Author: Ellis Amdur Page 4 of 12

Traditionally Speaking

There is an image today of koryū as small isolated groups of a few students, headed by one headmaster, engaged in a many decades-long pursuit of martial perfection. Something like this can be true today—many people remain students of a teacher for almost a lifetime. I know of individuals who have trained for fifty years without ever receiving certification of full knowledge of the school or a teaching license. But I do not think that this is true to the original nature of koryū bujutsu. Of course, in the aforementioned case, the students in question may simply be incompetent or not suitable, in their instructor’s eyes, but it may also be due to something else—a fundamental change in the nature of martial ryūha within Japan.

It is undeniable that classical martial traditions are best taught by direct, personal instruction from a master instructor (shihan). However, shihan were not so uncommon in the past—there was (legitimately) ‘one on every block’. Remember all the word really indicates is a ‘certified instructor.’ Not only that, there were often many shihan of a single ryūha.

Ryūha Were Not Hidden Away Hermetic Cults

The concept of a ryūha taught in one location by one person, the only individual competent to pass on the essence of the school, was rather unusual in the past. Before the Meiji era, instructors’ primary goal was to teach as many worthy students as possible, and thereby spread the influence of their own school. It made political sense—and it was profitable. Remember, the ryūha were commercial ventures: were one to achieve an official position in a feudal domain, one received a salary. If one opened up a machi-dojo (‘town dojo’), one earned a living. Bushi received a kind of continuing education credit when they achieved each certification, thereby increasing their rice stipend from the domain. Commoners accumulated social capital—something one still sees today in kuro meishi (name cards covered with black ink – the enumeration of each martial arts certification).

On the shihan’s side, by increasing the curriculum, one also made money by selling each rank. In this process, various ryūha created many fully certified people, who could then go elsewhere and teach the same material, starting their own lineage of students, often losing all contact with their own teacher, other than putting the instructor’s name on their own lineage chart. Nonetheless, even though ‘graduated shihan’ did not send money home to their teacher, his or her name spread along with the ryūha – in feudal Japan, an honor-based culture, one’s name was the most important capital one owned.

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God is anything you need right now (Charles Bukowski)

Recently, a conversation came to mind, one between myself and Terry Dobson. For anyone who doesn’t know, Terry was, for a year or so, a live-in student at the Aikikai Headquarters Dojo, sometime between 1960 and 1962. A little more than a decade later, I lived in his dojo in NYC for about a year. He was definitely my teacher, but at the same time, we were in a relationship vaguely between paternal, fraternal and friends. This conversation pretty well exemplifies Terry and my relationship, but I think it also highlights the truth about all the pronouncements by Ueshiba’s students about what he really meant and what he taught. The first part of the story was part of Terry’s schtick, a lead-in to his teaching where he claimed that the movements of aikido were physical metaphors that both explained how to achieve peace on earth, and through the practice of them, gave the procedure to achieve it.  It was in a conversation between us one day that he tacked on the second portion, that of the 2nd aikido instructor.

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Some time ago, Ellis Amdur asked me if I’d be interested in contributing a guest post for the site. Knowing of my friendship with the renowned grappling expert, “Judo” Gene LeBell, and aware of Gene’s past relationship with the famed budoka, Donn Draeger, Ellis thought I might be able to offer some of Gene’s recollections to provide a different-than-usual take on Draeger, and the martial arts of a bygone era.

While Gene’s memory for details has faded a bit with time, I’ve had a number of extensive conversations with him in the past for various magazine articles, not to mention an aborted collaboration on his first attempt at an autobiography years ago. So I’m probably as qualified as anyone to share his impressions on these matters.

As far as Draeger goes, Gene always spoke very highly of him. “A great judo man” and “the best with weapons” was how he described Draeger to me on one occasion, opinions which probably won’t surprise anyone familiar with Draeger’s career in the martial arts. A generation older than Gene, Draeger came out of that pre-war school of judo which the early Japanese instructors in the West employed. My sense of that type of judo, both from talking to Gene and my own research, is that it was a somewhat more combative style, one laced with a bit more groundwork than would come to be the norm in the postwar years. That’s the style Gene appreciated, and I think he respected that “hardcore” approach in Draeger’s style.

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Kurosu Harutsugi (黒須春次) was born on March 13, 1888, and died March 15th, 1973.  He was born in a farming family, but due to his father’s illness, he had to help him from a very young age. At the age of 18, he began studying Araki Shin-ryu jujutsu in 1906, from Hayashi Hikojiro. His body trained in jujutsu, he was accepted into an artillery regiment. He received a menkyo kaiden in Araki Shin-ryu in 1921 from Urano Kasutsugu Nobutaka.

[NOTE: There is more than one line of Araki Shin-ryu, that bear little relationship to one another. Perhaps the most famous is a a ryuha started by Araki Buzaemon, which has a complicated relationship to the original Araki-ryu torite-kogusoku of the founder, Araki Muninsai.]

A few years after beginning his study of Araki Shin-ryu, he also began training in  Shinto Rikugo-ryu jujutsu,  an amalgam of a number of older schools, and eventually receiving a rank of 4th dan in 1922. Although kata based, it focused on hand-to-hand combat and was, for a period of time, a rival of the Kodokan. (The last known teacher of this school is Shiigi Munenori of the Ichigido).

Kurosu was not satisfied by jujutsu alone, obviously needing to compete. Only judo at that time allowed shiai and he entered the Kodokan in 1913. Very soon afterwards, he was ‘tested’ in a match with four seniors, and after defeating them, was awarded a judo fourth kyu (NOTE: which meant a lot more in those days). He established his own judo dojo in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo in 1914 (remember, he was already had high rank in two jujutsu schools, which he continued training–apparently, this was rather common in those days, enabling the Kodokan to incorporate jujutsu practitioners quickly into their organization). In fact, he was already considered skilled enough that in 1916, he was appointed a judo instructor of the Kenpeitai.

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Jim Ingram at ninety years of age

An elderly man in ball cap and windbreaker walks his toy dog around the neighborhood. Beneath the visor of his cap, eyes smile from behind his glasses. He waves and nods to people as they pass. A harmless old man. But what the passers-by don’t know is that they have been assessed for potential danger. This smiling old man constantly scans the environment for threats and items that he might use as weapons: without paranoia, he catalogues them. In his own estimation, he won’t last long in a fight at his age, so this, too, he takes into account.

On June 12, 2021, Jim Ingram died at the age of ninety. Among other things, Ingram was the founder and head of the Amerindo Self-Defense System. He created this mixed system, drawing from numerous combative traditions, mostly Indonesian in origin, but also including modern military combat training, all filtered through Ingram’s real-life experiences. He considered this to be a family art, making all of his students part of that family. His students all call him Oom, meaning Uncle in his mother tongue, Dutch.

When Ingram heard of the death of one of his seniors or contemporaries, he would say: “When a teacher dies, a world of knowledge is lost.” In the following, I share a little bit  about the man who gathered, tested, and passed on this knowledge, and how his personal vision of survival intersects with other martial traditions–about this world of knowledge that has recently been lost.

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On May 8th, 2021, I conducted an interview with Harvey Konigsberg, 7^th dan shihan under Yamada Yoshimitsu, head shihan of the United States Aikido Federation. Konigsberg sensei is one of Yamada sensei’s most senior students. He has been a member of the New York Aikikai for over fifty-five years. He also has his own dojo in Woodstock, New York where he resides with his wife Carolyn and four cats.

Konigsberg sensei is also a professional artist. What makes him unique hinges upon two elements: his masterful ability to combine aikido movement with the penetrating stroke of his artistic brush.  In whatever he does, he is an artist working his craft. His aikido informs his art, and his art informs his aikido. When one views his aikido paintings, they come alive. They capture your spirit. When you are on the mat with him, he takes your center in an instant, but always with a smile and a grin: as if to say, “Wow, how did that happen?”  I hope that those who read this interview will come away with a glimmer of what this amazing teacher and artist has and continues to give to both his aikido students and to his fellow artists.

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When born in a static culture, one can largely follow in one’s parent’s footsteps. In such a world, barring invasion or changes to one’s environment, things are largely unchanged from generation to generation. One has seen one’s father and mother pass through each stage of life before you. From birth to death, one is guided all the way.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

My father was forty-one years old when I was born. As a young man, he achieved his dream of being a lawyer. However, he was an idealist, and couldn’t tolerate the compromises he had to make, particularly in regards to truth, in order to function within the American legal system. After the 2nd World War, his father invited him to join him in the family business, and that was intolerable in other ways. He soon quit, and worked for the rest of his life honorably, doing a job he did not like, to ensure that his family would live well and safely. He practiced a little law, mostly pro bono, and otherwise provided information on real estate transactions for businesses (a rudimentary version of what Google and Facebook offer customers today)

In between those two periods, he was a spy.

I have moved this essay, excerpts above, to my Substack, where a lot of my essays, particularly those not directly concerned with martial arts will be published. 

Eight o’clock arrives, but no detective, so I went up to order some dinner from the front. The little seedy man, the kind whose nickname is always  “Whispers” or “Pittsburgh Phil” in B movies, sidled up to me and said, “You say you know Jack . . .”

I replied, “I didn’t say that.”

He sneered, “But you said you’re going to meet him.”

“Yeah, I called him on the phone.”

“Just why did you do that?”

“Why don’t you find that out later. . .” and just looked at him, deadpan.

He couldn’t hold a direct look for very long, just said, “Oh . . .” and scuttled back to his seat.

I have moved this piece, excerpt above, to my Substack, where much of my shorter work, particularly that not directly concerned with martial arts, will be published. 

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