Sensei Rick's Pick of the Week: The History of Kosen Judo (part 1)

Until 1998 Hirata was the last living person who practiced Kosen Judo. He experienced the ground work system, that Kano Shihan had added to Kodokan  Judo directly. Hirata died in July 1998 at age 76, he was 162cm tall and weighed about 62kg, but he wa san outstanding performer of judo ground techniques ne waza.

Takeda Motsuge, born in 1794 in the city of Matsuyama founded the Fesen Ryuschool. He started with jujitsu as a young boy and had learned the Namba Ippon Ryufrom Takahashi Inobei and furthermore he had studied at the schools of Takenouchi Ryu, Sekiguchi Ryu, Yoshin Ryu, Shibukawa Ryu and Yagyu Ryu.

In 1867 the Samurai warriors started to disappear and it is when Takeda starter to work on fighting without arms, with special attention to ground work. Nowadays someFesen Ryu schools also take throwing techniques into consideration.

After Kano Shihan has started his new discipline, within shortly he defeated mst of the jujitsu schools. But the one of Mataemon Tanabe, which has challenged the Kodokan Institute, defeated everybody thanks to the oustanding ground work, includine armlocks, chocking techniques and pins. Kano Shihan was really amazed by the ability of the students of this school and therefore asked their Sensei Tanabe to reveal to him the secrets. He chose his best students and sent them to study with this great Master.

The difference between the two methods, Kodokan and Kosen, concerns more the style rather than the organization. The first was more oriented towards throwing techniques, while the second was specialized in ground work.

At the beginning of 1900 most of the techniques were not yet well defined and most of the fights, which took place on the ground, were rather violent. One had to surrender in order to avoid to really get hurt or injured.

It is said, that in those first years most of the fights took place only on the ground, that there was no time nor space limit. The fights would last for hours until one of the opponents was not declared the winner, because the other surrendered, lost his senses or was pinned for 30 seconds. It was only possible to with a full point ippon, if one scored half point wazaari the fight was declared a draw.

[The original post can be found here: http://brunocarmenisjudoblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/the-historical-background-of-kosen-judo-part-1/]