Is it known who Maeda lost to in catch wrestling?

[QuickJab]

Asia, just out of curiosity, I know you've studied a **** load of martial arts, have you ever taken CACC?

[DdlR]

Professor Kano arranged for Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to travel to London to teach jiujitsu at E.W. Barton-Wright's Bartitsu Club, and both Tani and Uyenishi took on all comers as professional wrestlers. However, AFAIK neither Tani nor Uyenishi were formally part of the Kodokan until Kano awarded Tani 2nd dan around 1918. By that time, Tani had been submitting Euro-style wrestlers for the best part of twenty years - he must have been a real strong 2nd dan ...

CACC rules at the time were based on pins rather than submissions, although pain holds were allowed to leverage the other guy into the pin. All of the Japanese fighters in Europe at the time had excellent success records when fighting under their own rules (jackets and submissions) and could very seldom be persuaded to fight under other rules. In 1901 the Swiss wrestler Armand Cherpillod, another Bartitsu Club instructor, defeated either Tani or Uyenishi in a freestyle match. In 1905, American lightweight champ George Bothner defeated jiujitsuka Katsukuma Higashi in three straight falls, but there was the usual controversy/confusion about rules.

For historical accounts of Euro-style wrestling vs. jiujitsu during the early 20th century, see -

http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_edgren1_0300.htm
http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_leonard_0802.htm
http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Dtimes/Pages/articlee.htm

[Cdnronin]

Professor Kano arranged for Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to travel to London to teach jiujitsu at E.W. Barton-Wright's Bartitsu Club, and both Tani and Uyenishi took on all comers as professional wrestlers. However, AFAIK neither Tani nor Uyenishi were formally part of the Kodokan until Kano awarded Tani 2nd dan around 1918. By that time, Tani had been submitting Euro-style wrestlers for the best part of twenty years - he must have been a real strong 2nd dan ...

CACC rules at the time were based on pins rather than submissions, although pain holds were allowed to leverage the other guy into the pin. All of the Japanese fighters in Europe at the time had excellent success records when fighting under their own rules (jackets and submissions) and could very seldom be persuaded to fight under other rules. In 1901 the Swiss wrestler Armand Cherpillod, another Bartitsu Club instructor, defeated either Tani or Uyenishi in a freestyle match. In 1905, American lightweight champ George Bothner defeated jiujitsuka Katsukuma Higashi in three straight falls, but there was the usual controversy/confusion about rules.

For historical accounts of Euro-style wrestling vs. jiujitsu during the early 20th century, see -

http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_edgren1_0300.htm
http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_leonard_0802.htm
http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Dtimes/Pages/articlee.htm

DDLR, I have never heard of Kano arranging for Tani and Uyenishi to go to England. I have no doubt you have a reference to this somewhere, just find it curious that he would send two men not associated with the Kodokan. Uyenishi was Tenshin-ryu, never associated with the Kodokan to my knowledge. Tani is abit more of a mystery, he was either Tenshin-ryu or Fusen-ryu(or both), and as you say not part of the Kodokan until 1920

[Gezere]

Asia, just out of curiosity, I know you've studied a **** load of martial arts, have you ever taken CACC?

Yep. I also like to collect old wrestling books. I stemmed from my very short lived Prowrestling dream.

Professor Kano arranged for Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to travel to London to teach jiujitsu at E.W. Barton-Wright's Bartitsu Club, and both Tani and Uyenishi took on all comers as professional wrestlers. However, AFAIK neither Tani nor Uyenishi were formally part of the Kodokan until Kano awarded Tani 2nd dan around 1918. By that time, Tani had been submitting Euro-style wrestlers for the best part of twenty years - he must have been a real strong 2nd dan ...

I don't think Tani had any contact with Kano before he awarded him a nidan. Uyenishi might have becuase they were both of the Tenshin Shinyo Ryu school but I don't think Kano had anything to do with them going to England.

[QuickJab]

Asia, how did you like CACC? Most complaints that I hear about it is that the moves are low % (mostly what BJJ people have told me). I used to be a GIANT pro wrestling fan myself, and I'm really starting to get into CACC history. I've always wanted to learn CACC, but the anti-Catch sentiment has discourged me. Is it still a good style or is it more of a supplemental art now?

Is Tenshin-Ryu what Maeda took before his time in the Kodokan? Most internet sources refer to his JJJ as traditional or classical, but don't get into detail.

[DdlR]

The Barton-Wright/Kano/Uyenishi/Tani connection is mentioned in Gunji Koizumi's 1950 interview with Barton-Wright;

I then met Prof. J Kano, who gave me some lessons. On my return to England I founded an institution at which one could learn, under specialised instructors, all forms of sports andcombative arts. For Ju-jutsu teachers, I asked my friends in Japan and professor Kano to select and to send. In 1899, Tani and Uyenishi arrived. I then worked out a system of self defence by combining the best of all of the arts that I had learned and called it Bartitsu.

Admittedly, it could have been another of Barton-Wright's Japanese contacts who arranged for Tani and Uyenishi to travel to England, and I believe that in this interview, fifty years after the events had taken place, Barton-Wright mis-remembered some of the dates. AFAIK Yukio Tani arrived in London in Septmber of 1900 (with, or shortly after, his elder brother and Mr. Yamamoto, who only stayed briefly in England.) Uyenishi followed in early 1901.

My assumption that Kano played an active part in the selection is based on his political clout and contacts/influence in ryu-ha throughout Japan; but you're right, it's curious that he would not have simply sent Kodokan representatives.

On the other hand, both Tani and Uyenishi subsequently wrote books on Jiujitsu that strongly followed the Kodokan's reformist agenda. Both "The Textbook of Jujitsu" and "the Game of Jujitsu" re-frame the traditional battlefield/combative skills as a relatively safe form of wrestling and physical education that could be taught through schools and universities. I'd say that the balance of evidence suggests that during the first decade of the 1900s Tani and Uyenishi were at least keeping track of developments in Tokyo, even if they were not officially part of the Kodokan.