The Pyjama Game

Contents by Chapter

"This is a vernacular of colliding and twisting torsos, of sweeping legs and whipping wrists, of assertations written in the air with flying bodies."

Judo is an extraordinary form of combat practiced worldwide but scarcely understood outside its own circle. This is the story of its evolution from the ancient martial art of jiujitsu practiced by the samurai in Japan, to a modern Olympic sport.

2: Beginner's Luck

"As a beginner I was at first much alarmed by the prospect of training with black belts. I soon learned that they were the safest opponents of all and the people who I should really steer clear of were the beginners who were boney, clumsy and furiously keen- which is to say people who were just like me."

The first of a series of personal observations and anecdotes by the author who, quite late in life, took up the sport and found himself learning and training alongside international players in the place where judo began in Britain.

3: To Walk the Talk

"If there is some chemical compound called aggression sluicing around our systems, and it is A Bad Thing, then surely we need to have some way of disposing of this hazzard before it starts burning holes in the fabric of society? In fact we have a number of methods; one of them is called sport."

The nature and origins of combat sport examined... their social function... comparisons with other kinds of sports... the 'attack and defense" form of movement'... fighting as a form of language, a conversation, an argument.

4: The Crucible

"Because his job, and indeed his life, depended on it, it was in the interest of every samurai to study well the art of fighting and over the next three hundred years they developed more than twenty forms. Among them was jiujitsu which they developed so that they could survive in battle if disarmed."

Origins of unarmed combat... the military imperative in feudal Japan... how the samurai developed jiujitsu for the battlefield... the proliferation of jiujitsu schools... the fall of the old dynasty and the dawn of the new enlightened Meiji period... the disarming of the samurai and the closure of many of their martial arts schools.

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