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Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science

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Judo and the process of nation-building in Japan: Kan Jigor and the formation of Kdkan judo
Tetsuya Nakajima & Lee Thompson
a a a

Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University Version of record first published: 03 Dec 2012.

To cite this article: Tetsuya Nakajima & Lee Thompson (2012): Judo and the process of nationbuilding in Japan: Kan Jigor and the formation of Kdkan judo, Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science, DOI:10.1080/13854046.2012.743701 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2012.743701

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Asia Pacic Journal of Sport and Social Science iFirst article, 2012, 114

Judo and the process of nation-building in Japan: Kano Jigoro and the formation of Kodokan judo
Tetsuya Nakajima* and Lee Thompson
Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University Although the founding of judo by Kano Jigoro has been well studied, perhaps less is known about the sociohistorical background behind its formation. This paper considers how the system of judo was constructed in the context of the formation of the nation state in Japan. Each aspect of Kanos judo was developed in response to specic conditions in particular, the Ministry of Educations aversion to the martial arts. Kano developed what he referred to as the values of judo in the context of the ministrys adoption of gymnastic exercises for the physical education curriculum. Moreover, Kano believed that continuity with older schools of jujutsu was important, although in order to legitimize judos patriotic credentials, he rejected the prevailing theory of jujutsus Chinese origins. At the same time, he also excluded frivolous techniques and attempted to restore jujutsu to its original noble essence as a practical form of combat. The diverse and exible history of jujutsu came to be forgotten. Keywords: jujutsu; gymnastics; sports; invention of tradition; East Asia

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Introduction Research into the history of judo in Japan has heretofore focused mainly on the formation of judo from earlier forms of jujutsu. How did Kano Jigoro, the founder of judo, view jujutsu, and in what ways did he differentiate judo from jujutsu? This approach is a form of modernization theory. Specically, it is said that Kano reorganized and unied the many existing schools of jujutsu to create judo as a form of intellectual, moral and physical education. Sogawa (1994) particularly points out that Kanos emphasis on judo as physical education connects judo with modern sports. In recent years other scholars, employing Hobsbawms concept of the invention of tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1998), have called attention to the afnities between judo and jujutsu (Inoue, 1998), thereby reviving interest in the process of judos formation. In sum, previous research has focused mainly on the continuity between jujutsu and judo or lack thereof, and there is a surprising dearth of research attempting to treat the formation of judo in relation to its social background. In the twenty-odd years from 1868 to 1889 Japan changed from a samurai society to a nation state. The prominent intellectual, educator and journalist Fukuzawa Yukichi wrote in 1874 that Japan had a government but no nation (Fukuzawa, 1874/1978). That is, a government had been established for the new state, but the people had yet to be formed into a unied body. Fukuzawas comment shows why, in the late nineteenth century, nation-building was considered a top priority. In order to fashion a nation to take up the

*Corresponding author. Email: raou@aoni.waseda.jp

ISSN 2164-0599 print/ISSN 2164-0602 online q 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2012.743701 http://www.tandfonline.com

T. Nakajima and L. Thompson

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burden of the new modern state, the Meiji government actively created various forms of what Fujitani terms folklore of the regime (Fujitani, 1996, p. 220). The concept of the nation state is useful when considering the formation of judo. The state seeks to unify the institutions and cultures that lie within its borders. On the other hand, the residents within the borders become a people, who must maintain healthy, disciplined bodies in order to serve as soldiers or industrial workers and sustain the national culture. In this way the concept of the nation state contains elements of both tradition and modernity, seemingly without contradiction. Japanese culture was rediscovered for the purpose of nation-building in a particular historical moment. During the Boshin Civil War of 1868 1869 and the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, disaffected elements of the samurai class rebelled against the new government, established in 1868 and nominally led by the Emperor Meiji. The rebellion was defeated, but the result was that samurai culture came to be viewed as something that needed to be suppressed. However, with the establishment of a new regime through the promulgation of the Meiji constitution in February 1889, many new national traditions had to be created to help unify the nation. The emperor announced that he would pardon the rebellious elements, and what were once considered the evil anachronisms of the samurai culture of the Edo period were appropriated and extolled in the name of the emperor (Takagi, 2005, p. 9). According to Haga (2004), the Meiji government propagated the feudal samurai culture by recycling it as part of the traditions of a historically, ethically and publicly worthy imperial state. Kano founded judo in 1882, in the very midst of the process aimed at the formation of the nation state. Although it was not part of the national folklore created by the Meiji government, Kano was careful to adapt judo to the newly created nation state. On 11 May 1889, he had the opportunity to deliver a lecture to government representatives on the merits of judo. The title of the lecture was General Aspects of the Judo and its Value in Education (referred to hereafter as General Aspects). In this article, we consider how the merits of judo as eventually proposed in this lecture were constructed in the context of the formation of the nation state. The exclusion of martial arts from physical education in the schools, and judo as a method of physical education 1. Mori Arinoris critique of the martial arts In the Meiji governments efforts to establish a modern state, the most important concern was the formation of the nations people. Physical education was the means by which this was to be achieved in relation to the body. The Meiji government mainly adopted military gymnastics (heishiki taiso) for the school physical education curriculum the drills and exercises were adapted from military training for the school physical education curriculum. The rst Minister of Education, Mori Arinori (1847 1889), was a strong promoter of military gymnastics. Mori spent about one quarter of his life in America and Europe, and was a strong proponent of the Westernization of Japan. Although he was a samurai from the Kagoshima Domain, from an early age he was critical of the martial arts, and swordsmanship in particular, in the education of samurai. In a letter to his elder brother sent from England on 7 August 1865, during his rst trip abroad, Mori wrote: The sword is only effective in defending an individual against a single opponent (Okubo, 1972, vol. 2, p. 48). The purpose of Moris trip to England was to study Western military science, which probably inuenced his criticism of Japans military strength. Mori was not alone in his assessment; his opinion

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reected the reorganization of military force taking place at the time. Let us look, then, at the social background to the criticism of the traditional martial arts. From the 1830s, Japans feudal government began to review its military strength in response to external threats. At the beginning of this period of reappraisal, the traditional martial arts were still widely practised. In a report written on the occasion of the disturbing appearance near Edo (present-day Tokyo) of a eet of frigates commanded by Admiral Matthew Perry, Tokugawa Nariaki the lord of the inuential Mito Domain wrote: The warriors of our divine nation must rst and foremost practice the arts of sword and spear. However, it was obvious that the traditional martial arts were no match for the military strength of the West. For that reason, Nariaki continued, Martial arts experts should teach practical forms of spear and sword, and should choose weapons based on their merit in actual combat. In this way, the practical effectiveness of the traditional martial arts was already being questioned by the end of the feudal era (Sonoda, 1993). The inevitable result of comparison of the traditional marital arts with the techniques and methods of modern warfare was that the former were rejected in favour of the latter. With the introduction of Western military science and weaponry, the traditional martial arts lost their military value. Moris scorn for the martial arts can be best understood from this perspective. However, even as the sword and spear lost their military value, they gained a new signicance. For example, one of the reasons Tokugawa Nariaki gave for promoting the traditional martial arts was that training in the sword and spear cultivated the Japanese spirit (Yamatodamashii). The sword was the symbol of the warrior class. By projecting the symbolic concept of the samurai onto the sword, it took on a spiritual value. In this way, two opposing views of swordsmanship came to exist side by side: disdain for its military usefulness and appreciation of its spiritual aspects. These two views came into sharp conict immediately after the Meiji Restoration, when the contrasting claims were highlighted in arguments over a bill introduced to the edgling parliament in 1869 calling for a ban on the wearing of swords in public, except by soldiers and the police. This decree was introduced by Mori Arinori, who explained his motives as follows: a man wears a sword to repel invaders from without, and for self-defence. A sword is therefore necessary in tumultuous times. However, as the country was becoming more civilized, the military would perform the task of repelling invaders, and the police would protect public order. By restricting the bearing of swords to the military and government ofcials, violence would naturally decrease, and morality and good customs would be cultivated. For that reason, the evil custom of wearing swords should be done away with. Mori believed that swordsmanship entailed a degree of violence that would hinder the progress of civilization in Japan (Okubo, 1972, vol. 1). Moris bill was opposed by the majority in parliament, who countered that the wearing of swords was a natural expression of the martial spirit of Japan, and that even if a decree banning swords were issued, no one with true Japanese spirit would obey it (Yoshino, 1928). From this episode we can see that the concept of the Japanese spirit was projected onto the sword from the end of the feudal era into the Meiji period. Mori never changed his negative opinion regarding the martial arts throughout his lifetime. For example, in a lecture given on 24 June 1887 at the Wakamatsu Primary School in Fukushima Prefecture, he stated, . . . in places where the martial arts are dominated by a kind of educationism that cherishes them for their emphasis on honour and shame, its too late to expect the adoption of methods with a practical use. My native Kagoshima is no exception (Okubo, 1972, vol. 1, p. 551). Here again Mori views the martial arts as being permeated with an undesirable educationism. Indeed, although the 12th Annual Report of

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T. Nakajima and L. Thompson

the Ministry of Education issued in 1887 reported that because of a shortage of teachers in Fukushima Prefecture, the education ordinance will be revised to temporarily add etiquette, chorus, infantry training, and swordsmanship to the curriculum (Akagi, 1885, p. 224), Mori deleted martial arts from this as an outdated method of education. Instead he sought to cultivate what he thought were the morals proper to a civilized nation through military gymnastics. Shortly before becoming Minister of Education in 1885, Mori gave a speech at the Saitama Normal School in which he said: recently we introduced military gymnastics at the Tokyo Normal School. Military gymnastics are an appropriate means to achieve the three goals mentioned earlier. These three goals were obedience, friendship, and dignity.
What we want to cultivate through military gymnastics is rst of all the obedience that is most important for a soldier. Second, soldiers are organized into units, each with a leader, whose duty is to strengthen the attachment within his unit. Third, these units form squads, each with a commander, who supervises the squad and maintains its dignity. In the same way some students will be common soldiers, others unit leaders, and yet others squad commanders, and they should each learn these three traits. We believe that doing so will bring benets, and that is why we introduced these exercises (Okubo, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 481 486).

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After this speech, military gymnastics were made part of the physical education curriculum through the Imperial University Ordinance issued in March 1886 and the Normal School Ordinance, Middle School Ordinance and Primary School Ordinance issued in April of the same year. Military gymnastics became an established part of the school curriculum from this time (Nose, 1995). Mori is said to have been particularly passionate about implementing military gymnastics in the normal schools which trained the next generation of teachers. By indoctrinating future teachers, Moris ideas would continue to inuence succeeding generations. According to Hasegawa (2007), the students at the Tokyo Normal School had never experienced military gymnastics before; their bodies were stiff and they did not understand the mentality behind the group exercises. Both instructors and students had difculties with the course. Mori directed First Lieutenant Matsuishi Yasuharu, who was the rst instructor of military gymnastics at the Tokyo Normal School, to write a textbook for the course. According to this textbook, the purpose of military drills is to instil discipline in the students and strengthen their bodies and characters. The signicance of the drills lies in the fact that physical education is not just for the purpose of developing the body. Since intellectual and moral education are greatly inuenced by the students mental state, drills to discipline the body are particularly effective in stimulating the mind (Hasegawa, 2007). Thus Mori sought to cultivate the body and soul of the nation through military gymnastics, while excluding the traditional martial arts from public education. 2. Inquiry into the suitability of jujutsu and swordsmanship As the incumbent Minister of Education, Moris aversion to the martial arts was a major obstacle to assigning educational merit to judo. During Moris tenure, Kano apparently petitioned the government to include judo in the school curriculum. The following article appeared in the 5 July 1893 edition of a leading educational journal.
When Kano Jigoro, recently promoted to principal of the First Higher Middle School, was vice-principal of Gakushuin, he taught jujutsu [authors note: judo] to improve the students weak constitution. He also petitioned the government several times to have jujutsu included in the school physical education curriculum, but to no avail. The same gentleman devised a form of jujutsu for use in the schools, where just as with gymnastics, several dozen students can line up and practice together. The Military Cadet Academy immediately adopted this into their

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curriculum. At a conference of middle school principals held last year Kano again proposed that judo be included in the curriculum as jujutsu-based gymnastics, but the proposal was not acted upon. It is said that he is determined to make the proposal at this years conference as well (Anonymous, 1893, p. 34).

Kano was vice-principal of Gakushuin from 1886 to 1889, so from the above article we know that he petitioned the government within this period, and that he also made similar proposals in 1892 and 1893. However, it was not until 1911 that the Ministry of Education rst authorized the teaching of judo in schools: this reveals that Kanos attempts had met with repeated failure. On the other hand, it can also be said that his system of judo was constructed in response to these failures. Kano would not have developed the form of judo that he did without this conict with the Meiji government. However, it was not only Moris aversion that kept the martial arts out of physical education. There were other attempts to get the martial arts included in the curriculum. In October 1878, the government established the National Institute of Gymnastics (Taiso Denshu jo) to consider the question of suitable activities for the physical education curriculum, bringing to Japan a newly graduated American doctor of medicine, George Adams Leland, to supervise this investigation. The main outcome of this study was the so-called normal gymnastics, a system of light exercises for the maintenance and promotion of health, performed with and without hand-held apparatus (Guttmann & Thompson, 2001, p. 91). From this we can see that the government was itself experimenting with methods of physical education other than military gymnastics, and one of the methods discussed was the martial arts. The rst head of the National Institute of Gymnastics, Izawa Shuji (1851 1917), wrote somewhat critically in a 1879 publication of the Ministry of Education, There are some today who claim that swordsmanship and military drills are the most suitable methods for physical education, and are arbitrarily teaching them in the schools (Izawa, 1879, p. 26). And as we have already seen, even in the 1880s the martial arts were being taught in physical education classes in Fukushima Prefecture. In response to a chorus of voices calling for inclusion of the martial arts in the regular curriculum, the Ministry of Education referred the matter to the National Institute of Gymnastics in May 1883. After investigating the physiological benets of swordsmanship and jujutsu, the Institute issued its report to the Ministry of Education in October of 1884. Hiizu Miyake, Erwin Balz and Julius Scriba from the medical faculty of Tokyo University participated in the study; they looked at several schools of jujutsu, including Tenjinshinyo and Kito, the two main schools on which Kano Jigoro based judo. The results of their investigation were as follows:
Advantages of introducing Bujutsu into schools: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. An effective means of enhancing physical development. Develops stamina. Rouses the spirit, and boosts morale. Expurgates spinelessness and replaces it with vigour. Arms the exponent with techniques for self-defence in times of danger.

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The dangers were as follows: 1. May cause unbalanced physical development. 2. Always an imminent danger present in training. 3. Difcult to determine the appropriate degree of exercise, as both physically strong students and weaker individuals are apt to be excited too much. 4. Could encourage violent behaviour due to the rousing of the spirit. 5. Exhilarates the will to ght which could manifest into an attitude of winning at all costs.

T. Nakajima and L. Thompson

6. A danger of encouraging a warped sense of competitiveness to the extent that the child could even resort to dishonest tactics. 7. Difcult to sustain unied instructional methodology for large numbers of students. 8. Requires a large area to conduct training. 9. Even though jujutsu only requires a keiko-gi (training-wear), kenjutsu requires the use of armour and other special equipment which would be expensive and difcult to keep clean and hygienic. (Quoted from translation by Sogawa, 2005, p. 197).

Given the above results, and in the light of educational theory, the National Institute came to the following conclusions: 1. The martial arts are not suitable for inclusion in the regular school curriculum. 2. Because of their relative accessibility, there may be benets in incorporating the martial arts in schools where the regular curriculum in gymnastics is being neglected in favour of intellectual training (Translated by authors from Watanabe, 1971, p. 772).

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In effect, the National Institute of Gymnastics rejected the inclusion of swordsmanship and jujutsu in the school curriculum. For the Meiji government, this was not just a matter of the two arts being outdated. They were also eschewed for physiological (1, 2 and 3), moral (4, 5 and 6), and practical (7, 8 and 9) reasons. It was against the backdrop of these objections that Kano had to assert the benets of his creation judo.

3. Judo as physical education Kano Jigoro was born in 1860 in what is today Hyogo Prefecture. He matriculated at the Department of Literature of Tokyo Imperial University in 1877, and in the same year started learning the Tenjinshinyo school of jujutsu. After the death of his teacher in June 1881, he began learning the Kito school as well. In 1882, he established Kodokan Judo to consolidate all the styles of jujutsu practised in Japan, although based mainly on the above two schools. Through his study of the techniques of various schools, Kano said he came to realize that the practice of the martial arts was compatible with the main aspects of modern education: intellectual, moral and physical training. In April 1888, he was invited to deliver a lecture at the Asiatic Society of Japan in Tokyo. The title of his talk was Jiujutsu, the Old Samurai Art of Fighting Without Weapons. In July of that year a transcript of that lecture was published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. In his talk, Kano describes the merits of jujutsu as follows:
Since the abolition of the Feudal System the art has for some time been out of use, but at the present time it has become very popular in Japan, though with some important modications, as a system of athletics, and its value as a method for physical training has been recognized by the establishment of several schools of Jiujutsu and Jiudo in the capital (Lindsay & Kano, 1888, p. 192; emphasis added).

At this time Kano was actually working with other jujutsu practitioners to develop a form of practice that would be appropriate for physical education. An article in the Yomiuri newspaper in May of 1888 stated:
The vice-principal of Gakushuin, Dr. Kano Jigoro, along with Yoshida Naozo, Hisatomi Tetsutaro, Uehara Shogo, Nakamura Hansuke, Suzuki Magohachiro, Kanatani Motoyoshi, and other prominent practitioners of jujutsu, are planning to promote jujutsu as a method of mental training and physical development. Most people think of it as a dangerous art, or that it takes a lot of space to practice, so few people aspire to learn it. In order to simplify and narrow down the number of techniques, the gentlemen above have gathered at the Kodokan to

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compare the relative advantages of the techniques from different schools. They have come up with a single, safe method and will hold the rst demonstration in the near future (Yomiuri Shimbun, May 5, 1888, p. 3).

From this article we can see that Kano was working with practitioners of jujutsu to rene the physical-education aspects of judo. Kano was invited by the Educational Society of Japan to give the General Aspects lecture to members of the Ministry of Education on 11 May 1889. A transcript of that lecture can be found in a journal of the Society in which Kano systematically describes judo. The lecture was delivered three months after the death of Mori Arinori, meaning that Kano was perhaps able to make the case for the merits of the martial arts to a greater degree that he had been able during Moris tenure. The content of this lecture can be seen as a direct response to the report by the National Institute of Gymnastics rejecting martial arts as unsuitable for education. In it, Kano strives to meet the standards required by the Ministry of Education (Kano, 1889). The rst thing to consider is how Kano described the process of the creation of judo. He said that he developed judo by rst studying the existing forms of jujutsu in as much detail as I could, carefully selecting what was useful and rejecting what was unnecessary, subjecting everything to scientic analysis, constructing it in a form most suitable to todays society (Kano, 1889, p. 456). As for jujutsu, it was a technique for an unarmed man, or a man armed with a small weapon, to attack or defend himself against an unarmed man, or a man with a small weapon (Kano, 1889, pp. 446 447). Kano dened jujutsu as a technique for wounding, killing, or capturing an opponent. When the general public today thinks of jujutsu, he said, they think of throttling throats, sprained joints, killing and resuscitationsomething dangerous with no redeeming value that can only harm the body (Kano, 1889, p. 456). Kano believed that the general publics image of jujutsu was of something harmful to the body. So he not only had to deal with the negative report from the National Institute of Gymnastics, but also had to change this common perception of jujutsu as something dangerous. It was not enough just to claim the physiological benets of jujutsu, he also had to change the perception of the very people who he hoped would come to take up and practice judo. In this lecture, Kano explained judos objectives by dividing them into three aspects: a system of physical education, a system of combat, and a system of intellectual and moral education. By a system of physical education, Kano meant the following: Excluding everything potentially harmful, . . . appropriately developing the muscles, making the body t, increasing strength, and enabling free movement of all parts of the body. In particular Kano emphasized the capacity to move freely, asserting that this was necessary to human life. He claimed that other forms of exercise could not achieve this to the same degree as judo, and that judo was superior in this respect to the normal gymnastics and militarystyle exercises promoted by the Ministry of Education (Kano, 1889, p. 458). The means of achieving these physical benets is randori, a form of practice in which two opponents face each other and freely attempt various moves, most frequently throwing techniques. In his lecture, Kano offered detailed description of the technique of ukemi, by which injury is avoided when being thrown or falling. Kano almost certainly focused on this technique in order to emphasize the safety of randori. But randori does not bring into play all the muscles of the body. Thus, Kano spoke of the need to develop a distinct method to work those muscles that normally arent much used, and introduced the Kodokan kata exercises that he had developed with jujutsu practitioners the previous year.1 While randori can only be practised wearing a gi (uniform) on a safe surface such as a tatami mat, exercise kata were designed to be practised anywhere

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and in everyday clothes. In addition, Kano asserted that the exercises were designed so that anyone could perform them; even the elderly or invalid, if they can walk, can perform them with no trouble (Kano, 1889, p. 458). Sogawa has pointed that Kanos assertion of judos suitability as a system of physical education counters the following objections to the martial arts given in the report of the National Institute of Gymnastics. First, it was systematically designed to have physiological benets. Second, Kanos explanation addresses the many areas that the report listed as harmful or inappropriate specically, he addresses the rst point made in the report by claiming that judo appropriately develops the muscles, and the second point is addressed by stressing the care taken to reduce risk. Furthermore, his assertion that anyone can perform the kata exercises, which do not require special uniforms or facilities, replies to the third, eighth and ninth points of the report (Sogawa, 1994, p. 8). Moreover, Kano also developed kata exercises that could be taught to groups of students, which was an attempt to meet the objections voiced in point seven. Thus, Kano claimed that judo cleared the standards for physiological efcacy and practice environment set forth by the government.

The invention of judo as a Japanese tradition 1. The success of martial artist shows In 1871, two years after Moris bill banning swords was voted down, the Meiji government issued an edict making the wearing of swords optional for the samurai class. This edict represented a major blow to those samurai who made their living teaching swordsmanship. For example, a magazine article from March 1873 reported, [b]ecause of the edict making swordwearing optional, the practice of kendo has declined, many famous master swordsmen in Tokyo have fallen on hard times, and many dojos have closed (Watanabe, 1971, p. 725). Their situation worsened with the promulgation of an edict in March 1876 prohibiting all citizens except the military, police and government ofcials from carrying swords in public. According to Fujiki (2005, pp. 199200),
the Meiji government took the right to wear the sword away from private citizens, and made it the exclusive, symbolic privilege of soldiers, the police, and government ofcialsthose who most directly yielded the power of the new Meiji state.

In the midst of this crisis, a master swordsman by the name of Kenkichi Sakakibara, alarmed by the rapid decline of swordsmanship, formed the Gekiken-kai (Sword-ghting Society) in 1873. Sakakibara was a former vassal of the Shogun, and had served as instructor in the military school established by the Shogunate. The Sword-ghting Society obtained government permission to hold sword-ghting performances, the rst of which was held on 26 April. A contemporary report stated:
The Sword-ghting Society will hold a competition for ten days in mid-April, featuring many prominent swordsmen. The competition will be patterned on sumo, within a marked ring and with proper rules for deciding the winner. Both men and women spectators will be admitted (Watanabe, 1971 p. 725).

The matches were refereed by a gyoji (a term taken from sumo) and consisted of three rounds of one point each. The length of the shinai (bamboo sword) was xed at 3 shaku 8 sun (117 cm). An admission fee was charged for the performances; Nakamura (1994) has called them a form of professional, popular spectator sport. Many martial artists, including some jujutsu practitioners, were encouraged by the commercial success of the sword-ghting shows to begin holding performances of their own. Iso Masatomo and Fukuda Hachinosuke, both masters of the Tenjinshinyo school

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who would later become Kano Jigoros teachers, participated in a performance of jujutsu held in Tokyo later in 1873 (Saito, 1968). However, not all observers were pleased with this new development in the world of martial arts. The author of the following letter, published in a journal in June 1873, criticized these commercial performances in the following terms:
Recently the Sword-ghting Society began performances in Tokyo, and they were quickly followed by exhibitions of equestrianism and jujutsu. Advertisements for these events are plastered all over the city to the point of distraction. These efforts are probably intended to revive the agging fortunes of the martial arts and use the occasion to raise the general level of skill, but thats not how they are viewed by the general public. Because of the unexpected popularity of Sakakibaras enterprise and the money it has brought in, everyone is scrambling to hawk these precious arts for a quick prot. As a result, swordsmanship has come to be looked down upon as something no better than street performances of sword-drawing, and jujutsu as the equivalent of one-man performances of sumo. This old man wishes that in these times warriors should have more respect for themselves and their arts (Watanabe, 1971, p. 725).

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The writer deplored the fact that the martial arts were being turned into a spectacle. According to Nakamura (1994), there were three basic criticisms of these performances. First, they sullied the honour of the Japanese sword, and reduced its adherents to the level of street performers. Second, the master swordsmen used the money that they got from these performances for intemperate drinking. Third, the emphasis had tended to shift away from the actual matches to the sideshows that were added to enliven the programme, leading to the vulgarization of the performance as a whole. In the face of the growing popularity of swordsmanship performances, Minister of Finance Okuma Shigenobu banned them in Tokyo, Chiba, Aichi and Kyoto prefectures for the reason that they interfered with the peoples business (Ofcial Cabinet Gazette, 1887, p. 934). According to Nakamura (1994), such performances often degenerated into protests against government policies by the disaffected former samurai who took part, and the ban was instituted to prevent these protests. However, the number of discontented samurai fell after the conclusion of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, and martial arts performances were once again authorized. They continued to be popular until around 1890, then gradually went out of fashion. 2. Kanos criticism of martial arts shows Kano Jigoro feared that turning jujutsu into a show would lead to its decline as a form of combat. In General Aspects he explained his position as follows:
Because certain individuals have begun to turn jujutsu into a kind of show, with performances before paying spectators in venues where sumo and acrobatic performance are also held, many people have begun to regard jujutsu as something vulgar (Kano, 1889, p. 457).

Since one of Kanos former teachers, Fukuda Hachinosuke, had participated in these performances, they were not something with which he was unfamiliar. Moreover, Kano wrote that he intentionally chose the term judo for his new system to avoid the name jujutsu because I did not want judo to be identied with jujutsu and its vulgar image (Kano, 1889, p. 457). That is say, the term judo was meant to differentiate the practice from those used in admission-charging martial arts shows. Aside from the name, then, how did Kano attempt to differentiate judo from jujutsu? Let us rst consider how he perceived jujutsu. In the monograph Jujutsu and its origins, published in October 1888, he wrote of the progress of jujutsu:
That jujutsu attained a high status in Japan is demonstrated by the fact that it transformed itself from a means to an end . . . Jujutsu was originally a form of combat with the object of defeating ones opponent . . . And while in most situations its methods can effectively be applied, in

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actual combat the opponent is often defeated through the application of superior force, and it is often more advantageous to ght force with force. Nevertheless, methods that are effective in most situations have ultimately become ends in themselves, and there are cases when, although their application is extremely disadvantageous, they arent discarded. In this way jujutsu has already left behind its essence as a pure form of combat, and become a contest of clever, agile skills, and the enjoyment one gets from them. At the same time a kind of aesthetic has developed that values graceful, coordinated movements, to the degree that posture and movements of the body are judged by aesthetic standards (Kano, 1888, pp. 30 31).

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Kano believed that jujutsu was originally a practical means of combat, but with the passage of time, perfecting technique became an end in itself, superseding its use as a practical method. Although Kano does identify this development as a form of progress, since through this transformation jujutsu gained signicance as intellectual, moral and physical education, the contesting of clever, agile skills and the aesthetic of graceful, coordinated movements were both extremely compatible with the martial arts performances of which he disapproved. Therefore, while appreciating the progress that jujutsu had made, Kano had to come up with some way to critically overcome it:
Jujutsu was at one time highly respected in our country as a noble art, studied and practiced solely for its practical application; later generations look on it as no more than a form of entertainment. In addition, regardless of whether there is any practical value in a technique, many practitioners are obsessed only with mere appearance and beauty of form, and because of this jujutsu has come to be slandered as just a means of scraping out a meager livelihood (Yomiuri Shimbun, May 16 1889, p. 2) I developed Kodokankan judo exclusively through combining the best elements from the various schools, and then inserting some of my own ideas, thereby coming up with 130 techniques, naming them exercise kata. As much as possible I excluded dangerous and frivolous techniques, and emphasized practical effectiveness and physical educational benets (Yomiuri Shimbun, May 17 1889, p. 2).

The two newspaper articles quoted above come from a transcript of the General Aspects lecture given by Kano on 11 May 1889. The language of this transcript, as published in the Yomiuri Shimbun, differs somewhat from the version Kano submitted to the Japan Society of Education; however, the content of the two versions is largely the same, and since Kano appears not to have objected to the version published by the newspaper, it is safe to assume that the articles faithfully record what Kano actually said. What is most important here is that in this lecture Kano specically makes the connection between jujutsus obsession with mere appearance and beauty of form and the commercialization of jujutsu as a performance. Another important point is that in developing the exercise kata, Kano excluded not only dangerous techniques but frivolous ones as well, and emphasized practical effectiveness and physical benets. In this way Kano sought to improve jujutsu and further its progress. In addition, in the manuscript submitted by Kano, he writes about the kata of the Tenjinshinyo school: by creating a nice appearance, in many ways they seem rather detached from reality. (Kano, 1889, p. 453). When we consider that the Tenjinshinyo school participated in the very martial arts shows of which Kano disapproved, it is clear that he seems to be particularly critical of the school here. By practical effectiveness, Kano is almost certainly referring to effectiveness as a method of combat. According to Kano, jujutsus original purpose was as training in combat methods, which he dened as the techniques of subduing an opponent while avoiding submission oneself (Kano, 1889, p. 462). The acquisition of these sorts of dangerous combat techniques can only be acquired through training in kata (Kano, 1889), but through the practice of kata the student not only acquires techniques but also studies the theory of combat (Kano, 1889, p. 462).

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Even before the General Aspects lecture, judo was already being taught at organizations that required a practical form of the martial arts, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Naval Academy (Inoue, 1998). Because of this, Kano could not easily relinquish the practical combat techniques of judo, even though they contributed to the image of judo as harmful to the body. So he came up with the idea that the theory of combat learned through the practice of kata was also applicable to the rest of life (Kano, 1889, p. 470), which was the objective of judo as a system of moral and intellectual education (see above). Kano expressed the main precepts of this system as follows: attend to ones relations with others; take the initiative; consider carefully, act promptly and techniques of control; however, what he considered the core principle of judo was to be humble in victory and not give in to defeat, not be careless when the going is easy, and not fear in the face of danger, but only follow the straight path (Kano, 1889, p. 478). These principles can be viewed in light of the 1884 report to the Ministry of Education on the suitability of the martial arts for education. Having concern for ones relations with others and considering ones actions carefully both require rational thinking, which responds to the fourth danger listed by the report: that the martial arts may encourage violence by making their practitioners easily agitated. The core principle of judo is a response to the fth and sixth points of the report, that the martial arts could encourage an attitude of winning at all costs. In this way, Kano attempted to further demonstrate that judo met the standard of moral education set in the report to the Ministry of Education. 3. Reconguring the origins of judo As Kano contrived to keep judo from appearing vulgar, his main target audience consisted of students in institutions of secondary education. In General Aspects, he stated:
It seems to me that, particularly in the middle schools and above, there isnt yet a proper system of teaching ethics. I think that this judo that Ive been talking about is not only suitable for physical education, but also for ethics . . . . (Kano, 1889, pp. 480 481).

According to educational sociologist Amano Ikuo (1992), at the time of Kanos lecture, the majority of people had not even graduated from normal primary school, although attendance was supposed to be compulsory. Many students who did go on to higher primary school ended up dropping out, and for that reason alone a graduate of a higher primary school was one of the elect. And only one third of those graduates then went on to middle school, making them truly part of the elite. Establishing judo in the middle schools therefore meant raising it to elite status. The elite status that Kano envisioned for judo also had an element of restoration, as he suggests in the following passage:
From ancient times until quite recently the martial arts such as jujutsu, swordsmanship, and spearmanship were an important part of higher education in Japan. Most of the men who are known for their talent and ability trained their minds through the martial arts . . . However in these times we no longer need training in the spear, and even the sword is becoming less necessary than it once was, and therefore judo is the most appropriate of the martial arts (Kano, 1889, p. 471).

By evoking the higher education of former times in his revival of the martial arts, Kano hoped to strengthen patriotic sentiments. However, he was also able to extol the merits of judo over the spear and sword because society had been transformed by the edict prohibiting the wearing of swords in public. Moreover, the elite students who could attend the middle schools at that time were mostly sons of the former samurai class, and

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therefore familiar with the martial arts. One could say it was a logical decision for Kano to promote judo there. As mentioned, one of Kanos motives in promoting judo among the elite was to strengthen patriotic sentiments. Kano understood that an appreciation of the countrys traditions was important for strengthening patriotism. In his General Aspects lecture of May 1889, Kano explained his interpretation of ethics in the following manner:
The feelings of attachment one has for ones country differ in strength depending on whether or not one loves the achievements of that country, or whether one has the same feelings as people in the past . . . In order for the Japanese people to love what is Japanese about Japan, and to strengthen patriotism, the spirit of the martial arts must by all means be instilled to some degree in the minds of todays youth (Kano, 1889, p. 471).

Kano of course proposed judo as the way to achieve this purpose. There was one problem, however, with using judo to strengthen patriotism, and that was the popular perception of judos origins. A tradition is supposed to be something that has existed from ancient times, within the geographical framework of the nation at the time of its formation. It cannot be something imported from some other country. In Japans case, the new nation state had to establish autonomy from the international order that had existed in East Asia for centuries with China at its apex (Yamamuro, 2001). During the feudal period that preceded the formation of the Meiji state, jujutsu was generally recognized as having come from China (Sogawa, 2009), and this interpretation was widely accepted in the academic community during the Meiji period as well. For example, Kenji Osawa, professor at the Tokyo Imperial University medical school, conducted an independent study of the physiological effects of jujutsu at the behest of the university. He worked independently from the committee commissioned by the Ministry of Education, but it is known that he occasionally exchanged opinions with its members (Ikeda & Nakamura, 1999). His ndings were largely in accordance with those of the commission, but he also considered the arts history. Based on an analysis of scrolls from the Kito and Tenjinshinyo schools, he concluded that jujutsu came from China (Osawa, 1884). He published his ndings in a university journal, so it can be assumed that his conclusions were familiar to those held by the university faculty and within the Ministry. Osawas conclusion about the origins of jujutsu, based on an analysis of the very schools from which Kano developed judo, was potentially devastating. If Kano had based his system on an activity that originally came from China, it was hardly suitable as a national tradition. Therefore, in response to Osawa and others assertions, Kano insisted that jujutsu was a uniquely Japanese tradition:
If you want to establish a valid theory of the origins of jujutsu, its not enough to rely on the lore of one or two schools, or easily available written materials. You have to consult records from a variety of schools, check them against the known facts, and come to an independent conclusion . . . We have to conclude that jujutsu was devised by the Japanese . . . In the past, it was probably more believable to say that one learned or found out about something from the Chinese, much as it is today to say one learned or found out about something from Westerners (Kano, 1889, pp. 447 449).

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By stating in this talk that the origins of jujutsu need to be discovered through analysis of the texts of a variety of schools, Kano is advocating an historical approach to the history of jujutsu. Although he does not go into the detail in the General Aspects lecture, in the book Jiujutsu (Lindsay & Kano, 1888) he references several Japanese and Chinese historical documents and concludes that although one can detect a slight connection with China, that country had no inuence on the development of jujutsu in Japan. He asserts

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that the theory of jujutsus Chinese origins arose from the desire of martial artists for legitimacy in the feudal period, much as in Kanos times people tended to believe in Western civilization. In this way, Kano preserved the Japanese identity of judo by claiming a cultural break with China. This debate, of course, reects a more general problem that many nations in East Asia have faced in the process of nation formation. Conclusion This paper has demonstrated how Kano constructed what he believed to be the merits of judo. The important thing here is that each of the points in Kanos lecture General Aspects of the Judo and its Value in Education were asserted in response to specic conditions, particularly the Ministry of Educations aversion to the martial arts. In conclusion, we would like to make two points. First, in the early 1880s when this lecture was delivered, the Meiji government had yet to recognize the value of sports as a means to improve the physical tness of the nation; the preferred method of physical education was gymnastic exercises, not sports. Gymnastic exercises were the model-rival in contradistinction to which Kano developed the values of judo. The future development of judo as a sport was not yet foreseen. Moreover, Kano believed that continuity with jujutsu was important. In order to connect the traditions of judo, arising from jujutsu, to patriotism, Kano rejected the theory of the arts Chinese origins. At the same time, however, he also excluded frivolous techniques and attempted to restore jujutsu to its original noble essence as a practical ghting art. Kano invented an authenticity and orthodoxy for judo, based on which he appealed for recognition from the Meiji government, and in the process the entertainment value of jujutsu and its Chinese origins came to be regarded as heretical. Thus, the diverse and exible history of jujutsu came to be forgotten. In conclusion, therefore, we can see that the process of the invention of judo was fraught with many conceptual problems related to the conditions affecting nation state formation in East Asia. Note
1

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The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2002) denes kata as a system of basic exercises or postures and movements used to teach and improve the execution of techniques in judo and other martial arts. See also Guttmann and Thompson (2001), pp. 62 63.

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