Kodokan–Totsuka rivalry

[1] By contrast, the Kodokan school wasn't created until 1882, when a practitioner of the Kitō-ryū and Tenshin Shinyō-ryū styles named Jigoro Kano established the foundations of his own martial discipline, judo, with a handful of apprentices.

The fast rise in popularity and success of the Kodokan was a source of conflict with other jujutsu schools in the nation, among them the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū, which saw Kano's style as a threat to its hegemony and a sign of disrespect to older traditions.

During an exhibition of the Yoshin-ryū style, hosted by the university authorities in 1880 and directed by Hikosuke's son Hidemi Totsuka, the young Kano left the spectator seats and joined the jujutsukas during their randori in order to test his own skills.

[2] The jujutsukas's opposition to the Kodokan was fuelled not only by martial rivalry, but also by Kano's incorporation of modern and foreign ideas and his role as an educator and intellectual man.

The judokas practiced randori with the resident jujutsukas and other guests, but among all of them Shiro Saigo, the Kodokan's top apprentice, stood out, throwing down all of his sparring partners with ease.

[6] A measure of revenge for the Totsuka school would be obtained by its member Taro Terushima, who reportedly dominated judoka Sumitomo Arima at the Ichikawa dojo later in the year.

Known for his political approach to "abolish the old and bring the new", Mishima was interested in renovating the hand-to-hand methods and teachers of the police, until then monopolized by the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū and other minor koryu jujutsu factions.

In order to accomplish it, the Kodokan was asked to send judokas to one or more Metropolitan Police Department Martial Arts Tournaments (警視庁武術大会, Keishicho Bujutsu Taikai).

Sakujiro Yokoyama wrote that challenge matches of the time were harsh and brutal, often ending in death of participants, but the ruleset employed by the Metropolitan Police Department was described as comparatively more "civilized",[2] presumably wanting to test what fighting system was the best for their non-lethal arresting techniques.

Kano notes the competition was quite tough, as although the judokas were able to execute their tachi-waza or throwing techniques, several of them were in difficulty against the ne-waza or groundfighting expertise of the Totsuka Yoshin-ryū.

[5] One of the best known bouts of the rivalry was the one pitting Sakujiro Yokoyama from Kodokan against Hansuke Nakamura, who was fighting at the Totsuka side in the search of retribution for his loss to Tomita.

[11] In contrast, while Nakamura had the disadvantage of being 19 years older, he was even larger than Yokoyama (being 176 cm and 94 kg himself) and had undergone a strenuous training since his defeat against Tomita, to the point he could now hang from his neck without feeling pain.

[5] Although Sakujiro was able to escape with great effort and score a harai goshi that floored the jujutsuka, he did not follow him to the ground, as he now knew Hansuke was dangerous at ne-waza.

In total, they fought half an hour standing and 25 minutes on the ground, and they were rendered so tired that the referee had to forcefully pry their numb fingers apart to separate them when the match ended.

The Metropolitan Police Department immediately requested the Kodokan to send teachers to their stations, with Yamashita and Yokoyama being the first ones, and those were increasingly favored over the ones from the Totsuka Yoshin-ryu.

Their rise was such that Tsunejiro Tomita later compared the Kodokan–Totsuka rivalry to the historical Battle of Sekigahara, where the regency of the Toyotomi clan and the regional power of the daimyō were forced to pledge to the unified Tokugawa shogunate.

[5] After those, as a sign of the influence of judo, Totsuka masters like Kinsaku Yamamoto would join the Kodokan and contribute to their techniques, as well as practitioners from other factions like Takeuchi Santo-ryū.

The only opposition of this kind they would face came from select masters of the Takenouchi-ryū school, mainly Hikosaburo Ōshima, Kōtarō Imai, Senjuro Kanaya and an associate from Fusen-ryū, Mataemon Tanabe.

[5] As they were not associated to the Totsuka faction, they still shared space with Kodokan teachers at the Metropolitan Police Department for years, producing several interschool matches with varied results.

Tanabe himself became known for defeating multiple judokas thanks to his newaza expertise, though his faction ultimately failed to achieve popularity, and his apprentices would eventually become part of judo as well.