Jiu Jitsu Complete, by Kiyose Nakae

hat you have here are two printings of the same book: "Jiu Jitsu Complete" by Kiyose Nakae. The uppermost, black one is a hardcover/bound version, the lower, yellow one is a soft-cover. There's originally a dust-jacket on the hardcover edition that is similart to the yellow (paper-back) cover. This spesific paperback edition is a third printing (it was printed in 1958 for the first time), The hard copy here is also a third printing from 1960.

The content of the two books looks to me to be the same for both of them. The only exception is a few pages that you can fold out in the bound copy.

What sets this book apart is the fact that they solely used drawings to depict each and every technique. This fact makes the techniques very easy to "read". Even though this was considered somewhat of a revolution at the time, it was nothing new. It has been used many times in older ju jitsu and judo books.

The book is built with a set of "sessions". Each session contain a theme and various "tricks" (the preferred name for techniques in many older books). To some extent the content may seem to be presented in a rather random fashion, but this is also the case in most martial arts books, even up to this date. Apart from this fact, there is little doubt that many (if not most) of the methods are quite functional. In any way this is a book that is considered a true classic, and you will need it for your library!

Kiyose Nakae was a very well known figure in USA at the time. For our Nordic readers and students it is imperative to know that he taught ("the father of modern Swedish jiu-jitsu") Kurt Durewall in New York in 1959. From what I understand he graded Durewall to shodan (1. dan) the same year. If you read Swedish, you can find out more about that in this great book (click here). Durewall was the first major inspiration for the modern period of ju jitsu here in Norway, beginning in the late 1960s (with Nils Erik Loevstad).

It is quite easy to get hold of this book, as it was printed in large quantities, and has been reprinted a number of times. The cover has changed, but the content is, to my knowlege, the same. I recommend you try Amazon - there's a link in the left column.

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