Re: And yet more shiao jiao clips

11. The Kokugaku, which Mike has referred to, had no effect that I am
aware, on martial arts circles. This was mostly concerned with Buddhist
temples. There was NO suppression whatsoever regarding information about
Chinese doctrines within Japanese martial arts circles.

I think you're wrong there, Ellis. It was a nationalistic movement, not
just a religious movement. References to China and other influences was
downplayed everywhere.

Problem is, I have access to a lot of original material in several ryu, and
the documents, pre-and-post Kokugaku, are unchanged. Political discourse,
yes. The enforced changes in the temples, yes. But the ryu documents, and
what was taught was not touched.

12. Jujutsu, in the Tokugawa period, developed more and more into
grappling. The importance of weaponry vastly diminished. Sometime in the
late Edo, with jacket wrestling techniques becoming more and more
important,
people started using fireman's jackets, heavy quilted cotton or hemp wear
(kiekko gi, really), that, unlike their kimono, wouldn't rip. These
jackets
had been around for a long time - and YES, the original pattern might have
come from China, long/long ago, but the overlapping kimono pattern was
native Japanese wear for 1000+ years.

Not to mention that there was NOT this isolation of Japan from China...
there was still travel, etc. And the some heavy weave in the gi jackets is
pretty obvious... it's more than just casual appearance. A shuai-jiao top
and a judo-gi top are often exactly the same weave of material... just a
different cut.

Look, that particular way of weaving cloth may have come from China.
However, the Japanese were not mere imitators - they have always been very
creative - so who knows. My point is that the cut of the clothes had been
used by Japanese for 1500 years (and may have been derived from China - I
think it was). This cut was adapted to firefighter uniforms, and given a
new fabric. No need to assume that low-class Japanese firefighters, a group
of impoverished guys, one step above day-laborers, could somehow have seen
shuai-chiao uniforms in the middle ages, gotten a bright idea, looked around
for fabric, etc.

Ellis, the huge, huge borrowing from China in all respects is evident with
even a casual look.... yet do you see any reference to China, for the most
part??? What's really startling is how seldom China is ever mentioned or
acknowledged (just enough to get by, but no more) in most Japanese
"histories". So you're saying that there is/was no common mention of China
so the influence must not have been there.... why not consider that they
avoid mentioning China and the newspapers, etc., following that tradition?
At the times you're talking of, you seem to forget the intense rivalry with
China and the Sino-Japanese wars. But that rivalry doesn't dispose of the
tradition of borrowing from the Tang.

I think you are reading the wrong Japanese histories. :) What I'm saying is
that an exhibition of Chinese martial arts in the mid-to-late 1800's would
have been remarkable. Artists, then the equivalent of photographers, were
drawing everything they saw that was new, unusual and different, including
pornography with Western sailors and Japanese women. Additionally, there
are drawings of sailors wrestling and boxing. And the matches between
whites or even "worse," blacks," and Japanese, made the news. In the late
1800's, there were gekkiken kogyo, challenge match exhibitions for money in
which out-of-work samurai took on all comers on a stage. There was not such
a racial obsession with China that the entire country would wipe out news of
any matches or exhibitions. Instead, knowing the Japanese, if there was an
exhibition, there would have been challenges.
Again, I'm not saying that as early as when Kano started to train (which is
the really relevant issue here), he might, somehow have seen shuai-chiao.
But what would he have gotten from that, when, as I emphasize, jujutsu
schools had pretty much ALL the techniques that he codified, and had for
hundreds of years, AND, they already had the uniform.


What we are left with, in my opinion is this:
A. The idea that there was a suppression of the influence of China on
Japanese martial arts is a straw-dog argument - not correct.

Well, if you simply look at the number of Japanese martial artist types on
RMA and other forums who have sworn there is no Chinese influence in their
arts, it's pretty obvious that you're wrong, Ellis. Why didn't they
know???? Because knowledge of the influence is suppressed.

Nah - the simple point is this. Most of the Japanese martial artist types
you refer to trained in martial arts to which what you write about was
irrelevant. I can count on my fingers, even today, the number of
non-Japanese who have licenses in koryu, where this knowledge is kept. The
modern arts - kendo, karate, judo, tried to "rationalize" there training,
and early history was not considered relevant, any more than the average
modern MMA guy in, say, the Militech or Straight Blast gym, really cares if
Helio and Carlos Garcie were brothers, and who they learned from and what
relation it has to judo, etc. Even aikido, which is supposed to be
concerned with aiki and ki, has, over the last 40+ years, literally tried to
walk away from the stuff that supposedly made it unique. The relevant issue
regarding history is if the arts that actually practiced some of the skills
you are interested in, suppressed where they got the info. And there is not
documentary evidence of that - quite the contrary. Yoshin-ryu, for example,
makes a big point of the fact that the founder went to China to learn.
That's considered a point of pride and interest.


C. That the roots of sumo are continental is well-known

Except on most martial arts forums, Ellis. Not everyone knows these
things... why???.... because acknowledgements to China were suppressed and
most westerners aren't aware of the connection.

Nah, I just picked up a couple of books. In English. It's right there. Most
folks want to practice what they are learning - and unless one believes that
through studying the history, one can pick up the hidden knowledge, most
people really can't be bothered.


D. That Kano, directly, created judo in imitation of shuai-chiao that he
might have heard of, and might, unlikely, have seen in his teen years, is
very dubious.

I totally disagree. If Kano and others were bothering to follow wrestling
techniques in Europe, I assure you they were well boned-up on Chinese
martial arts. Notice how when China re-opened to visiting in the 1980's
there was an immediate stream of Japanese martial artists and cameramen to
the famous martial-arts villages.... yet, did you see a lot in the news
about it? No. Traditionally they follow China with their eyes, but in
print they don't acknowledge the Tang Shou.

1. Kano really became aware of Western wrestling far later in his career,
when, among other things, the great Ad Santel, went to Tokyo in the
1900tweens, and defeated several of the Kodokan's top people. When Kano
started out as a teenager, he was not focusing on Western wrestling, he was
focusing on Kito-ryu and Tenshin Shin'yo-ryu
2. I lived in Japan at that time. It was all over the place. Almost every
local gym had t'ai chi classes, associated with a number of major
organizations. Mike - honestly, outside required school classes, which can
be kendo or judo, there may be more young people doing Chinese martial arts
than Japanese - in Japan. The magazine, Wushu, started in the early
eighties, and had monthly articles on everything you could imagine, with
levels of accuracy at everything you might imagine too.
3. Far better to go back a couple of decades. The sixties. Shorinji kempo
was successful in claiming that Chinese martial arts were nearly extinct in
China and that they were the only legit successor. Sato Kinbei, who was
studying with Wang Shu Chin, among others, got involved in a court case.
The Shorinji people claimed, in court, that t'ai chi was a recently revived
art, and that bagua had never existed - it was a fabrication. Wang Shu Chin
was appearing at Japanese martial arts demos, and as my friend Ken Cottier
would say, "He'd start doing his t'ai chi, and his arse, in grey flannel, as
big as the moon, would waft across the stage, in front of the faces of all
the karateka." Then he'd take challenges. So, you might say, "Aha.
There's evidence of the suppression. Not exactly. Again, the koryu people
and historians were well aware of the Chinese influence. But there had been
little contact to see Chinese martial arts until Wang came, and then later
Hung I Hsiang and then the boom hit when China opened up again. Hell, for
most people, koryu was irrelevant too. Most Japanese are unaware that koryu
systems still exist. It's not suppressed either - simply ignored as
irrelevant to people's lives.
4. To sum up -
A. Chinese substrate of knowledge as per previous posts
B. Limited contact - some thereby revolutionizing aspects of some people's
study - including Chin Gempin, and the founder of Yoshin-ryu jujutsu going
to China to learn (this ryu is a root art of Tenshin Shin'yo-ryu, hence a
connection of China to Kano)
C. Almost no contact, whatsoever up through early Meiji - late 1800's
D. Maybe some touring, a la your bagua guys in 1910.
E. When Japan starts encroaching on China, contact resumes. Takeda Hiroshi
learns Tonbei (not all apparently), Ken'ichi Sawai learns I ch'uan, lots of
army guys bully, challenge and win-or-lose against Chinese martial artists.
Nakayama of Shotokan trains with Chinese in Beijing. Chinese martial
artists demonstrate at Kenkoku University and are definitely seen and
admired by Ueshiba.
F. After the war, the martial artists back in Japan have mostly stories,
and a few have some knowledge.
G. Early sixites - Shorinji is getting popular, and researchers such as
Sato Kinbei and Matusda are going to Taiwan and also having Chinese go to
Japan.
H. Boom in the '80's. Far more practitioners in Japan than in America, I
believe.

When I started doing karate, back in the sixties, I'd heard of kung fu. One
karate teacher told me that they blocked with spirals and circles rather
than straight lateral blocks. I was aware of "kung fu," then, but it was
pretty distant. I would wager that Kano, as a young man, knew of shuai
chiao the same way. Far later, with Japan invading Taiwan and then the
mainland, judoka saw and experienced it first hand - and who knows, perhaps
the shuai chiao folks borrowed some judo techniques as well.

Best
Ellis

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