The rivalry between the Kodokan school of judo and the Totsuka school of Yoshin-ryu jujutsu happened in the 1880s during the Meiji Era in Japan. Consisting of several challenges and tournaments, its result saw the decline of the traditional jujutsu schools and the rise of judo as an institutionalized martial art. Although surrounded in controversy and legend because of inconsistent sources, it has been considered a vital part of the history of judo.
Background
The Yoshin-ryū school, most specifically the branch founded by Hikosuke Totsuka, had been considered Japan's biggest and most influential koryu jujutsu school since the end of the Bakumatsu period in 1868. Though based in Chiba, it had its main field of operations in Tokyo and was reputed to have three thousand trainees in that city alone. By contrast, the Kodokan school wasn't created until 1882, when a practitioner of the Kitō-ryū and Tenshin Shinyō-ryū styles named Jigoro Kano established the foundations of his own martial discipline, judo, with a handful of apprentices. The fast rise in popularity and success of the Kodokan was a source of conflict with other jujutsu schools in the nation, among them the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū, which saw Kano's style as a threat to its hegemony and a sign of disrespect to older traditions.
The first recorded contact between Kano and the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū happened before the founding of Kodokan, when Kano was still a student in Tokyo University and a mere jujutsu apprentice. During an exhibition of the Yoshin-ryū style, hosted by the university authorities in 1880 and directed by Hikosuke's son Hidemi Totsuka, the young Kano left the spectator seats and joined the jujutsukas during their randori in order to test his own skills. Kano was dominated, being dragged around by his opponent without managing to score a point. His performance was good enough to avoid a defeat and earn a draw, however, which attracted the praise of Totsuka himself, but the experience also served as a motivation to hone his abilities. The act was witnessed by Dr. Erwin Balz, an associate of the Totsuka school, who described other Tokyo students trying their luck along with Kano, with similar results.
Kano continued his jujutsu apprenticeship and established his school, Kodokan (popularly called "Kano-ryū" or "Kodokan-ryū" by other factions), in 1882. Soon after, he and his followers found themselves subject to the practice of , where fighters from other jujutsu schools would come to the building to challenge the residents to fight. Duels between members of different schools were called and were brutal competitions with few rules, accepted for the sake of their schools' reputation. The jujutsukas's opposition to the Kodokan was fuelled not only by martial rivalry, but also by Kano's incorporation of modern and foreign ideas and his role as an educator and intellectual man. About this period, Kano would write, "It seemed that the Kōdōkan had to take on the whole of Japan." However, the Totsuka school and its associates would be its main adversary.
First challenges
According to chronicles by Tsunejiro Tomita and his son Tsuneo, the first taryujiai against a Totsuka member was in 1885. Daihachi Ichikawa, a master of Tenshin Shinyō-ryū affiliated to Totsuka, had opened his own dojo in Tokyo, and Kano and six followers paid a visit. The judokas practiced randori with the resident jujutsukas and other guests, but among all of them Shiro Saigo, the Kodokan's top apprentice, stood out, throwing down all of his sparring partners with ease. In response, Ichikawa himself visited the Kodokan shortly thereafter, accompanied by Matsugoro Okuda and Morikichi Otake from Totsuka Yoshin-ryū. They demanded a challenge, but Kano was out that day, so Saigo and Tomita decided to accept in his absence. Saigo fought Okuda who, despite being taller and heavier, was thrown down repeatedly by koshi nage and deashi barai before being finished by yama arashi. Okuda suffered a concussion and had to be carried away. Despite the victory, Kano was not pleased with the match when he found out, as he thought his apprentices had shown themselves too eager to fight.
In 1886, another Tenshin Shinyō-ryū dojo was opened in Tokyo, this time by master Magoroku Hachitani. Kano could not assist, but he sent Tomita, Takisaburo Tobari and several other Kodokan trainees to pay the obliged visit. However, when Tomita was performing randori with Mamoru, Magoroku's 14 year old son, he was approached by Hansuke Nakamura from Ryoi Shinto-ryū. A police hand-to-hand instructor with ties to the Totsuka school, Nakamura wanted revenge for his associates and challenged Tomita to a match. The latter described himself as too scared to accept, as Nakamura was much heavier and more experienced, but he eventually accepted. As soon as the match started, Tomita immediately scored a tomoe nage, and he repeated the technique two more times before his shocked opponent managed to block it. The judoka followed with an ouchi gari, which Nakamura blocked, and a hiza guruma, which seemed successful, but the jujutsuka pulled Tomita to the ground and tried to pin him with kami-shiho-gatame. In the process, however, Tomita locked a gyaku-juji-jime from the bottom. Trapped in the chokehold, Nakamura showed signs of hypoxia, so Hachitani stopped the match before he lost consciousness. Word of the Kodokan's victory spread quickly.
Aside from Tomita's own version of the facts, Nakamura's apprentice Kazuo Ishibashi spoke about the fight in his memoir, stating the loss drove Nakamura to stop drinking alcohol and start training intensely to get retribution from the Kodokan. A measure of revenge for the Totsuka school would be obtained by its member Taro Terushima, who reportedly dominated judoka Sumitomo Arima at the Ichikawa dojo later in the year.
Police tournaments
The main clash between the Kodokan and the Totsuka schools would happen by mediation of Michitsune Mishima, prefect of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department from 1885 to 1888. Known for his political approach to "abolish the old and bring the new", Mishima was interested in renovating the hand-to-hand methods and teachers of the police, until then monopolized by the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū and other minor koryu jujutsu factions. Upon hearing of the Kodokan's increasing fame, Mishima wanted them to test the efficacy of their art against the traditional jujutsu. In order to accomplish it, the Kodokan was asked to send judokas to one or more . It is acknowledged that the victory at these tournaments was the factor that turned judo from an obscure school to Japan's peak martial art.
Categorization of those events meets an obstacle in the absence of direct registers and the relative disparity of existent sources. The Kodokan keeps no clear register on the matter, and this has been noted to have given birth to folklore and legends.Yoshiaki Todo, Judo no Rekishi no Bunka, 2007 It has been even said that the memories of those challenges are purely fictitious propaganda, although, as judo historian Sanzo Maruyama notes, it is difficult to understand judo's expansion without its victories over jujutsu. Counting on their veracity, it has been suggested there were more than a single tournament, which would have caused the confusion of dates and matches among the sources, as well that their police affiliation would have rendered the events private and away from public sources.
The rules of the events are unknown. Sakujiro Yokoyama wrote that challenge matches of the time were harsh and brutal, often ending in death of participants, but the ruleset employed by the Metropolitan Police Department was described as comparatively more "civilized", presumably wanting to test what fighting system was the best for their non-lethal arresting techniques. It is apparent that matches could be won by either submission or referee stoppage, otherwise ending in a hikiwake or time limit draw. Judging for the attestations, it also seems both throws and submissions (or at least chokeholds) were allowed, while tactics like stalling or remaining disengaged on the ground were not penalized either. Some voices have claimed those rules gave the advantage to the judo side, but late commentators like Hajime Isogai have noted that the open format would have favored precisely the jujutsu side, who would have used the ground to avoid the judokas's superior wrestling. Finally, Maruyama described judokas as wearing their signature judogi, though in the short-sleeved, short-legged version used at the time, while the jujutsukas would wear a combination of haori and hakama, only shortened over the knees in order to allow for free movement.
First possible challenge
According to Kano's memories, an earlier police tournament that cannot be identified with the more famous Kodokan victory took place in 1886. The Kodokan was asked to send representatives to an event of both kenjutsu and jujutsu hosted by the Metropolitan Police. Although neither Saigo nor Tomita could attend the event, Kano could send Yoshitsugu Yamashita, Sakujiro Yokoyama, Takisaburo Tobari and Noritaka Sato, among others. Kano notes the competition was quite tough, as although the judokas were able to execute their tachi-waza or throwing techniques, several of them were in difficulty against the ne-waza or groundfighting expertise of the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū. This occurrence makes the account end in a low note, and is mentioned to have been a reason for the Kodokan to reinforce their own ne-waza training.
Yayoi shrine challenge The most mentioned of the judo and jujutsu challenges is the , which would have had place in the Yayoi Shrine at Shiba Park in front of Mishima himself. Kano's and Tsuneo Tomita's accounts give the date as 1888, just before Mishima's death, a date indirectly supported by Yokoyama and considered more probable by Maruyama. Meanwhile, Yamashita and Itsuro Munakata (as interviewed by Maruyama) remember the year as 1886, the same as the rest of challenges.
The main participants at the side of the Kodokan would have been Saigo, Yamashita, Tomita, Yokoyama, later known as the "Kodokan Shitenno" or "The Four Guardians of Kodokan". Along with them, it would have been Hoken Sato (later known as Hoken Iwasaki), Itsuro Munakata, Takejiro Yuasa, Bunzo Matsuda, Matsujiro Honda, Katsutaro Oda, Keijiro Kawai, Katsukazu Otsubo, Shizuya Iwanami, and other members. The Totsuka school would have been represented by Totsuka's own "Shitenno" or "Four Guardians", Taro Terushima, Entaro Kochi, Teisuke Nishimura and Shintaro Katayama, along with other fighters. The referees were Tetsutaro Hisatomi and Yuhachiro Suzuki from Sekiguchi-ryū.
According to most sources, the atmosphere of the event was heated. The Kodokan team was received with insults by the opposite team, most notably , which referenced not only the Kodokan's relatively short age compared to the traditional jujutsu schools, but also to the college background of many of the judokas compared to the martial upbringing of most jujutsukas. Munakata stated that the judokas performed a respectful full kneeling bow or , meant to address a superior, while the jujutsukas adhered to the one-handed, one-kneed bow of the old styles, meant to address in equal terms.
The first match would have been Yoshiaki Yamashita from Kodokan against Taro Terushima from Totsuka Yoshin. They were said to be the same size, with Terushima being slightly older. Terushima started attempting an ouchi gari, but Yamashita blocked it and answered scoring easily a hiza guruma. Terushima opted to remain on the ground, where he judged himself to be more skilled. Yamashita engaged him nonetheless, and they grappled until the referee called to end the match as a draw.