.JAPANESE WRESTLING (JILIJUTSIT or JIu.
. A method of self-defense without weapons; the modern form of the old samurai weaponless combat. It first became popular in Japan in the sixteenth century, its origin being traced to Akiyama, a learned physician, who at that period lived at Nagasaki. He is said to have brought it hack from China. Before lie died, Akiyama had elaborated the Chinese system to the extent of discovering 303 methods of seizing and throwing an opponent, or otherwise disabling him. Jiujotsu, owing to its secret character, is usually taught in night ses sions, and although the majority of the pupils gain considerable skill in the system, only a few acquire a complete mastery of it. It is ex tremely difficult to penetrate the secrets of the higher playing, owing to the jealousy with which it is guarded by its professors. The rank and file of the police departments of Tokio. Koloq, and Yokohama are compelled to attain a cer tain degree of efficiency in the art, although no pupil receives a lesson before pledging himself on oath not to reveal the methods. When it is realized that the master of this science can by a slight, swift movement benumb a victim's brain, dislocate his hip or shoulder, burst or twist a tendon, or break an ankle, there is excel lent reason for the Japanese system of confining the proficiency in the higher degrees of the art (oily to men of perfect self-eommand and rood moral character. The Japanese wrestler does
not meet his opponent by a sustained counter effort as does a boxer, but instead makes a shirking of physical contact and the avoidance of effort an important part of his play. An ag gressive combatant has to be exceedingly careful that his aggressiveness and impetuosity are not deftly deflected so that by the exercise of some little t-rick of the game he himself is made to dis locate his shoulder or break a limb without the expenditure of the slightest effort on the part of his opponent. At the beginning of the twen tieth century there were many important kinds of jiujutsu throughout Japan, which, although they differed slightly from each other in methods and practice, were practically a unit in teaching the idea of Akiyama. There were forty different schools in Tokio alone.