The Art of Ju-Jitsu

By E. J. Harrison

Ernest John Harrison was a journalist and translator who spoke many languages. He was exposed to the art in Japan in 1897. Harrison was rumoured to be something of a hot-head and a tough guy who backed down to no-one. W. E. Steers and E. J. Harrison was the first non-Japanese to be graded to shodan (first dan) in Kodokan judo.
"The Art of Ju-Jitsu" shows various easy to learn techniques illustrated and supplemented with in-depth text descriptions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jul 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473384811

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THE ART OF JU-JITSU

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

ALTHOUGH it must be, roughly speaking, nearly thirty years ago that my friend and colleague, the famous Yukio Tani, introduced the Japanese art of Jū-Jitsu (more correctly Jū-Jūtsu) into England there has hitherto been lacking in English a really authoritative handbook on the subject, published at a price within the means of the majority. In the following pages I have therefore done my best to supply, in a necessarily condensed form, an explanation, in logical sequence, of the more useful tricks (for want of a better word) in the extensive Jū-Jitsu repertoire, together with some account of the history and underlying principles of the art.

I think it will be generally agreed that a manual of this character should nowadays serve a double purpose, for not only is Jū-Jitsu to be commended as intrinsically a splendid exercise beneficial to health and likely to promote all-round physical development, but the mastery of even a few of its many holds and throws affords the pupil of either sex a highly effective means of resisting sudden attack. I have never been prone to advance exaggerated claims for the supernormal efficacy of Jū-Jitsu against an armed and a resolute opponent, but none the less, within my own long experience, both as a pupil and an instructor, I have verified a good many instances in which its exponents have owed their escape from violent robbery, if nothing worse, to their knowledge of the art and their ability to apply it at the psychological moment.

The demonstrable truth that knowledge of Jū-Jitsu enables its possessor to overcome a physically stronger adversary should appeal peculiarly to women, in these spacious days of bag-snatching, criminal assault, and other excesses directed by male degenerates against members of the weaker sex. It is hardly too much to say that proficiency in Jū-Jitsu might on occasion even save the life of a seemingly frail woman in circumstances of this kind. Thus Jū-Jitsu not only affords an admirable system of physical training, but equally a method of self-defence second to none and superior to most in an emergency. It has this additional advantage, that it can be successfully practised by both sexes, almost irrespective of age, provided, of course, that the pupil does not suffer from some organic disability.

The present manual does not profess to be exhaustive. Anything in the nature of a comprehensive up-to-date survey of this field would call for a volume far larger than any that has yet appeared, perhaps in any language. As I have already intimated, in the following pages I have tried to explain the more frequently used holds, locks, and throws, as taught at the famous school of the art in Tokyo, known as the Kodokwan, founded by Dr. Jigoro Kano, Principal of the Higher Normal School or Teachers’ Training College, of the same city. Dr. Kano, now a singularly vigorous veteran in the seventies, in his youth made a special study of all the better-known systems (in Japanese "ryūgi" or sects) of Jū-Jitsu, and after carefully selecting the best that each system had to offer, and rejecting a great deal that was superfluous, he finally elaborated his own eclectic system styled jūdō, which is to-day the one almost universally recognized throughout Japan, where it is taught by Kodokwan instructors in the Army and Navy, the police, universities and higher schools. Even the adherents of other older sects, which still survive in Japan, frequently join the Kodokwan or some of its affiliated branch schools, in order to obtain its certificate of proficiency, which never fails to give them a higher standing in the ranks of the profession than that of their contemporaries not possessing such a qualification. Although, therefore, in deference to the older nomenclature, as being more widely known in this country, I have hitherto used the word Jū-Jitsu, I wish to make it perfectly clear that the versions of the various tricks described in these pages are those authorized and accepted by the Kodokwan of Tokyo, and should properly be called part of the repertoire of jūdō.

The difference in meaning between the two words is very simple. The word Jū-Jitsu is in Japanese written with two ideographs, the first, "Jū, meaning to obey, submit to, weak, soft, pliable; and the second, Jutsu, meaning art or science." The use of the first character is intended to imply that Jū-Jitsu relies for its triumphs not upon brute strength but upon skill and finesse, the ability to win by appearing to yield. Thus in Jū-Jitsu the opponent underneath may have the other at his mercy, though to the inexperienced onlooker he may appear to be defeated. In the newer word "jūdō, the second character, dō, means a way or path," the object of this designation being to emphasize the ethical side of Dr. Kano’s system, which had not been quite so much in evidence among the older sects.

Thus the administration of the Kodokwan and its affiliated bodies throughout Japan devote considerable attention to the personal conduct of individual members, so that no student, however physically skilful in the art, may hope for promotion if his behaviour outside the school (in Japanese the "dōjō"), falls below the standard insisted