Los Angeles herald., 1905-05-08
JAPS WILL HOLD
J|U J|TSU MEET
LOCAL SOCIETY PLANS TOUR
NEY OF NATIVE SPORTS
WILL WRESTLE AMERICANS
Effectiveness Of Both Systems to Re-
eeive Thorough Test-Mlkado's
Subjects VIII Contest for
Championship

At Simpson auditorium next Satur-
day evening the Japanese Jiu Jitsu
club Of Los Angeles will give an exhi-
bition of japanese sword fighting,
wrestling and jiu jitsu, their national
sport. The society numbers fifty MEM
bers, who meet to engage in their
country's favorite athletic games.
They are husky Japs, and like all their
countrymen are enthusiastic in their
pursuit of this form of exercise.
Nogamatsu, one of their most eff
cent wrestlers, asserts that ju jitsu
strengthens both the moral and physi-
cal nature of Japs. He attributes the
Japs' ability to endure the excessive
hardships of the present war in the
Orient to the fact that every male Jap
anese has engaged in jiu jitsu from his
boyhood and is thus perfectly devel-
oped in all parts of the body.
The Jiu Jitsu society will put on its
biggest and most skillful men in fenc-
ing, wrestling and jiu jitsu Saturday
night, feeling that in this their first
demonstration before an American au-
dience the honor and repute of Japan's
athletics are at stake. Valuable prizes
are offered by the society for the win
ners of the three fencing matches and
of the jiu jitsu and wrestling matches.
They have engaged the services of six
skilled American wresters and of an
expert American contortionist for the
evening. They will give an exhibition
of the several forms of American
wrestling, thus giving fine opportu-
nifty to compare the two systems and
note the difference.
The Japs will, of course, be attired
in native costume, the jiu jitsu men
wearing the peculiar gear prescribed
for that sport.
All the members are eager to show
Americans the merits of their national
games and have long been hard at
work developing their best men by a
series of try-outs. The Japanese popu-
lation of the city is deeply interested
in the outcome of the final bouts Satur-
day night.
1t will exciting to a degree for the
is hot rivalry between the men matched
to decide the championship of their So
ciety in the different events.
In the sword fight or fencing the
weapon used is a huge broadsword of
heavy bamboo. Masks for faces, pad
ding for head and chest are used and
blows are struck with all the force
that can be put into the heavy wea-
pons
Sandwiched between the heavy Jap
wrestling bouts will be some exciting
bouts by the big Yankee boys who do
not propose to be worsted by the lit
tie brown men.
The public will have a rare oppor-
tunity to see the famous ju jitsu IL
lustrated and demopstrated by expert
men determined to prove the merits of
their national sport.
Jiu jitsu, according to Nogamatsu,
requires most vigorous, assiduous and
self denying training. 1t is practiced
during winter by Jap devotees out in
the snow and cold early in morning be-
tween 5 and Z to inure to cold and
darkness.
An advanced form of jiu jitsu in
cludes boxing, the blows being studied
to produce either instant death or
prolonged unconsciousness by reaching
certain points on the body and head
known only to advanced jiu jitsu
trainers. The Japs believe that SEEM
ing miracles are often performed by
expert jiu jitsu men who revive spon-
taneously after having been pro-
nounced dead for hours by physicians.
A%%