"Higher Judo: Groundwork" by Moshe Feldenkrais

During the manic phases of what I call “manic-procrastination disorder,” I usually end up misplacing my productive energy into judo stuff. At the end of an hour-long binge, I had was a proud owner of a new judo website and a funky old newaza book called “Higher Judo: Groundwork.” The first print ran in 1952 and it had apparently become quite rare, but luckily enough it had be reprinted in 2010 in paperback. You know me and my obsession with ground work, right?

So, who was Moshe Feldenkrais? Apparently, he was a pretty big deal. A pioneer of judo in France who hung out Jigoro Kano, as well being a scientist of sorts, he was interesting enough on his own to convince me to shell out $17 for his book. This was the last in a series of judo and jujutsu literature, meant for experienced judoka. Though I usually like to read the foreword, the 2010 one speaks more about judo as it relates to the development of the Feldenkrias Method—something I can’t even begin to pretend to care about. 

In terms of judo content, “Higher Judo” contains 300 line drawings (traced from actual photos of Feldenkrais and Mikinosuke Kawaishi) with accompanying commentary. Unlike most instructional books that stick to explaining 1 or 2 pictures at a time, Feldenkrais works to tie together different positions, constantly referring back to earlier pages. This has the advantage of synthesizing the work, but is also makes the 200-page book frustrating to read through. Therefore, it may be better said that “Higher Judo” is meant for brown belt judoka and black belt-level readers.

“Higher Judo” represents one of the first attempts by a judoka to capture “proper” newaza instruction in print. There are definitely other instructionals covering newaza, but it seems that the goal of judo print during the mid-20th century was capture judo through a series of photographs. The line drawings lack color, which is a choice probably made to draw your attention to the text. Even if you are a visual learner, the best photography of the 1952 was not that good, such that the crispness of the line drawings is actually superior from an instructional standpoint.

In the paragraph above, I put quotes around the word “proper” newaza instruction because it seems to be the least standardized part of judo in proportion to how often we have to deal with it. The fact that Feldenkrais, an apparently reknowned grappling expert and contemporary of Kano, poured so much detail into this book is very interesting. I say this because I’ve never seen judo newaza taught in his terms, which reinforces my idea that unlike tachi waza, the judo community have yet to place a standard on the whole of newaza technique. There are a set of techniques required for grading, but the proper application of ju on the ground deserves more attention than it currently gets. The positional nature of newaza lends itself well to didactic instruction, which is exactly how Feldenkrais attempts to teach it. Here is the table of contents:

Example of "Higher Judo" Content

1. Judo Practice…17

2. Uniqueness of Action…42

3. Where We Start and Why…46

4. Principles of Ground Work…53

5. Some Useful Exercises…56

6. Ground Work Tactics…67

7. Starting Ground Word…77

8. Six O’clock Approach…87

9. Right or Left Approach…121

10. Head On Approach…160

11. The Astride Position…181

12. Opponent Facing the Ground…207

Sometimes I think that judoka have this illusion that they’ll open a book by a pre-WWII black belt and find the entire catalogue of modern Brazilian Jiu Jitsu techniques which, quite frankly, is ridiculous. The farther you move from the founding of Judo, the more you can see how the sports have evolved into totally different things—for better or worse. Even if you have no sense of historical accuracy and think that BJJ comes from Japanese Jujutsu, what people are doing in modern competitions does not resemble old school, “true” Gracie Jiu Jitsu (as Relson Gracie will gladly tell you).

Anyway, as a grappler you should not be looking to “Higher Judo” for the answer to your ne waza woes (which can only be solved with more practice). It serves as a historical piece and has a lot of great ideas concerning the general approaches to groundwork and principles that guide them. More importantly, as students who hopefully will spend time amassing experience and knowledge to become teachers someday, “Higher Judo” shows what happens when a smart person really thinks about grappling in-depth, as a science. His work is imperfect, but given the time when it was published is was far ahead of its time in that it recognized problems in instruction and the practical application of classical techniques. If you can get past the foreword and the constant plugs for the Feldenkrais Method, “Higher Judo” can be a great tool for the further development of your judo. 

Link to buy:

http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Judo-Groundwork-Moshe-Feldenkrais/dp/155643927X 

Thanks for stopping by! You're alright.

-Ben

What is Kosen Judo?

Hey guys, I was in the middle of continuing my newaza segment when I realized that there is an unreasonable amount of ground to cover in just one post. When I read articles on the history of Judo or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu they always amalgamate their shared history into a few short paragraphs. Worse than that, they tend throw in a bunch of terms in italics, as though to say to their reader "Screw you, Google it!" In today's scary world where proper nouns double as verbs and attention spans are short we have to consider the consequences of just saying things without explaining them. In cases where a writer is presenting their interpretation of history as canonical, partial information is as bad as false information. For example, in my original piece I was just going to throw in "Kosen Judo" with a tiny blurb after explaining what it is. Limiting that explanation to a footnote seems to imply that the context it brings to the discussion isn't all that important, when it really is.

I'm sort of doing it here to some of you, but for those who know who Mitsuyo Maeda is look at how he's typically treated in the founding story of BJJ. He almost never gets a proper introduction— Maeda becomes this random figure who teachers the Gracie family how to fight for a while, and then through their own genius the Gracies become really skilled at newaza. One has to ask however, what the hell was Maeda doing in Brazil in the first place? Which of the Gracie kids did he actually teach? All of these details reveal something valuable about the history of the sport. Maeda was one of the Jigoro Kano's delegates sent around the world to promote Judo, which at the time was just starting to replace the name "Kano Jiu Jitsu." What does this say? For one, it says that anybody who claims that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu comes from traditional Japanese Jiu Jitsu is full of it. Not only that, it shows that the techniques and principles of BJJ, in fact, come from Judo! If one reads one of those short histories of BJJ, what tends to happen is this over-glorification of individual fighters. Sure, the Gracie family is full of genius and hard working people, but it is the combination of that and being able to build on a well thought-out system of martial arts that made them successful.

 

But I digress.

What is "Kosen Judo" and why does it matter in my quest of trying to "find" newaza? Trying to avoid anecdotes and provide actual facts, Kosen Judo is "regular" Judo, taught at 5-year "kosen schools," that emphasized ground technique. During the early 20^th century, the technology for mass-produced mats was simply not good enough to project people from the high velocity impact of a committed Judo throw (even today injuries at the beginner level are fairly common). As a result of this, instructors spent most of their time practicing newaza and eventually became really good at it. They were good not only in the sense that they excelled at the skill itself, but they were also able to win competitions against judoka who were taught in the traditional way, forgoing throws completely. Basically, they would pull guard (hikikomi), which means to fall backwards and pull an opponent down between their legs in order to start mat work without being thrown. There was no rule against this until 1925, when Dr. Kano… made a rule against this. One possible explanation, perhaps the most logical, is that Kano had envisioned Judo being a system that used both standing techniques and ground techniques, and didn't want one being taught more than the other purely for success in competition. There are principles of tachi waza that don't have a ground equivalent, and given the amount of though Kano put into the system I'm not surprised that he would be a little miffed that they weren't able to executed in shiai! I would go as far as to say that the concept of BJJ and Olympic style Judo would disappoint him, a lot.  

Regardless of official rule changes, the Kosen style of Judo persisted and didn't change its format for its own tournament, which is why it is relevant to me. They represent what Judo players could accomplish if they spent as much time drilling mat work as they did doing uchikomi. Today Kosen judo, that is schools that have teachers with lineages in Kosen judo, is only practiced in what were the Imperial Universities of Japan. It is wildly impractical for me to travel to Japan and check up on them, but somewhere inside I like to believe that it's this parallel universe to BJJ schools, where the passion and rigor of newaza has not been lost like it has in the United States. That would be great! There are a lot of judoka that are credited as being great on the ground, but often that is the result of them having a strong wrestling background and is not necessarily Judo. I've learned a lot of great things from Greco Roman wrestlers, but it's not Judo. It's not as though I'm a Tae Kwon Do person going "Where's my mat work?" I'm a judoka— Judo, by definition, includes mat work and if I'm not going to Japan to learn it, where will I go? I'll save that for next time. Here's a video from a DVD set on Kosen Judo, bare with the cheesy music.

 Thanks for stopping by, you're alright!

-Ben