American Judo Illustrated, by Arthur Hobart Farrar

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rthur Hobart Farrar obviously was an active writer prior to and during the Second World War. He wrote this book pictured here, probably around 1943. He also had written "Police Jiu-Jitsu, featuring Kato Futsiaki og Professor Butch" in 1937 (read about it here), "Police Wrestling - mat holds, grips, falls" in 1942 (read about this one here), and "How to Fight, a fighter's manual" (on boxing) in 1943.

There is a rather bold statement setting the stage in this book: "A Manual of Kodokwan Judo, thoroughly modernized and particularly adapted for use in our Armed Forces". Re-he-he-heally... You don't say - how nice to have that clearified right away :-)

As I have stated elsewhere, there seems to be no end to the number of books using the judo-label, but which has very little or nothing to do with that art. From start to finish this is ju jitsu. Apart from a few techniques also used in judo: te guruma, O soto otoshi, hadaka jime and kani basami, this is ju jitsu. Trying to make this into judo, is like walking on thin air, not very likely...

And then you have the use of the term close combat (or hand-to-hand combat).. Defense against wristgrabs, and ladies sparring and defending themselves dressed in sivilian clothes, skirts and all. So this is American military close combat? Very interesting!

Apart from the fact that the methods are quite basic ju jitsu, and has nothing to do with military hand-to-hand combat whatsoever (apart from a couple of exceptions), the book as a whole is ok. It is, like all of Farrar's books written by someone who knows the art (of writing, that is :). Farrar-style there is a short anecdote leading into each technique, and it's all very well written. And also here the methods are having some rather unorthodox names, like "The Circus Mule Trick"!

If you just don't mind the few but rather serious faults described earlier, this is a nice book to have in your library. And the place to start searching is always Abebooks. The place to find older and special books to a reasonable price.

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