Mifune

Materiale interessante nel quale mi sono imbattuto di recente, una discussione a proposito di  Mifune.
Il topic starting era :

He is well known as the 'God of judo'. I certainly wouldn't argue against that. Clearly he was a great master. Apparently, from bits and pieces I've picked up on the forum, he had a pretty fearsome reputation, and was not just a technical guy. However, he was really before the era of judo as sport, and videos, etc., so I was wondering: Did he do shiai? Was his reputation from randori, or bar fights, etc.?

Again, I'm not questioning a judan's judo skills at all! I'm just curious about why he was respected so much (aside from his knowledge and technical prowess). I hear a lot about 70s and 80s and even 60s era judo legends from different sensei, and here on the forum, but you don't really meet people very often who've actually met someone like him.

Decine di risposte a seguire alcune delle quali parecchio interessanti, ma in quella che segue ( a parte l'approccio analitico che io sempre apprezzo ) ho trovato dei punti di vista interessanti e non comuni che trattano Mifune come un essere umano.

Hi Bythesea –

To me, this is a very interesting question and something I was also curious about.  I’ve done a bit of research over the last week using some materials I had collected and others I was able to access and I’ll write up here a bit of what I’ve found.

Let me say up front I’m kind of wary of the way this thread has been politicized and I’ll be very candid that my own jūdō credentials aren’t very impressive compared to Mifune (or really compared to pretty much anyone) and so if this thread comes down to “who are you to …,” “when did you get shodan?,” or “how old were you when you started jūdō?” I’ll have to bow out.

I’ve turned up some interesting stuff that’s not directly relevant to this thread which I won’t write up at length here because I’m pressed for time (super pressed to the extent I really ought not to be doing this in the first place  :sad( ).  Random interesting stuff, in an obit in the Asahi it mentions that it had been internally decided at the Kōdōkan that Mifune would be the last jūdan and from that point on (1965) kudan would be the highest rank; there was a major (major being an understatement) public rupture between Mifune and Yamashita in 1927 when Mifune was hired by the Metropolitan Police – I haven’t read through all of this yet but it seems to me part of what made Mifune important probably from the late 20s on was that he was a counterweight to Yamashita who was extremely powerful; and my favorite story (printed in a boys magazine in 1921) tells of how Mifune and his roommate went out one evening and found a dog chewing on something.  They chased the dog away and found this was a human arm; they promptly picked up the arm and made their way to the Yoshiwara (the courtesan district) where it was common for barkers to solicit clients by grabbing hold of their hands and dragging them in.   As soon as the grasped the deathly cold hand the barkers would scream and run off but not satisfied with this Mifune’s roommate bought a pair of gloves to hide the coldness of the hand and the next guy who grabbed at the arm in Mifune’s sleeve pulled the thing clear off!  :wacko:  (I couldn't really find the proper emoticon for that).

But back to shiai and also his ranking and then his size.  The best account of his shiai performance I’ve found so far is from Koga Zansei’s “Kōdōkan konjaku monogatari” which was serialized in the Yomiuri in 1932.  In a December 5th installment on Mifune, Koga recounts two occasions at which Mifune demonstrated his prowess at shiai.  The first was from the Kōhaku Shiai in 1905 in which Mifune threw 8 nidan and then the san dan captain of the red team Sugimura Yōtarō.  The other example given in the article was from 1920 when Mifune competed as a sixth dan in the Tokyo Imperial University Jūdō Tournament and threw ten people (the article gives the names of the younger jūdōka he defeated but I won’t list them all here).  These are by far the most detailed accounts of his victories I’ve been able to find.  I think there is no evidence to support the claim that he never lost in a Kōhaku Shiai which is a claim I’ve never encountered in Japanese either in materials dating from the teens, twenties, or thirties, from his obituaries, or even from contemporary stuff like the Japanese Wikipedia or www.kukinage.com  I just think this is totally specious and if he never lost the fact that he threw nine people in 1905 wouldn’t really be singled out as a singular achievement – because it wouldn’t really be.

There are other claims made which are much less specific than the accounts in Koga’s article but very grandiose.  In a 1912 piece in the Asahi on the 4 rising stars of the Kōdōkan it claims that Mifune had won all one hundred matches he had competed in against “outsiders” (taigai shiai).  It’s not clear what this really refers to since by 1903 or so when Mifune joined the Kōdōkan there weren’t really many matches where people took on comers from outside the Kōdōkan.  By far the most common shiai were either internal to the Kōdōkan or between colleges.  It’s possible it’s making a claim that he never lost in an intercollegiate match but this is a claim that is never repeated anywhere else including Koga piece or Mifune’s obits so I think this is probably specious.  An even more specious seeming claim is made in his obit in which “a direct sudent” claimed that he had competed in 2000 matches and never been thrown and never lost.  Again this claim is never repeated in any other sources and I think the fact that Koga singles out two specific examples suggests that those examples were somewhat exceptional and if Mifune had really never been thrown he probably would have written that.

In terms of Mifune’s promotions, there is a good timeline given on www.kukinage.com http://www.kuukinage.com/nenpyo.html : Mifune was awarded shōdan in 1904; nidan in 1905; sandan in 1906; yondan in 1907; godan in 1909; and rokudan in 1917 at the age of 34.  Just to put this in some perspective (and not intending to take anything at all away from Mifune but just to give a comparison) here is Okabe Heita’s meteoric rise a decade later: 1913 awarded shodan for gonin nuki at the May Kōhaku Shiai a month after entering the Kōdōkan (though like Mifune he had been doing jūdō for several years by this time).  The very next day (ie. the day after he was awarded shodan) he was awarded nidan for batsugun.  The following February (so 7 months later) he was awarded sandan and then two months after that (so 1 year after entering the Kōdōkan and two months after being promoted to sandan) Okabe was awarded yondan after beating seven opponents (one of whom was Oda Jōin already a 4th dan at the time).  Okabe was 4 months shy of his 23 birthday at the time.  Now Okabe was – and was understood at the time – to be truly exceptional and a gifted jūdōka and athlete so I’m not saying that this was the norm but I think it’s useful as a way to contextualize Mifune’s own rapid rise through the ranks – not to take anything away from Mifune, just to provide some perspective.

Finally height.  In most sources I’ve found he’s listed at 160 or just under 160 centimeters so about 5”2’ and it’s given that his weight as a competitor probably maxed around 60 kgs so about 132 lbs.(this is from his obit).  Out of curiosity I looked up historical data on height in Japan and came up with the following information.  Circa 1880 Erwin Baelz (NBK’s favorite) did a survey and found that average height for Japanese males was roughly 158 centimeters (see http://www.geocities.jp/ryfxm457/sub3-3.html ); according to data compiled by schools the average height of a male Japanese 17 year old in 1916 was 160 centimeters (see http://www.pure-supplement.com/shintyo/002.html ).  Now even in articles written in the teens and twenties Mifune was understood to be undersized for a jūdōka but I think this at least puts this somewhat into proportion．I think Koga was 170 centimeters when he competed and 170 centimeters is the average height given for a 17 year old in 1982.  Again this is not taking anything away from Mifune who no doubt faced much, much larger opponents (as Koga did) but just to suggest that 160cm has to be understood in its historical context.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, Mifune was absolutely jacked back in the day.  I know our image of him is based primarily on the frail old mifune of Shingi Mifune and so on but you just have to look at Yokoyama’s book to see the buff Mifune (who seemed to love posing shirtless as I have other similar pictures of him). 



My memory is that Mifune was (like Nagaoka) one of the early jūdōka to adopt Eugen Sandow’s strength training methods (like kettlebells! and barbells  :unsure: ).




Finally just a plea that none of this be misunderstood.  There is too much doubting of people’s motives; there is too much accusation of people trying to tear other people down; there is too much talk of “myth busting” as if it’s a passion of some of us to destroy etc.  But this is a history forum and there ought to be a space for a serious discussion of history based on a serious examination of sources.  Most of the history of prewar Japanese jūdō is stuck at the level of the kind of stuff that was published in prewar boys magazines and enshrined in popular fiction and cinema.  Which is fine.  It doesn’t really matter to me if Babe Ruth actually called the shot or not.  I can enjoy my baseball either way.  But if someone like Bythesea asks a serious question (with no ulterior motives) he deserves a serious answer (with no ulterior motives).

Cheers,
Jon Z

E in ultimo queste due immagini :





forse c'è speranza anche per chi pratica basso judo di evolversi :p

bellissime immagini grazie , ma non è che mi faresti un riassuntino dell'articolo(ti prometto una sponsorizzazione di 2 caffè ed una birra)

Mmmm non avevo considerato la possibile ruvidità dell' inglese per qualcuno.. stasera quando rientro o domani al peggio vedo di scrivere qualcosa.

Prova con questo sito di traduzione... Non é il massimo ma qualcosa si capisce

http://www.reverso.net/text_translation.aspx?lang=ES

Lui è bene noto come il 'Dio di judo.' Io non disputerei certamente contro quello. Chiaramente lui era un grande padrone. Da pezzi e pezzi io ho scelto su apparentemente, sul foro, lui aveva una reputazione abbastanza terribile, e non era solo un ragazzo tecnico. Comunque, lui era veramente di fronte all'era di judo come sport, e videi, ecc., così io stavo chiedendomi: Faceva shiai? La sua reputazione era da randori, o eccetto lotte, ecc.?

Io non sto mettendo in dubbio affatto di nuovo, le abilità di judo di un judan! Io sono solo curioso circa perché lui così molto (a parte dalla sua conoscenza e la prodezza tecnica) fu rispettato. Io sento molto approssimativamente anni settanta ed anche 60s leggende di judo di era da sensei diverso, e qui sul foro, ma Lei realmente non incontra molto spesso persone chi davvero hanno incontrato qualcuno come lui.

 
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