SevenStar
10-15-2004, 01:44 PM
I ran across this on judoinfo and thought it was interesting.
"Westerners have accepted the Japanese selection of the word "gentleness" and have, arbitrarily, without familiarity or regard for the founder’s intentions, taken the word in its absolute denotation. By this absoluteness, "gentleness" has come to imply only soft, prissy, almost mamby-pamby sort of action or the "la-de-dah" type of movement which admits to no great application of muscle strength. Under this interpretation of "gentleness," judo is all yield. To yield is esteemed, while hardness is shunned. Thus armed with this conceptual error, western Judo instructors are developing a "soft" Judo, thinking it to be in line with the founder’s ideas. Persistence in this type of thinking is doing great damage to western Judo (just as it did to jujitsu in Japan) and is certainly not in concept with the intention of the founder, Jigoro Kano, who always took exception to the abstract philosophical view and insisted on the narrower, but relative and practical outlook.
There is a large amount of documentation to support the Kanoian thought; but somehow it isn’t being seen, or if it is, it is not being correctly read or understood. In Jigoro Kano’s own writings we find:
... by giving way, a contestant may defeat his opponent; and as there are so many instances in Jujutsu (Judo) contests where this principle is applied, the name Jujutsu (Judo), the "gentle" or " giving way" art, became the name of the whole art.
Such is the principle of ju. But, strictly speaking, real Jujutsu (Judo) is something more. The way of gaining victory over an opponent by Jujutsu (Judo) is not confined to gaining victory only by giving way.
Here it is evident that the founder did not consider "gentleness" to be "softness" or "yielding" as the entire makeup of the principle of Judo. He indicates that still another facet is inherent, by continuing:
Sometimes a person takes hold of his opponent’s wrist. How can someone possibly release himself without using strength against his opponent’s grip? The same thing can be asked when somebody is seized from behind around his shoulders by an assailant. If thus, the principle of giving way cannot cover all the methods used in Jujutsu (Judo) contests, is there any principle which really covers the whole field? Yes, there is; there is one principle which consistently emerges: In any form of attack, to attain our objective we must make the best use of our mental energy and physical strength. This is also true in defense.
It is now clear that the founder recognized the necessity of using strength to overcome some forms of resistance and included resistance itself within the principle of Judo. It is not the factor of strength that Dr. Kano opposed, but its misuse. Ju, in the principle of Judo, stresses flexibility in change or the adapting to any situation and economizing mental and physical energies
Perhaps a better interpretation of ju would have been "flexible" or "flexibility"; although these too, tend to narrow the tone. Yet, they seem to approach more closely the founder’s idea of ju."
"Westerners have accepted the Japanese selection of the word "gentleness" and have, arbitrarily, without familiarity or regard for the founder’s intentions, taken the word in its absolute denotation. By this absoluteness, "gentleness" has come to imply only soft, prissy, almost mamby-pamby sort of action or the "la-de-dah" type of movement which admits to no great application of muscle strength. Under this interpretation of "gentleness," judo is all yield. To yield is esteemed, while hardness is shunned. Thus armed with this conceptual error, western Judo instructors are developing a "soft" Judo, thinking it to be in line with the founder’s ideas. Persistence in this type of thinking is doing great damage to western Judo (just as it did to jujitsu in Japan) and is certainly not in concept with the intention of the founder, Jigoro Kano, who always took exception to the abstract philosophical view and insisted on the narrower, but relative and practical outlook.
There is a large amount of documentation to support the Kanoian thought; but somehow it isn’t being seen, or if it is, it is not being correctly read or understood. In Jigoro Kano’s own writings we find:
... by giving way, a contestant may defeat his opponent; and as there are so many instances in Jujutsu (Judo) contests where this principle is applied, the name Jujutsu (Judo), the "gentle" or " giving way" art, became the name of the whole art.
Such is the principle of ju. But, strictly speaking, real Jujutsu (Judo) is something more. The way of gaining victory over an opponent by Jujutsu (Judo) is not confined to gaining victory only by giving way.
Here it is evident that the founder did not consider "gentleness" to be "softness" or "yielding" as the entire makeup of the principle of Judo. He indicates that still another facet is inherent, by continuing:
Sometimes a person takes hold of his opponent’s wrist. How can someone possibly release himself without using strength against his opponent’s grip? The same thing can be asked when somebody is seized from behind around his shoulders by an assailant. If thus, the principle of giving way cannot cover all the methods used in Jujutsu (Judo) contests, is there any principle which really covers the whole field? Yes, there is; there is one principle which consistently emerges: In any form of attack, to attain our objective we must make the best use of our mental energy and physical strength. This is also true in defense.
It is now clear that the founder recognized the necessity of using strength to overcome some forms of resistance and included resistance itself within the principle of Judo. It is not the factor of strength that Dr. Kano opposed, but its misuse. Ju, in the principle of Judo, stresses flexibility in change or the adapting to any situation and economizing mental and physical energies
Perhaps a better interpretation of ju would have been "flexible" or "flexibility"; although these too, tend to narrow the tone. Yet, they seem to approach more closely the founder’s idea of ju."