goshinman

I agree and disagree with you on that. First of all, while it is true that some of the techniques in JJ can seem a bit superfluous e.g the hiji jime (v compression choke) you must remember that all of judos major submissions and throws came from Jujutsu. Jujutsu is called the gental art or the yielding art because of it's philosophy of non resistance. Most of the locks are designed to subdue and restrain an attacker. You also said Judo may be more relavant to modern day needs. Do you mean to tell me in todays society that an art that has no strikes, and no weapons training is more condusive to modern day needs What I do like about both grappling styles (and grappling in general) is that the techniques aren't static and can be changed to suit my needs. The ultimate level one can reach in jujutsu is when the jujutsuka stops mimicking his shihan and takes the techniques and makes them his, thus in essense it becomes my style of jujutsu. This is a lesson that most don't understand but the old masters did, which is why some had techniques or variations of techniques that were unique to them only. For example in class I can learn how to apply jigoku-jime (hell choke) in one way. But through randori and study I might find more ways to apply it then my shihan showed me or even come up with a variation of it that is unique to me. When you can reach that point then you are truely an opponent to be reckoned with. I was taught to look at jujutsu as more a set of principals then anything. I study hakko denshin ryu jujutsu. Once I master the basics I can start to mold my own craft. It's still hakko ryu and you can still see the techniques and movements as such, but I still have my own little flavor that makes it my style.

Yeah yeah. Interesting to note that the throw Saigo used to defeat his opponent most likely had it's root's in daito aikijitsu. Judo may have won those matches but mark my words: We'll be back!!! There is a movement going on in japanese jujutsu circles and we plan to bring jujutsu back into the forefront as the one of the best arts in the world. The plan is to first take on the BJJ people to shut their mouths, and then we will go after the JUDO people and have our REVENGE!!!!!!!!!! BOO HA HA HA HA! (sadistic laughter) JAPANESE JUJUTSU WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are correct. the jujutsuka mind set was on win or lose, life or death. In the old days that was the mind set you had to have to survive in feudal japan. But that changed in the meji era and the old way of bushido was replaced by a more peaceful and progressive mind set. And I had no idea that jujutsu masters treated new students in that way.

Anyone care to at least comment?

This thread has seriously run it's course, in other words...LOCK PLEASE!

Here is an awesome link that describes the epic battle between the old jujutsu masters and the new judoka. Read it and let's discuss. I think one of the most telling aspects of the events surrounding the battle is that Kano NEVER doubted the effectiveness of the jujutsuka but was in fact worried about the matches because he knew the high skill level of the jujutsu fighters. Also I included another link to give a history on the why and how Kano developed the Judo. In short; he didn't like the UFC style events most Jujutsu practitioners were putting on and wanted to distingish his style from the Jujutsuka. Very good read. Click here for the battle: http://www.furyu.com/archives/issue3/judo.html And here for the history: http://www.judoinfo.com/jhist3.htm The latter is a rather long read but informative for anyone interested, enjoy!

........ HUH? Ok so your saying that in the middle of the fight if the grappler reaches for the bottle of spray to spay in your eyes that you will stop him by saying;" hey man you can't use that, you're a grappler and that would be like using a grenade launcher with an assault rifle... NO FAIR!!" I guess I had better stop my weapons training then since as a grappler I can't use them No seriously dude I study JAPANESE jujutsu and improvised weapons are a part of the curriculam. But for the sake of argument lets play by your rules, please explain to me why you think a spray bottle is tanamount to striking? And also lets say I have you pinned down and I bite YOU, is that a strike too?

Heh, You know what I mean

Didn't say they weren't. But in my experience, most fights I have seen or been in have never come to that, and I lived in a TERRIBLE neighborhood full of gang members. Most fights began standing up, and rarely went to the ground but always ended up clinching at some point. And lets say that you get in a fight where your at right now and end up on your back and get mounted. At your disposal you have all of the items you mentioned; spray bottle, statues, bookends, etc. Please tell me what is to stop your attacker from using them on YOU while they have you mounted? You see the fallacy there? It's called a false dillema because there is a flipside to the scenerio you painted that could be just as much of an advantage to your opponent as it is to you.

Well Treebranch you have to remember that alot of jujutsu systems came about after the 2nd world war. Most of the old masters saw boxing for the first time and deemed it necessary to learn to deal with so I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. But to address your point about the american jujutsu masters learning incomplete skills you are probably right because alot of the skills were lost during the Mejii era when the samarai were being considered archaic relics of japans violent past and most of the masters were either told outright to stop teaching the old ways or were driven underground to teach. Most of the Jujutsu that remained common during that time was used by highly under trained and undisiplined Bouncer types. This eventually lead to Judo replacing Jujutsu as japans premire martial art because the judoka were more skilled then the jujutsuka at the time. Most of the REAL jujutsu masters taught underground. Pick up a copy of Ultimate Jujutsu by Shihan Jonathan Maberry to read up on the demise of the true jujutsu. From what I understand the Taijutsu masters had ALWAYS been very secretive and selectful of who they trained so it is no suprise that most of the skills were passed along without being lost. Do you have any info on this? Oh and LOL at your kata collectors! That is so true. From what I have been able to gather during the 60's in the US karate was always done full contact even when dojo sparring which resulted in serious injuries to lots of peeps. When the lawsuit happy 80's came along is when most dojo started the crap we see today. Most karate masters also had a knowledge of ground fighting back then and often crosstrained in Judo and akido.

I like that approach. I think that dangerous chokes should only be taught at advanced levels anyway. That is how I was trained, I only learned basic versions of chokes early on and then at more advanced level I learned all the various ways to apply them and I learned not only carordid chokes but also the trachea chokes that can be fatal. But nowadays you can go into any mma and even some TMA schools and learn chokes the first few lessons . I guess I'm just a stupid traditionalist

Jujutsu did go through a change in the 50's here in the states. Alot of Japanese jujutsu teachers started taking boxing and having boxers come and train with them. And then they turned around and started to evolve the techniques of the jujutsu to deal with boxing style punches. The whole purpose of the cross training with boxing was to gather the necessary info so that they could develope the best strategies for beating boxing which contributed to the whole rivalry between boxers and Jujutsu and especially judo experts that went on through most of the 60's. Some of TJJ's entering tactics and footwork as well as some of the fighting angles were modified as a result of this training.

I'd go with Judo. It will give you more practical moves to use for what you are looking for. Akido generally takes YEARS to learn to use efficently because it's whole budo philosophy is reactive in nature while TJJ and Judo embrace both proactive and reactive techniques. Akido is also VERY heavy on the esoteric side of things. But like treebranch said, given enough time and hard training an Akidoka can be quite deadly.

Grappling is not only ground fighting. Jujutsu is grappling and most of the techniques are done standing, so I don't know what you're talking about. Hey Treebranch, where is that quote at? I can't seem to find it in this topic board.

Ha Ha , why is it that when people try to talk about why grappling isn't good for sreet defense they always bring up the old "buddies around the corner" argument? If you choke a guy his friend(s) will get you, if you go to the ground random bystanders will suddenly appear and kick you in the head, "they can hit you with a brick, bottle, bat or any other weapon that is magically laying around", and always always watch out for the "glass on the floor and all the debris that you can cut your back up on". I have been in quite a few scuffles in my day and I will be the first to tell you that grappling skills have saved my * more then once. Especially the clinch grappling skills taught in TJJ. The bottom line is that in most cases grappling arts teach more usable techniques early on then striking arts. Take your average Karate student with six months of training and have him/her go up against someone who has studied jujutsu, Bjj, judo, or wrestling for six months and tell me who do you think will come out on top most of the time. Grappling just flows more naturally for some reason then striking. I'm a big guy(6'1" 250) and can take a good punch, but I can't take a good choke if you catch my drift. A good grappler can punish you with little to no physical evidence of an attack ever taking place, he can restrain you or he can cripple you for life if he chooses. A pure striker can't say the same, a punch/kick to the face will leave a mark and possibly land you jail time if you can't justify it. I could go on and on but I think i've made my point well enough. P.S. I just wanted to say that striking is an extremly important aspect of the martial arts that SHOULD NOT be ignored even by great grapplers. But seeing what the topic was my post was made accordingly.

How long have you been studying it? From what I know of KSW it is supposed to be a VERY comprehensive art. I once considered studying it but the school was too far for me.

What about chokes?

I was under the impression that Kuk sool won teaches lots of grappling techniques in addition to strikes?

What's interesting to me is the fact that even the Gracies don't advocate ground fighting for a street confrontation. In Royces' bjj for self defense book he has very few ground fighting techniques. As a matter of fact it begins to look more like japanese jujutsu when you look at the techniques he teaches in the book. There is even an interview done in blackbelt mag where Rickson talks about the vast difference in a street fight as opposed to fighting in a sporting event here> http://www.blackbeltmag.com/archives/blackbelt/1998/dec98/nhb.html You would think that there followers would have the same sense when it comes to realising the limitations of there own style. Bjj is great against a trained opponent because it takes him out of his comfort zone and puts him in a situation where he is not comfortable and cannot use all of his weapons against the person who has trained extensively for the situation i.e ground fighting. It was a great strategy used by the gracies because they knew that most American martial artists had very limited experience with grappling in general and ground grappling in paticular in stark contrast to say, Japan where most of the fighters are great wrestlers and Judoka. I love the Gracies for what they have done, they showed the world that with jujitsu and grappling arts that a martial artist is not just someone who punches and kicks people into bloody heaps of flesh, but can be humane by applying holds and restraining techniques designed to bring an opponent into submission rather then busting up faces. Such is the very essence of Jujutsu or the "yielding art", we can serverly injure you if need be, but we would much rather restrain and control you so that serious injury can be avoided. Royce showed that in the first ufc's when he was submitting opponents sometimes without ever throwing a punch while most of the other guys where kicking people in the face getting teeth stuck into their foot and busting open peoples heads. That is why I consider Gracie jiujitsu to be a true jujutsu art along side of TJJ and judo. But I am also disapointed with them because of the style superiority complex that they have brought into today's martial artists.

Geez, why so harsh Drunken monkey? Seriously Sano the stipulations you have in place are kinda silly don't you think. I know that some of the WWE guy's are exellent grapplers in real life but I don't know about them going up against Furey and the Gracies. These are people who ACTUALLY do it against resisting opponents. Now if you would have mentioned Kurt Angle then we could talk.

I have to disagree with you on that point. I think o soto is the best throw/offbalancing technique for the street because of it's simplicity and because it is a move that doesn't require you to compromise your backside and doesn't reqire alot of strength to pull off. And because of the way the person usually lands when thrown in this manner you can easily follow up with a mount and pound away, or a stomp to the head or what ever the situation requires. I'm curious to know why you don't think o soto is simple enough for beginners.

I know what you mean. It's tough to find people in my Jujutsu dojo to train with outside of the dojo. It really bothered me for years because I know you need to randori to really get the feel for the joint locking techniques. I wish I could help you out but there really is no substitute for free fighting to get the neccesary skill and timing down to execute the grappling moves in taijitsu/jujutsu. I might suggest going to a Bjj school in your spare time just to spar with some of there guy's so that you can get a good work out, that's basically what I had to do. I know it can be EXTREMLY fustrating to work out with people who are constantly trying to convince you to switch to their style, but if you can put up with that then I highly suggest you do so.

Belive me I love the hip throw and it was actually between that and major outer reap that I was going to choose but I ultimately went with the reap because I think it has a higher success probability in a self defense application. But either will do fine.

LOL at Treebranch!! Damn funny guy. I haven't laughed that hard in some time ! You notice that the infamous "fights ending up on the ground" stat keeps getting lower? At first it was 98% end up on the ground, then it went to 95%, then 85% and now I think Jim Wagner has it at 75%! All of this in spite of the fact that the original statistic was talking about cops and prison guards who get into fights with criminals, not civilian fights. The latest figure has civialians going down at about 70-75 % of the time with 51% of those being females! Talk about obfuscation of the facts. But the Gracie machine rolls on

Sure it is. But you must know that as you fight and adrenaline begins to flow small targets become much harder to hit because your motor skill aren't used to the rush you are experiencing. You can train yourself to overcome this but it takes time. And besides I said GRAPPLING moves, not strikes