Kosen judo is a form of judo adopted by the major high schools and technical schools during the Meiji era (1868 - 1914). Today it is still practised at university clubs in Japan. Kosen judo emphasizes newaza (ground techniques) such as controls, joint locks and strangles more than the most common type of judo does. Kosen judo was most influential to Brazilian jiujitsu .

History

The roots of Kosen Judo lies in two schools of jujutsu : The Fusen-Ryu Jujutsu and, not surprisingly, Jigoro Kano's own ryu (school) which was named judo , later known as Kodokan judo, and spread worldwide.

Ancient origins

Fusen-Ryu Jujutsu was founded by Takeda Motsuge in the early 1800's. The ryu was based on his early jujutsu studies (even as early as his late teens, he was considered a shihan ). The most influential schools he had trained under were the Nanba Ippo (from Takahashi Inobei), Takenouchi, Sekiguchi, Yoshin, Shibukawa, and Yagyu-Ryu. The dissolution of the samurai class was underway concurrent with Fusen-ryu development, and it is thought that the banning of armed combat (and hence also less reliance on body armor) probably heavily influenced Fusen-Ryu's emphasis on unarmed and unarmored combat techniques. Unlike prior schools that had to contend with strikes and grappling limited by body armor (and to be wary of counters by knives and swords), Fusen-Ryu was able to use a variety of do-gi (the traditional judo or karate uniform) manipulation techniques.

By the end of the 19th century another school of jujutsu which had also adapted to the changing martial environment was growing famous by beating many older, more traditional, schools in consecutive matches. This school was founded by Jigoro Kano, was called Kodokan Judo, and is the source of Olympics judo and sport judo in high schools and colleges.

Mataemon Tanabe, then the Fusen-Ryu master, challenged the Kano school and its students and won every match. Much to Kano's surprise, Fusen-Ryu's focus was less on throwing techniques than on going immediately to locks or chokes - whether applied standing up, as part of a take-down, or applied on the ground following a simpler form of take-down than many elegant throws that then formed the heart of Kodokan Judo.

Fusen-Ryu shined on the ground, where pins, chokes, arm-locks, and leg-locks are highly effective, while Kodokan Judo appeared to be more comfortable attacking and defending from a standing position. Kano had previously invited the heads of every jujutsu ryu he encountered to contribute to the development of Judo, and asked the same of Tanabe, persuading him to integrate Fusen-Ryu into Kodokan Judo. With its excellent ground work (or newaza ), Fusen-Ryu brought a great deal to modern Judo, which now viewed as consisting of two major skillsets, throws and ground work, although the more traditional classification is into throws, groundwork, chokes, and striking (although in modern Judo almost nothing is seen of strikes, or atemi-waza).

Early prominent Kodokan judokas, influenced by Fusen-Ryu, include Yoshiaki Yamashita, Hirata Kanae, Tsunejiro Tomita, Sakujiro Yokoyama and Mitsuyo Maeda . Maeda went on to teach judo to the Gracie family, who would later develop the martial art into Brazilian jiu-jitsu (jiu-jitsu is an older English spelling of jujutsu, but both are 'romanised' versions of Japanese kanji script and rules for romanization have changed over time). Unlike modern sport Judo which emphasizes throws over ground work, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu preserved, and today is famous for, its emphasis on ground work, and probably maintains more of a martial aspect via Vale Tudo and, today, MMA or mixed martial arts.

The birth of Kosen Judo

Jujutsu schools had earned a very bad reputation in the 19th century. The art of jujutsu was not seen as a sport, and its practitioners were all labelled trouble-makers. This troubled Kano as he wanted his art to be mainly taught as a way of life and to be a fitness exercise (for both body and mind). To this end he started promoting the educational side of his jujutsu ryu by first changing its name to judo. This theoretically demonstrated that Kano's school departed from the bujutsu tradition of warfare to a more person centered budo tradition, where the role of the individual was the real focus.

Since Fusen-ryu matches ended in a pin or submission instead of serious injury and it avoided difficult throws, it was easily learned in the school setting. Kodokan Judo had formed great newaza experts. This, along with Kano's willingness to promote judo as a way of life and a form of physical education, greatly influenced the face of judo in its early days and helped him promote it in Japanese schools. In 1914 Kano organized all the Japan High School Championships at Kyoto Imperial University. This sportive style of competition was formally called Kosen (high school).

An expansion of Kodokan judo newaza

Newaza effectivess and ease of learning started to change the way judo matches evolved. It was much too easy to train a bulky fighter in newaza and have him stop the most fit opponent from a rival school, so soon Kano saw judo becoming a newaza only school. By 1925 so much emphasis was on newaza, due to its success in competition, that Kano introduced new rules limiting the amount of time the judoka could stay on the ground. It was stipulated that techniques had to start from tachiwaza (standing stance). If you pulled your opponent down more than three times he was declared the winner. This rule continued into the 1940's but was ignored by the Kosen schools who continued their form of newaza competition.

The Kosen Judo is being still practiced at some Japanese universities, particularly, at seven ex-imperial universities of Japan. Sometimes it is called shichitei-judo. There is an annual competition held among those 7 universities (mainly in June).

Kosen judo evolution

At the time of the rule change of 1925 newaza was extremely popular and well researched, particularly by the Kosen Judo students. Since Kosen Judo was an inter-school team contest only, there was the possibility to draw. It was only ippon (win by pin, submission, or a perfect throw) or a draw. Newaza training was very useful because it is easier to get draws in newaza, and faster to get a beginner trained for competition. By this time turtle positions, double leg locks (closed-guard), half-guard and so on were extensively researched by the Kosen masters.

Kosen judo followed its own course and continued under the old rules even to this day in the Seven Universities Tournament. Kano was very careful not to obliterate Kosen judo when he introduced the new rules. He did this for several reservations:

• There were relatively few doing newaza-only.
• He wanted newaza specialists in judo.
• He could not convince himself that doing only newaza was in itself bad.
• Kosen judokas did also tachiwaza despite their emphasis in newaza.

This way the rule changes were not enforced throughout the judo world in Japan allowing judo to evolve both standing and onto the ground. The new rules were devised as a mean to emphasize tachiwaza while great care was taken not to make newaza unpopular.

The spirit of Kosen judo

Kosen judo followed the spirit of bushido . Winning was the most important aspect, although in Bushido this means winning for the group rather than the individual. They were the elite of the time. They never gave up, even when pinned or having their arms broken, and succumbed to unconsciousness rather than call maitta. World War II changed this, as Japan lost the war and the Kodokan was closed, eventually to become a military academy. After many meetings it was agreed that the Kodokan could re-open only if it taught judo in a pure democratic manner.

Kosen judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu

In 1904 Mitsuyo Maeda ,judo master, was sent to America to spread the word of judo. He finally arrived in Brazil by 1915 and taught judo newaza to Carlos Gracie . Hélio Gracie learned the techniques from watching his brother Carlos, and adapted them to his own slim and weak body. This way Brazilian jiu-jitsu can be regarded as a direct descendant from judo newaza, and by extension from Kodokan Judo as it was taught before World War II. There is a major misconception that techniques such as turtle positions, double leg locks (closed-guard) and half-guard were developed by the Gracies in Brazil , while in fact they were extensively researched by the Kosen masters before the 1925 change of competition rules of judo.

In recent days, due to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu prominence in the media, a rivalry between judo and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu started to grow. Soon this was regarded derogatory to both sports. In Brazil, practitioners of Jiu-Jitsu never took much attention to this rivalry, partly because they did not recognize sport-judo as having any influence in their art, partly because they regarded old school judo masters as very capable fighters (Hélio Gracie's account of Masahiko Kimura ´s skills is just one evidence among many).

Currently there is a big trend in Brazil toward bringing together judo and jiu-jitsu schools. Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters went to judo schools to develop their throwing techniques and judokas went to jiu-jitsu schools to develop their newaza skills. Much credit for this has to be given to the specialized press, which started to write accurate articles regarding the origins of Brazilian jiu-jitsu in judo, promoting the aproximation of both arts.

Many scholars regard Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Kosen Judo to be more closed related to the newaza of Kodokan Judo before World War II, than current international judo as it is presented by the Kodokan itself.

Bibliography

• Osaekomi by Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki
• History of Kosen Judo
• Kosen Judo
• A Kosen Judo posting
• Judo History Archive (excellent background and hard to find judo history information)

External links

Those are the universities which still practice Kosen Judo:

• Osaka Univ. Judo Club
• Hokkaido Univ. Judo Club
• Tohoku Univ. Judo Club
• Tokyo Univ. Judo Club
• Nagoya Univ. Judo Club
• Kyoto Univ. Judo Club
• Kyushu Univ. Judo Club