How Newaza Was Adopted

[Motion]

Here's some historical info on how newaza became a part of Judo. I was wondering how Kano came to add groundfighting to his system and found this info.



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Fusen-Ryu Jujutsu was founded by Takeda Motsuge in the early 1800's. Motsuge was born in 1794 in Matsuyama Japan. He studied jujutsu since a young age and by his late teens was considered a shihan and was teaching in Aki. He had studied Nanba Ippo-Ryu from Takahashi Inobei. He also studied Takenouchi, Sekiguchi, Yoshin, Shibukawa, and Yagyu-Ryu during his lifetime. As his style came together at about the same time as the dissolution of the Samurai class, it developed mostly toward unarmed combat. Fusen-Ryu finally became an art that focused almost exclusively on ground fighting.(this may have only been in several branch schools, as certain other branch schools of Fusen-Ryu still exist today, and they do not focus on newaza).

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Fusen-Ryu master Mataemon Tanabe challenged a new jujutsu master to the area - Kano Jigoro. His new jujutsu style had challenged several of the old style Jujutsu schools to contest and had beaten them easily. So Mataemon Tanabe's school fought Kano's school and won every match - not trying to throw, but going right to the ground and doing armlocks, leg locks, chokes, etc. Thus was the real birth of newaza as a science. Kano was so fascinated with the ease his judoka were beaten that he persuaded (and perhaps paid) Tanabe to reveal the core of his technical strategy. Over the next few years, Kano assigned several of his top students to focus exclusively on this newaza. Soon, newaza was "absorbed" as part of the Judo syllabus, and Judo began to spread across the world.
After having several of his top students become newaza experts, Kano thought it a good idea to use this type of Judo in the school system. As the matches ended in submission instead of serious injury, it would be seen more in a sportive way...

http://www.kobukaijujitsu.com/sensei6.html

[Motion]

Mataemon Tanabe challenged a new jujutsu master to the area - Kano Jigoro. His new jujutsu style had challenged several of the old style Jujutsu schools to contest and had beaten them easily.

Something else I'am wondering about is I've read on various forums where some have pointed out that what Maeda taught the Gracies was actually Judo newaza and not Jujitsu, but Maeda used the term Jujitsu. I see from the above quote that Kano's Judo when it was new was viewed as a new style of Jujitsu. If that was the case then I'am thinking maybe Kano's "Judo" was still viewed as Jujitsu or a new style of it during the time Maeda went to Brazil and the use of the term Judo for Kano's new art wasn't as widespread yet? So this may expalin why "Gracie Jujitsu" was called that instead of it being called "Gracie Judo"?

So I guess the question is at what point did the term Judo become recognized exclusively as the term for Kano's new style of Jujitsu?

[jeff5]

I believe at the time the terms were used interchangeably, and I think when it was introduced to Brazil the name Judo was fairly new, so he may have felt that Jujitusu was a better, more well known name. Its hard to say really, the history of this stuff gets fuzzy. But Judo is a form of Jujitsu really, so the arguement is really academic.

If I read my BJJ history correctly, I also believe you're right about what was taught to the Gracies, and then they further refined it.