just to the movement of things forward and back, moving and stopping. This
is jûjutsu and our school is based on the teachings of the I Ching [pinying
Yijing].”
Descriptions of the fighting during the Muromachi period (1338–
1573), however, suggest that victory in hand-to-hand fighting was decided
more often by power than by technique, by brawn rather than brain. This
preponderance shows in the type of armor and weaponry used by the
mounted warrior of the period. Izaza Chôsai Ienao (1387–1488) founded
the famed Katori Shintô-ryû,the first ryûha (traditional school of warrior
arts) to teach, along with weapon skills, hand-to-hand unarmed combat
(identified as yawara-ge), to correct what he felt was a loss of moral in-
tegrity in the training of the warriors of his time. Though the ryûha is most
often discussed as a sword school, its jûjutsu techniques are effective and
worthy of study.
Although at present it is popular to categorize martial systems as armed
or unarmed and as oriented to grappling or striking, the integration of a range
of combat tools within a set of organizing principles represents the traditional
norm. For example, in discussing the martial principles of the Kashima-Shin-
ryû,Karl Friday explains that the unarmed application of the ryûha’s princi-
ples vis-à-vis the use of swords or pole-arm weapons is not a matter of op-
position, but of points along a continuum during which the realities of
combat draw to a greater or lesser extent on armed or unarmed conflict.
In fact, a strong argument can be made for the position that most of
the schools of jûjutsu emerged from the sword schools during times of
peace or when swords were put aside. Thus, a line of development emerges
from heihô(combat strategy) to bugei(martial arts) to budô (warrior ways
of transcendence). Over time, the Katori Shintô-ryû (like many other
Japanese martial disciplines) developed a division of teaching skills be-
tween the sôke(the head of school and political leader) and shihan(senior
instructors who teach methodology).
At least by 1716, jûjutsu was recognized as a distinctive art. In this
year, Hinatsu Shigetaka published Honchô bugei shôden, a short encyclo-
pedia of the martial arts of Japan existing at that time. The volume in-
cluded hand-to-hand fighting, or jûjutsu.
Jûjutsu as a fighting style emphasizes grappling over striking. How-
ever, in most schools grappling is integrated with the strategic application
of atemi(striking) or kyûsho-jutsu(vital point, or pressure point, striking).
Jûjutsu commonly works to the outside of the opponent in applying
wrist and arm locks and to the inside to execute throws. Effective chokes
and hold-downs usually evolve out of arm bars. In the better combat
schools, the opponent is usually thrown in such a way as to land on the
head or face down, on the stomach.
Wrestling and Grappling: Japan 731