Wisdom from 1906

[Kung-Fu Joe]

DdlR, that's EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm looking for. What are the best sources for information on this? So far, most of my research has come from Mr. Lawson's repubs and from New York Times articles from the period.

Incidentally, it seems that the majority of Judo/Jiu-Jitsu Versus Wrestling bouts in the US were contested under more Western friendly rules. Winners generally came by throwing their opponent. I've yet to find a Submission win in a mixed match (again though, I've only really searched the NYT articles).

[PointyShinyBurn]

the jujitsuka (Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi) defaulted to ne-waza. They won almost all their matches through strangles, arm or leg locks on the ground.

Worth noting that Tani appears to have favoured the straight arm-bar and the cross-collar choke, much like Helio in similar challenge matches several decades later. And that he appeared to be a submission wrestler already when he arrived in London in 1889.

http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_Noble_1000.htm

[DdlR]

DdlR, that's EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm looking for. What are the best sources for information on this? So far, most of my research has come from Mr. Lawson's repubs and from New York Times articles from the period.

Incidentally, it seems that the majority of Judo/Jiu-Jitsu Versus Wrestling bouts in the US were contested under more Western friendly rules. Winners generally came by throwing their opponent. I've yet to find a Submission win in a mixed match (again though, I've only really searched the NYT articles).

The best resource I know of is the Bartitsu Compendium (both volumes), although they are squarely focused on the "MMA" scene in London during the first decade of the 20th century, with a bit of info. from France (jujitsu vs. savate, etc.) - http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.ph...bmitSearch.y=0

I don't know much about the US scene at the time except for the famous Higashi/Bothner contest.

[DdlR]

Worth noting that Tani appears to have favoured the straight arm-bar and the cross-collar choke, much like Helio in similar challenge matches several decades later. And that he appeared to be a submission wrestler already when he arrived in London in 1889.

http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_Noble_1000.htm

Tani's competitive jujitsu background is still a bit mysterious, but there is evidence for links between Tani, Uyenishi and Taro Miyake and the "Handa dojo" in Osaka. Again, the Bartitsu Society has done a good deal of research in that direction. From memory, the Handa school was distinguished from Kodokan judo and seems to have been affiliated with Mataemon Tanabe, thus Fusen-ryu (I know, big can of worms).

IMO, given that Tani and Uyenishi were only 19 and 20 years old respectively when they arrived in London (circa 1900), it's very likely that they both had considerable sub. grappling experience via open, inter-school (high school) level competitions in Japan, of the type that Kano later formalized and brought under the Kodokan umbrella as KOSEN judo.

We have never found any evidence suggesting that either Tani or Uyenishi were affiliated with the Kodokan itself until 1920, when Tani was accredited a second dan by Kano when the latter visited the Budokwai dojo in London.

[lklawson]

Basically, it seems to me that modern ground wrestling (both Submission groundfighting and Wrestling matwork) seems to have avoided development until the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The Wrestling manuals from the period which I have read (mostly consisting of your repub work) seem to place progressively more and more emphasis on matwork as time goes on.

There is some evidence for submissions as we understand it (joint locks and "strangles") in Western wrestling prior to Barton-Wright's introduction of Jiu-Jitsu to the West. However, what I've found of it seems basic and half-formed compared to the current state-of-the-art. I believe that what has happened, as DDLR implies, Western wrestling had neglected to develop subs (or had let slip away what they had) and were left with an inadequate, though not completely empty, tool-box when the Japanese Jiu-Jitsu wrestlers (notably Tani and Uyenishi) started competing against them. This immediately spurred development of submission techniques in Western wrestling. In some cases, Jiu-Jitsu techniques were "borrowed" and incorporated and in other cases parallel evolution driven by necessity created analogous techniques in Western wrestling (as is the case/claim with Gotch's "Toe Hold").

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[Petter]

Seems Mr. Longhurst takes the middle ground in the "striking vs grappling" debate. No mention of broken glass, rocks, AIDS tainted needles, or Liquid Hot Mag-Ma, however. ;)

To be fair, AIDS was only first reported in the early 1980s, so grapplers had fewer environmental hazards to deal with at the time.

[DdlR]

If we go back far enough there are plenty of joint-locks, pain holds etc. present in the earlier canon of European unarmed combat; everything from dei Liberi and Talhoffer to Petter and Passchen, with Donald Walker a notably late examplar (still the best part of fifty years pre. Bartitsu/jujitsu).

In fact, as jujitsu was becoming popularized in the West, it became almost a cliche for Western wrestlers to counter by saying "this is nothing new to us", and some of them actually hauled out the antique wrestling manuals to prove the point. Of course, c1900 was the height of the Colonial period, so the debate sometimes got bogged down with accusations that the proponents of jujitsu were "un-English", "un-American" etc.

OTOH the fact that a particular technique or class of techniques was present in earlier European history doesn't necessarily mean that they were current in later periods, except (as Kirk implies, and as I suspect) as a sort of informal sub-set of the established styles/rules. That informality makes it damned hard to trace, though.

[lklawson]

To be fair, AIDS was only first reported in the early 1980s,

Well, true that. Still, STD's were horrid during the time period. Not always a awful, lingering, death-sentence, but still close enough most of the time. In the parlance of (a slightly earlier) time, "One night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury."

so grapplers had fewer environmental hazards to deal with at the time.

And note that I neglected to incorporate appropriate brackets around part of the sentence. It should have read:

[Dr. Evil Voice] Liquid Hot Mag-Ma. [/Dr. Evil Voice]
{Pinky}

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[Kung-Fu Joe]

DdlR, that would certainly make sense with what I have intuited, as well.

There's very descriptive evidence for submission wrestling, including testimony regarding strangle hold which bear uncanny resemblance to the modern method of effecting an RNC, in Greek texts even up to the fifth century, AD.

Then the record disappears for some time.

We see a resurgence of wrestling with the fighting manuals of the medieval and renaissance period, but most of what I've seen from these works consists of standing techniques. Throws, disarms, and standing joint locks. Are you aware of any ground fighting techniques from this time?

Continuing through to the late 19th Century, we start to see Wrestling becoming popular again, as a sport; however, it seems to be mostly stand-up grappling, with the ultimate goal of "throwing" (as opposed to "pinning") one's opponent. It's not until the 1890's that mat wrestling seems to have gotten much re-development.

[JudOWNED]

I wonder how those Judo v Wrestling matches would have gone if the wrestlers had been allowed to (and had any concept of) ground and pound. Even in Judo, I find that pins are a natural position from which to start hitting your opponent. And we all know subs from the bottom come a lot harder and a lot less frequently when the person on top can pummel you.