Teddy Roosevelt on Wrestling vs. Jiujitsu 1905

Phrost · 11/18/2012 9:28am

Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children. 1919.

...Yesterday afternoon we had Professor Yamashita up here to wrestle with Grant. It was very interesting, but of course jiu jitsu and our wrestling are so far apart that it is difficult to make any comparison between them. Wrestling is simply a sport with rules almost as conventional as those of tennis, while jiu jitsu is really meant for practice in killing or disabling our adversary.

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Professor Yoshiaki Yamashita

In consequence, Grant did not know what to do except to put Yamashita on his back, and Yamashita was perfectly content to be on his back. Inside of a minute Yamashita had choked Grant, and inside of two minutes more he got an elbow hold on him that would have enabled him to break his arm; so that there is no question but that he could have put Grant out.

So far this made it evident that the jiu jitsu man could handle the ordinary wrestler. But Grant, in the actual wrestling and throwing was about as good as the Japanese, and he was so much stronger that he evidently hurt and wore out the Japanese.

With a little practice in the art I am sure that one of our big wrestlers or boxers, simply because of his greatly superior strength, would be able to kill any of those Japanese, who though very good men for their inches and pounds are altogether too small to hold their own against big, powerful, quick men who are as well trained.

**Nefron** · Posted On: 11/19/2012 4:44am

BJJ wins again!

**doofaloofa** · Posted On: 11/19/2012 7:20am

Originally Posted by Nefron

BJJ wins again!

I wager those feckless Brazilians would be no match for good corn fed American sons either!

What ho!

**ljh2000** · Posted On: 11/19/2012 8:11am

This reminds me of Starship Troopers, the original novel. The sergeant invites the recruits to take him down. A corn-fed all American boy charges him and fails. A little Japanese man comes next and gives the sergeant a real run for his money, even though he also fails in the end. That's when the protagonist comments that the big ox of a man who came first would never take out the sergeant, whereas the fellow who demonstrated strategy and technique would one day succeed. The sergeant himself ends up bowing to his adversary for a job well done.

This is pretty much the same thing for real. Really cool find, Phrost.

**Phrost** · Posted On: 11/19/2012 4:18pm

Starship Troopers should be required reading for anyone between the ages of 14 and 18.

**ljh2000** · Posted On: 11/19/2012 4:31pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Starship Troopers should be required reading for anyone between the ages of 14 and 18.

That's pretty much how it was intended. Heinlein wrote it as a "juvenile fiction" novel, as a primer on citizenship for a young audience. It still functions well that way.

**captain zorikh** · Posted On: 11/21/2012 12:16pm

Originally Posted by ljh2000

That's pretty much how it was intended. Heinlein wrote it as a "juvenile fiction" novel, as a primer on citizenship for a young audience. It still functions well that way.

I kind of read it as a satire of fascism vs. communism.

**ljh2000** · Posted On: 11/21/2012 12:28pm

Originally Posted by captain zorikh

I kind of read it as a satire of fascism vs. communism.

I see where it could be that, but Heinlein was honestly quite serious with Starship Troopers and fairly literal-minded. With the Cold War raging, he feared a democracy in peril and wanted young people to know that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That was pretty much his confessed motive for writing the book.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 11/21/2012 1:44pm

Originally Posted by Nefron

Judo wins again!

Fixed.

**wikidbounce** · Posted On: 11/21/2012 6:53pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Starship Troopers should be required reading for anyone between the ages of 14 and 18.

In James Cameron's Aliens the actors playing the Colonial Marines were required to read the Novel.

Reading the Wikipedia article on the Starship Troopers film, Paul Verhoven only read the first few chapters.

According to the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven never finished reading the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both "bored and depressed."

A remake is in the works set to be more faithful to the source material. I don't know if the film needs a remake, but I havn't read the Novel so not sure how different it could be.