At The Budo Journeyman, there was a post describing the history of western boxing in Japan, as well as a look at striking in general. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
I recently read an interview with Okinawan karate expert Patrick McCarthy, in which he said; (worth quoting in its fuller version, to give context):
“Rare as they may be, I witnessed several street/pub confrontations with salary men, over the many years I resided in Japan. I never paid much attention to the fact that not once did I ever see a Japanese kick or punch each other in such encounters. Rather, it was more aggressive shoving, slapping and wrestling than the kind of physical brutality we’ve become so used to in the West. In a conversation with my Fujisawa boxing coach, Mr. Yamagami, I was surprised to learn that Japanese did not have a history of using a kobushi (clenched fist) in street confrontations. In fact, according to him, such a thing did not become popular until the post-war years and even then, it was mostly amongst Yakuza-type Japanese. Later, when I was doing some research …, I discovered a 1921 article written by Sasaki Gogai, in which he talks about how excited the Japanese all were about (kobushi-based fighting) after watching the Jack Dempsy [sic] vs Georges Carpentier’s world title bout in New Jersey earlier that year. When I started asking a few questions here and there I was very surprised to learn that the said fight was the first time a nation (Japan) had ever seen boxing!”
Source: https://www.usadojo.com/one-on-one-with-hanshi-patrick-mccarthy/
I had never thought about this before, and so started to dig into it.
Early boxing in Japan.
It seems that boxing (in a small way) was experienced by the Japanese as early as Matthew Perry and the ‘Black Ships’.
In 1854 there was a kind of sporting bout between a western sailor and a Japanese sumo wrestler. I am pretty sure the wrestler would have tried to use the sumo-style slaps and then bounce the guy, but would have probably suffered against the boxing methodology of the sailor, (which, I wouldn’t have imagined was very sophisticated. In England at the time, the champion boxer was Tom Sayers, who would have been of the bare-knuckled fighting breed). It’s difficult to find any reliable details.
This wasn’t necessarily a full cultural exchange, or the springboard for the Japanese to embrace boxing. That was to come much later.
The establishment of Japanese boxing.
According to Wiki, ‘The first boxing gym Meriken Training Institute (メリケン練習所) was established in Ishikawachō, Yokohama, Kanagawa by James Hōjō (ジェームス 北條) and Toranosuke Saitō (齋藤 虎之助) in 1896. After the first tutorial book, Bōgeki Jizai Seiyō Kentōjutsu (防撃自在西洋拳闘術) was issued in 1900, followed shortly by International Jūken Club (国際柔拳倶楽部) was opened in Mikage, Kobe by Kenji Kanō in 1909’.
Boxing as a sport in Japan became a real thing in the 1920’s with the setting up of professional organisations. So really, boxing had at least forty years of development before the Dempsey fight.
I suspect Mr McCarthy is making a quiet case for the novelty of the Okinawan method of attacking with the fist in a ‘punching’ manner (as it might have appeared to 1920 city dwellers in Tokyo and Osaka). But we know that fighting with the fist had a very long tradition in China, which then leaked across to Okinawa.
Striking arts in Japanese martial arts.
It depends how pedantic you want to be about this. I mean, what do we mean by the fist? Is anything with a closed hand a fist?
The older forms of unarmed combat in Japan had hand strikes a plenty, but not really with the intent of repeatedly bludgeoning someone into submission or unconsciousness. The hand strikes in jujutsu had many nuanced uses; anything from a distraction to an incapacitating nerve strike (strikes to neck, the philtrum or the temple, or multiple other hits to the head, have always been there).
Just to be clear, the sumo slap (harite) is mainly a distractor, or a head turning strategy, not that it wouldn’t be a painless experience to be on the end of it.
