The Science of Ju Jitsu and Japanese Combat Tricks

Do a search on Abebooks!

ere you have another really old and great little book! It has no indication af when it was printed. Judging from the pictures, the yellowing pages, the form it is written in etc, I would guess it is from the early part of 1900.

The introduction alone is worth amost any price. It is vividly described how the smaller Japanese "took care of" the much larger sailors from the West - all using ju jitsu to do so. A fun read!

The techniques you will see in the book is part older judo, part ju jitsu. You will spot juji gatame, kani basami, wrist-locks and quite a bit of other interesting stuff. I could mention the "shake-hand trick" (a well-known "party-trick" version of kote gaeshi). According to the author this is one of the techniques that were taught to Sir Gerald du Maurier when he was working on the figure "Arsene Lupin" for a famous theater play. Surely you must have read the books about Lupin :-) Not? Now you will!

By using the Net (great thing the Internet..) I have been able to find that Sir Gerald played the role as the famous detective Lupin in 1909 at "the Comedy Theatre" in London. This should indicate that the book is from the period between 1910 to 1915.

If you happen to come across such older goodies like this, do not hesitate, just close your eyes and buy! Our old friend kyoshi Allain Sailly  from France is a keen collector of older books on ju jitsu, judo and wrestling. I am sure he (or I) can be "persuaded" to help you get rid of stuff you don't want...

I'll repeat myself here: You'll find lots of old, rare and no longer in print books over at Abebooks. They have huge amounts of books (something like 30 million) online at any given time. Always do a search there!

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