryoi Shinto-Ryu schools had very good grapplers and had already threatened the Kodokan with their ground superiority long before Tanabe showed up. Some of them were Hansuke Nakamura, Senjuro Kanaya and Kotaro Imai. The Kodokan itself wasn't completely ignorant about newaza; as we can read in the bios of their Four Guardians, they had pins, chokes and armlocks at least in a rudimentary way before Tanabe.

• Tanabe's groundwork resembled BJJ

That's impossible to know, but accounts of his matches are substantially different of "classical" BJJ. It seems he always went to pin his opponent with official judo osaekomi and then submit him with chokes and armlocks from top position, like most judokas do. He also took people down with leg takedowns and would transition into leglocks, a la catch-as-catch-can. No source has him explicitly playing guard or going for subs from his back as told in Mastering Jujitsu. He is also referred as "unnaturally strong", which means he probably used a strength approach and not something Hélio would have approved.

• Tanabe was undisputed

He lost to Soji Kimotsuki, had some back-and-forth draws with other judokas, and lost again to Sakujiro Yokoyama (though he was in huge disadvantage there - Tanabe was known for being a small guy and Sakujiro for being a giant of a man).

• Judo newaza came from Fusen-Ryu/Tanabe

Yes and not. A lot of sites have Kano asking or paying Tanabe to teach in the Kodokan, but instead of a recorded fact, it looks more like just a rationalization to why Kodokan didn't have newaza before facing him and did have it afterwards (which, as mentioned, is untrue). Apparently, Tanabe was friends with two judoka named Hirooka and Kimotsuki, so he probably taught it to them, but that hardly extends to the rest of Kodokan. If anything, it seems that the Kodokan built their newaza from other sources specifically to counter Tanabe: before a match against him, Hajime Isogai trained with a former Takenouchi-Ryu dude named Samura who was supposedly a beast on the ground. The only thing Tanabe introduced officially in the Kodokan was his tomoe nage/ashi garami combo in the Katame-no-Kata. If you are looking for newaza developers in judo, try with Isogai, Tsunetane Oda and Yaichibei Kanemitsu, none of which was connected to Tanabe or Fusen-Ryu.

• The Fusen-Ryu/Tanabe caused a newaza boom in Kodokan

This is true. Tanabe was an eye opener on the importance of newaza. After he did his mark, a part of the Kodokan thought "oh my god, we have to develop this so we never face a threat like this again" and the other part thought "oh my god, rolling on the tatami feels awesome." You can feel how of a boom it was that even Kano, who didn't like newaza, gave permission to people like Isogai, Oda, Kanemitsu and others to research ground techniques, giving birth to kosen judo. And considering Mitsuyo Maeda was around in the time, well, the story continues on.
So you now know. It seems that the man we were presented to as Hélio before Hélio was actually Kimura before Kimura. I would love to know more of this part of the history of grappling, but available info both in English and Japanese is scarce, and I'm afraid many things have probably been lost in history. However, I hope we have now a clearer vision of historical facts. Now, let's go to roll and honor Mataemon Tanabe's mighty memory.
Sources:
Memories of a judo historian named Maruyama. Attention Required! (in Japanese)
Words both from and about Tanabe. http://www.sydhoare.com/FUSEN.pdf (in English)
John Stevens, The Way of Judo: A Portrait of Jigoro Kano and his Students
Cesare Barioli, L’Avventure del Judo, Corpo Mente Cuore
Christian Quidet, La fabuleuse histoire des Arts Martiaux