Otsuka Hironori’s martial arts evolution Part 2.
The pre-karate days. Otsuka building his knowledge of ‘Old School’ Budo/Bujutsu.
In this second part:
Middle School.
Otsuka as judoka.
Nakayama Sensei.
Shindo Yoshin Ryu.
Exploration period.
Other jujutsu influences.
Technical crossovers with Wado.
Let me now look at the next stage in his development.
Schoolboy training.
Shimotsuma Middle School was where the young Otsuka was to have his next significant encounter. This time with part time kendo and judo teacher Nakayama Tatsusaburo.
‘Judo’?
At this stage I think it’s worth examining why I mentioned ‘judo’ rather than jujutsu.
In part it was that the names were almost interchangeable, but also that competitive ‘judo’ as taught in Kano Jigoro’s Kodokan had been disseminated across the whole of the Japanese school system. The educators saw that there was something in judo, a full-on ‘healthy body, healthy mind’ mentality, and kids loved to compete. It’s worth mentioning this here because this was what the young Otsuka was to throw himself into, at least at school level, but the relevance of it is also that the urge to compete, to pressure-test trained technique, was something that was later to steer master Otsuka’s developmental ideas for the embryonic Wado as he saw it… and, it was to cause a not insignificant amount of friction.
Early 20th century judo class at an agricultural college (Source Wikimedia Commons).
Let me now return to the part time Middle school kendo and judo teacher, Nakayama Sensei. Who was he and how did he add to the early mix of Otsuka martial arts experience?
Nakayama Tatsusaburo (1870 - 1945).
(For much of this information I am indebted to the excellent Ohgami/Threadgill book on Shindo Yoshin Ryu.)
There are only a couple of photographs of Nakayama Sensei, taken at the middle school. What we see are images of a burly figure in traditional clothes; this is the older Nakayama in 1931, (he would have been sixty-one). In group photos he faces the camera, unperturbed, almost placid, an avuncular figure with a calm confident expression. There is nothing about him that looks scholarly or bookish. His frame and build suggests ‘martial artist’.
I don’t think of Nakayama Sensei as a minor figure in Otsuka’s development.
There is a large group photo of the Shimotsuma judo club from 1909; in this picture are both the young Otsuka and Nakayama Sensei. By my calculation Nakayama was in his life, to one degree or another, for around twenty-eight to thirty years; not necessarily at a social level but at the level of Sensei/Deshi, an off and on thing. A significant amount of that time was Dojo time. Sources suggest that Otsuka trained under Nakayama’s direction both in school and out.
Nakayama is an interesting mix, with a complex skill-set.
Jujutsu and judo.
At the middle school Nakayama was promoting sport judo of the Kodokan model. Youngsters throwing themselves into competitive mat-work learning the skills of grappling and throwing, using all the technical skills of judo, which, as we know, originate from the Old School jujutsu ryu; Seoinage, Uchimata, Katagaruma, Tai-otoshi, Koshiguruma, etc.
(I mention this here because a number of these throwing techniques, or very similar ones, later found their way into the registered list of techniques for the Wado Ryu, these were so standard and all over the place that they acted as logical fillers to the list. It’s really not surprising to see them there.)
For those interested, the relevant techniques registered for the 1939 ‘Technical System of Wadoryu’ are; “ Ude Otoshi, Seotoshi, Eriotoshi, Sodeotoshi, Ashiguruma, Koshiguruma, Kataguruma, Hikiotoshi, Karisute, Kinukuguri”. (There are other versions of this list; so it is difficult to pin it down definitively).