American Police Jiu Jitsu from 1937, by S. J. Jorgensen

 Do a search on Abebooks!

he book: "American Police Jiu Jitsu" is written by a Svend J. Jorgensen. Judging from the pictures he was a highly decorated Police Officer. There is enough medallions on his uniform to cover for an entire marching band, and still he would have plenty left :-)

This seems to be the third imprint of this book. The first edition is from 1931. According to the book, it is geared towards sivilians, in spite of the title. The autor is described as an Internationally acclaimed police instructor, and the methods as "the Jorgensen method of self-defense".

Here you will find a little of everything, in what appears to be no particular order or following any specific train of thought - it all looks rather randomly put together.. You have defenses against armed and unarmed assailants tucked in here and there. Some sequences (there are three pictures showing each technique) are in plain clothes, others are shown with the defender in uniform. There are even some pictures where both parties seem to be dressed up like true Chicago gangsters, 1930's style, complete with hats.

There's not much to be said about the techniques - not much positive anyway. In one sequence you see our hero defend himself against to guns at once (!) - one against the front, and the other held against his rear. Not bad indeed! Anyone having a profound deathwish should try this thing immediately! Or how about kicking the gun held by someone on arms length.. The same could be said about the knife defenses - this is scary stuff. Oftentimes mostly so for the person trying to actually use the technique.

From what I can see this must be a humorous take on the theory of evolution, "Survival of the fittest". The irony is that the bad guy will be the survivor, and our hero will go to meet his maker - dressed in his finest clothes, and a "What happened, I don't understand this?" look on his face.

By all means, do get this book. Study it thoroughly.. Then train to do things completely different. Doing a search on Abebooks will almost always bring results. You can read more about Jorgensen in this book: "Pioneers of American JuJitsu: American JuJitsu Before WW2".

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