Anyone who knows me, knows that I love my martial arts. I love it like a blacksmith loves fire, or like a sailor loves the sea. My love of Jujutsu is ingrained on my psyche. Holidays are the worst thing for me, but because martial arts are the second love of my life (behind my wife and family of course), it takes back seat for a few weeks over the Christmas break. I usually drive my wife nuts with my endless obsession with everything martial arts, but occasionally she supports me in my weird and wacky obsessive behaviours, like reading martial arts material whilst on the throne, or at breakfast time rather than the Herald Sun or the weekly times. For instance, a few weeks ago, my darling wife snatched a ripper bargain at a local library clearance sale...

For 50 cents she nabbed some priceless Judo books. One hardback pearler called ‘Judo and Judo-Do’ by a guy named Klingerstorff, another softback by the same author called ‘Judo self taught in pictures’ by Charles Yerkow. Now if you’re thinking that the author’s names sound rather more Germanic than Japanese, you’d be right. What a lot of people don’t know about modern Judo is that it’s founder, was indeed Japanese, but due to the strong relationship between Japan and Germany before WW2, Jigoro Kano (the Japanese founder of Kodokan Judo) spent some time instructing Germans (and British) in his art form. Consequently, Judo was actually taught to members of the German military and according to many sources, was originally driven by the Germans (in around 1930), with the view to inclusion of the art in the Olympic Games. This appears to have been largely politically driven from what I can gather however, as Kano himself seemed resistant to the whole concept of strong competition in the form of a world championship. To those who do not understand Judo, this may seem baffling, but to Kano, Judo was to be treated more like a Church or Religion rather than a competition (who’s emphasis would be driven solely by the prospect of medal counts alone.)

Anyway, the books were an absolute steal at 50 cents a pop. The best bargain being a hardback by M Feldenkrais: who was one of the first non-Japanese to obtain a Black Belt in Judo. I think that Feldenkrais was Russian Born but spent a lot of time in France and was a very intelligent man. In 1917, he played a major role in what is known as the Balfour Declaration: The Zionist movement for the ‘relocation’ of the Jewish community into Palestine, which had previously been ruled by the Ottoman or Turkish Empire (wow they certainly have been in conflict for a long time haven’t they?). Anyway, that’s about the extent of my knowledge on the history of the region which is probably a good thing, lest I bore you with unrelated garble and yet more inaccurate historical references.

Back to the book. It’s fantastic and offers hours of study opportunity with intelligent and precise technical illustrations as well. It really is a great book for those after a deeper and more scientific understanding of the art by a man with a deeply scientific approach to the method. It really gets the brain working, and is far more stimulating to me than the Sunday paper on any weekend. I’ve gone back through the same chapters on many occasions searching for yet greater understanding of the techniques and the principles behind them.

It would seem to me, that no matter what understanding I have of a particular technique, I am merely looking at it from one side of a multi-dimensional sphere, where I’m never quite certain of which angle I am peering through. Sometimes, one side seems much like another, but I am certain they are worlds apart, as they are not static... Floating in and out of one world of possibility to the next. Always dynamic and never ever tiresome.

Anyway, I could go on like this for hours, but I won’t. It’s bed time as another fantastic day draws to a close and my beautiful wife is calling me to get out of the ‘martial arts zone’ and back to the ‘hubby zone.’ Thanks for reading! Cya next time.