judo
Col. William E. Fairbairn, The Father Of Modern Hand-To-Hand Combat
The more I have been reading about Col. Fairbairn and the fighting system of Defendu or gutter fighting, the more intrigued I have become.
Defendu incorporates movements and techniques from Tenshin Jiu Jitsu, but what makes it unique, is that with the assistance of Eric A. Sykes, he actually made techniques easy to learn and to remember, especially when under stress.
As this system does not call for any complicated moves and physical fitness, just about anybody can achieve proficiency in a fairly short period of time.
Originally, Fairbairn developed and taught Defendu to the 9,000 Shanghai police officers and even to the famed 4th Marine Regiment known as the China Marines.
Get this: Fairbairn founded, developed, trained, and headed the Shanghai Riot Squad. It was the first ever Special Weapons & Tactics Unit, and even today it serves as the prototype for S.W.A.T. teams as we know them.
Did I mention that this all occurred between 1907 and 1940 in Shanghai which was considered one the most dangerous cities in the world at the time?
First an international settlement and later under Japanese occupation, Shanghai dealt with a tremendous amount of gang wars, drug trafficking, murder, political assassination, prostitution and kidnapping, just to name a few.
Defendu is considered as the first police defensive tactics system. Defendu includes striking, kicking, biting, gouging, trapping, holds and joint locks, throwing etc. in close quarters.
What appeals to everyone serious about self-defense is that it gets right to the point and avoids high kicks and jumping techniques which can look great on the Big Screen, but shouldn’t necessarily be used when you just want to get home safely.
Fairnburn was an accomplished Kodokan judoka (certified by Jigoro Kano!) who also incorporated some basic ground fighting techniques along with chokes and take downs as the basic grappling defenses.
After retiring from his police work in Shanghai in 1940, Fairbairn returned to war-time Great Britain where he received the assignment to train British and Allied commandos at a top-secret location. The special operators were then responsible for training the US Army, Marines, Rangers and OSS (later CIA) operatives.
Col. William Ewart Fairbairn was born in 1885 and died in 1960. He was a British soldier, police officer and while training WWII Allied forces and later Western intelligence services, he was considered the most knowledgeable expert of hand to hand combat at the time.
Here you can see Fairbairn demonstrating elements of his system together with another close combat legend, Rex Applegate.
And here is what Bill Wolfe has to say about Col. Fairbairn:
Judo In Japanese Schools – Is It Doing More Harm Than Good?
While researching for a new post, a topic that really got my attention is that together with sumo and kendo, the national sport and martial art of Judo will become compulsory in Japanese schools in 2012.
Just like you reading this post, I am generally enthusiastic about many things involving martial arts.
Especially if you can get kids and teens excited about this kind of education and training, as it in my humble opinion offers more good than harm.
But then I started thinking and reading more about it and I found what has been going on and what will become reality for more Japanese students starting next year rather concerning.
Only between 1983 and 2009, meaning 27 years, there have been 108 fatalities in Japanese school judo which makes it the highest rate by far.
Brain injuries that occur are traumatic and usually fatal. Even ringside boxing doctors are astonished that these injuries happen in school judo.
I read about school judo instructors (and of course I don’t know first-hand if these are isolated cases involving total madmen who have been given responsibilities over minors) that have reportedlychoked students until they went limp, and then threw them to the floor with such force that they suffered severe internal brain bleeding. This kind of injuryis known as an acute subdural hematoma.
One such injury incurred in December 2004, leaving a teen unable to remember anything for almost two years.
The teacher was simply transferred to another junior high school in thesame city, because that’s the standard job transfers among government school teachers.
In another incident in July 2009, the parents of a 12-year-old junior high school student allege that their son died from a similar injury.
After telling his teacher that he had asthma, he was told to wear an antidust mask and forced to spar with the teacher. According to reports, the teachery aggressively threw him to the ground and consequently leaving the boy with a subdural hematoma.
Besides his body covered with bruises, according to his parents, later at the hospital the boy was pronounced brain dead.
Numerous experts are concerned about the frequency of deaths in school judo classes and that it is more than 5 times higher than in any other sport.
What is also alarming is that they have no parallel in other developed nations.
According to the British Judo Association, there have been no deaths or serious brain injuries in judo in the BJA.
And the USA Judo’s Sports Medicine Committee points out that there have been no known traumatic brain injury deaths attributed to judo for all participants under the age of 18. So somehow there appears to be a significant difference in serious brain injury rates in the youth between the U.S. and Japan.
According to reports, the parents of children killed or seriously injured in judo classes in Japan are just met by a wall of silence when pressing for convictions of the alleged perpetrators.
Charges are brought against teachers, but prosecutors simply continue to drop cases again and again.
One would hope that safety improvements would be implemented.
Now that girls will also take part in judo classes, the number of students participating will roughly double.
Consequently, without improving safety for the students, we can expect the death and serious injury rate to double accordingly.
While the All Japan Judo Federation remains playing hookie on the issue, the head of the instruction department at the Kodakan Judo Institute in Tokyo, has been more outspoken.
Writing in the Budo magazine, Mikihiro Mukai argues: “Until now, the judo world has tried to hide things they perceive will be disadvantageous to them. But this trend will worsen the situation, even if we have many discussions about instruction methods, if there is even a single case of death or severe injury, that method is inadequate. There may well be some unfortunate accidents, but we as judo instructors must work to eradicate such problems.
Due to way too many incidents with a very tragic and heart-wrenching outcome as well as without any or almost any consequences for the alleged perpretrators, The Japan Judo Accident Victims Association was founded with a clear mission statement:
“When judo deaths and injuries occur under the supervision of schools, victims and their families often encounter barriers to the investigations into the causes and who was responsible. Japan Judo Accident Victims Association (JJAVA) is a group of judo accident victims, their families, and other concerned people, founded with the mission to support victims and find ways to reduce death and serious injury among students in Japan through introduction of effective safety measures as standard practice in the sport of judo. JJAVA is studying international best practice and developing proposals for an improved safety regime.
Martial arts will soon become compulsory for boys and girls in all public junior high schools in Japan, so it is particularly important to ensure that adequate and appropriate attention is given to safety in judo instruction and practice.”
The school year of 2012 will be here faster than we think.
What A Week In Review At The MartialArtsReporter.com!
St. Patrick’s Day was awesome and the rest of the week wasn’t too shabby either.
If you are a single mom or know someone who is, please take note of this Personal Safety Alert For Single Moms.
We all know that Bruce Lee could punch and kick, but he also knew something about the art of fighting without fighting.
Surprise – surprise! What you didn’t know about pro golfer Phil Mickelson.
Going Green: Happy St. Patrick’s Day And Irish Stick (Shillelagh) Fighting!
This guy blows me and his opponents away: The Best Pound-For-Pound Fighter, Also The Best Ever Fighter In The World?
Amazing: Ultimate Fighting has become a household name, but what did the first ever Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC 1, Look Like?
Talk soon, my friends.
The Best Pound-For-Pound Fighter, Also The Best Ever Fighter In The World?
Without further ado, we’re talking about Brazilian Anderson “The Spider” Silva.
Silva is UFC’s Middleweight Champion of the world with 10 consecutive wins and many say he has made his weight division so boring through his seemingly invincible fighting style that the calls are getting louder for him to either lose weight to fight against GSP or gain weight to fight against Lyoto “Dragon” Machida.
Silva’s MMA record is pretty amazing: 25 wins vs. 4 losses!
His last loss was over 4 years ago via disqualification by illegal side-up kick against Japanese Yushin Okami.
Silva’s fighting arsenal is more than just impressive in my book. It’s overwhelming and at times overbearing for any opponent.
Besides being a long-time Black Belt in Taekwondo, Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, “The Spider” is a highly trained Muay Thai fighter and Western boxer.
He turns 35 in April and has expressed plans to retire fairly soon, whatever soon means. His UFC contract still calls for at least 3 more fights. We will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, check out some of Anderson “The Spider” Silva’s career highlights and be impressed:
Tipping Off March Madness With The Week In Review
“Variety is the spice of life.”
I am trying to live up to that saying by posting about different topics that relate to martial arts or not. Anyway ….
In case you were too busy being busy, here’s what you missed:
Bulgarian Greco-Roman Wrestler Is Big In Japan: The David Beckham Of Sumo
It Happened In 1935 … Sarah Mayer, First Non-Japanese Female Judo Black Belt
The Question Is: “Honestly, Are You Really Prepared To Fight If You Have To?”
With ‘The Sensei ‘, She’s Creating Buzz In The Movie Industry And Let’s Just Face It … With A Name Like Lee Inosanto, She’s Got To Be Good
What Goes Up, Must Come Down. With This Guy, Things Appear To Be A Bit Different. Thai Action Movie Star Tony Jaa Defies The Law Of Physics.
There you have it: The Week In Review At TheMartialArtsReporter.com
Have a great Sunday!
I will be reporting again from here tomorrow.
Sarah Mayer, First Non-Japanese Female Judo Black Belt
The same year that Amelia Earhart flew from Honolulu to Oakland Ca (non-stop, of course), driving tests were introduced in Great Britain and Parker Brothers launched their game of Monopoly, the martial art of Judo awarded its first black belt to a non-Japanese female judoka.
This all happened in 1935!
Sarah Mayer started Judo in London, England at the Budokwai, which had been founded by Gunji Koizumi in 1918.
She visited Japan in the 1930′s and studied at the birthplace of Judo, better known as ‘Kodokan’.
Later she went on to study at the Kyoto Butokukai, which had been established in 1890 and was led by founder Jigoro Kano’s representatives, for about 2 years.
On March 1, 1935 the Japanese Times bore the headline “Foreign Woman wins Shodan at the Butokukai”.
To Sarah Mayer’s surprise, she was offered this rank on February 27, 1935 and was the first non-Japanese woman in the world to be awarded black belt rank in Kodokan Judo.
She returned the same year to Britain and practiced at the Budokwai for a while before setting up her own dojo in her home in Burgh Heath.
Another Diverse Week In Review At TheMartialArtsReporter.com
How’s it goin’?
Hope you had a great week, because I sure did, as you can tell from last week’s line-up of posts.
Enjoy all of them in their entirety along with the attached video clips.
Talk to you next week.
The Highest Ranking Female Judoka In The World
Finland: Sauna, Wodka And A Very Eclectic Korean Martial Art
Find Out Who Makes Matt Damon Look Tough In “Green Zone”
Breaking News: Budweiser-Mamas & Mardi Gras Madness
Mardi Gras And Why TheMartialArtsReporter Is Going Nuts
Happy Chinese New Year! It’s The Year Of The Tiger!
The Highest Ranking Female Judoka In The World
As you know by now, it is always a pleasure for me to post something interesting and inspirational about and for female martial artists.
Today we continue our tradition and this a big one!
Our featured female martial artist, Keiko Fukuda, was born in 1913 in Tokyo, Japan.
It wasn’t until 1935 that she actually started practicing the martial art of judo at the age of 21. Look at those dates again and be amazed like I am.
At that time, Japan and many other industrialized countries were still deeply affected by The Great Depression that started in 1929 and continued for many even until the end of World War II in 1945.
I don’t consider myself a Japanology expert, but I am pretty sure that Japanese women weren’t necessarily encouraged to pursue a martial arts career in the 1930s.
Keiko Fukuda was even exceptional in those days by flat-out rejecting an arranged marriage to do just that after being being invited to study judo by its founder Jigoro Kano himself in the newly created women’s division!
Kano had been a Jujutsu student of her grandfather, Fukuda Hachinosuke, who at one time had been a samurai.
Amazingly, today Keiko Fukuda is the last living pupil of Kano.
Empowering and inspring women about the kata (forms) of Kodokan judo, Keiko Fukuda published the instructional book Born for the Mat in 1973.
In 2001, the United States Judo Federation awarded her a rare red belt for her lifelong contribution to judo.
It was in January 2006 that the Kodokan Judo Institute also awarded her the 9th degree black belt (9th dan).
Keiko Fukuda is currently the only woman in the world to hold a 9th degree black belt from any recognized judo organization.
At the time of writing this post, Keiko Fukuda is close to 97 and I bet some of you are thinking that she probably spends her days just sitting at home in front of the TV watching The Price Is Right or whatever.
Nothing could be further from the truth, because she still teaches at the Soko Joshi Judo Club in the Noe valley district of San Francisco, California as well as at the annual Joshi Judo Camp, a camp she founded in 1974 to give women judoka an opportunity to train together.
Gentle, Strong, Beautiful, she is judo pioneer, Keiko Fukuda, the highest ranking female judoka in the world.
I am dedicating today’s post to all female martial artists. Past, current and future.
Finland: Sauna, Wodka And A Very Eclectic Korean Martial Art
Most of us would make the connection between Finland and Finnish sauna and even some of the most famous Wodka brands money can buy, right?
But Finland and a very eclectic Korean martial art?
Let me tell you how this post came together.
Last Sunday while getting ready for a tennis mixed doubles match I was talking with one of my team members and his wife about martial arts.
They told me that that they had studied some Korean martial art several years ago in Mississippi, which they referred to as Han Moo Do.
I actually had no in-depth knowledge of this style and they were kind enough to tell me a little bit more such as:
Han Moo Do is a fairly young style which consists of elements of Tae Kwon and Hapkido. They probably told me more, but that’s what stuck with me.
That sounded pretty intriguing to me, so I started to dig a bit deeper and here is what I found online:
Han Moo Do was created by 8th dan Young Suk (Yoon Soon Hwang) about 20 years ago, when the first club was established in Finland!
Lately it has been spreading to other Nordic countries, such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
The first club outside of the nordic region was recently set up in Limerick, Ireland. But also even in Mississippi in the U.S. Southeast as I mentioned above.
Hanmoodo is descended from other Korean styles, such as Hoi Jeon Moo Sool and Taekwondo, so Hanmoodo resembles these styles as well as Hapkido in many areas.
Hanmoodo’s techniques include kicks, punches, throws, takedowns, grappling , joint-locking techniques and chokes.
Kicks are mostly aimed at ribs or head.
Punches can be targeted to the body only.
Throws and takedowns resemble Judo and wrestling techniques but are done even more elegantly.
Joint locks mainly target the wrist and elbow but there are also leg locks.
Chokes are performed mostly with forearm and wrist.
The art contains three weapon styles: nunchaku, long staff e.g. Japanese bo; and sword e.g. Japanese katana.
Hanmoodo practitioners are also encouraged to engage in exhibitions where a practiced choreography is presented to an audience. These choreographies feature several practitioners performing self-defence techniques on each other.
In competition, Hanmoodo rules permit kicks above the waistline and punches between the waistline and the head.
All strikes must hit the front of the body and other kinds of strikes are prohibited.
Competitors may also grapple by throwing or taking down their opponent and controlling him/her on the mat but striking is prohibited when either competitor has a hold on the other or is considered to be on the ground.
I have found Han Moo Do or hanmoodo to be a rather interesting mixed martial art that covers the four combat ranges of long, medium and close as well as ground fighting. Oh, yeah, weapons, too.
Personally, I can do without the high-flying kicks, which in no way criticizes the style itself. High kicks might have their justification.
Summa summarum, I am impressed with Han Moo Do and to give you some visuals of it all, here is a clip I found. Hope you enjoy it.
P.S.: My wife and I won our tennis match 6-0, 6-3.!
Valentine’s Day And The Week In Review At TheMartialArtsReporter.com
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!
I don’t understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine’s Day.
When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.
Anyway …
Let’s get back to what really makes the world turn and that would be martial arts, right?! Just kidding around here.
Check out The Week In Review that took us from Russia (with love) to Japan to Brooklyn, New York to Hong Kong to Houston, Texas.
Russian Systema Or Just When You Think You’ve Seen It All
Masahiko Kimura, The Best Judoka Ever?
Martial Artist Wesley Snipes Co-Starring In “Brooklyn’s Finest”
Teenager Tried To Kick Bruce Lee In The Face
Linda Denley, Karate Superwoman From Houston, Texas
Have a great Valentine’s Day wherever you are!
I will talk to you tomorrow.
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