Mixed Martial Arts by L. A. Jennings

Mixed Martial Arts by L. A. Jennings

Author:L. A. Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00


Asia

Japan

The United States broke Japanese isolation in 1853, but by the end of the nineteenth century, Japan would engage in its own imperialistic quest, expanding its borders into China, Korea, and Okinawa. Jujitsu, the catchall term for empty-hand fighting, experienced a number of threats during this time, from internal powers that sought modernization and from foreign invaders looking to eliminate practices of Japan’s indigenous culture. However, the demand for fighting sports inspired the Japanese government to control and regulate its martial arts, rather than to ban them outright.

In feudal Japan, numerous wrestling styles were delineated not only by their techniques, but also by their purpose. They included theatrical or performative wrestling, wrestling matches staged to raise money for shrines, wrestling that the aristocracy sponsored, village wrestling, and women’s wrestling, and wrestling as a call for rain. By the 1600s, the government was tired of dealing with confrontations between the various styles and practitioners, especially when rivals would suddenly strip down to their underwear in a street alley to settle a score via wrestling. The Tokugawa government created laws to restrict unregulated wrestling, trying to eradicate these back-alley bouts and eliminate traveling bands of wrestlers who would declare themselves willing to take on all comers. However, Japanese citizens, from the peasants and the working class to the aristocracy and royalty, craved competition, so wrestling could not be banned outright. Instead, sumo was born.

In the late seventeenth century, government officials and wrestling promoters worked together to create a standardized, safe wrestling competition that entertained the citizenry and appealed to the government’s sense of decorum. First, officials generated a firm set of rules and designated fighting arenas, called dohyos, made in sand pits. Fighters donned silk belts with a single strip extending from stomach to lower back to cover the backside. Combined with their hair styles, skimmed back from the crown and folded on top of the head, sumo wrestlers became some of the most highly recognizable athletes in the world and appealed to the government’s desire for courtly decoration. Japanese officials also regulated sumo training, requiring licenses for training facilities as well as trainers and fighters. Under this very organized system, sumo wrestling flourished, operating in the 1790s under the patronage of Shogun Tokugawa Ienari and becoming popular in rural and urban communities. Over the next hundred years, sumo came to represent Japan as a formal, yet highly entertaining fighting sport, eventually making its way overseas and in 1993, into the first UFC octagon.

While Japanese wrestling became standardized through the formation of sumo, Japanese jujitsu flourished and proliferated in the 1600s and 1700s as numerous iterations of the empty-hand fighting style were taught in various schools and training academies. But during the Meiji Restoration of 1867–1868, the samurai were abolished and jujitsu threatened to become extinct. Some instructors attempted to keep the art alive, but they resorted to sordid means to do so. Jujitsu versus sumo matches created a popular spectacle, while some masters provided fighting instruction to the seedy underbelly of the Japanese streets.



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