History
After the Meiji Restoration in 1869, which would herald the Meiji Era, Japan took a giant leap from the old feudal system into a more modern western society. The samurai-caste was disestablished and everything western were brought into Japan as a way to modernize both its society and economy. This included the construction of railroads, reforming the military based on the Prussian system and building new facilities for modern communication and modernising and expanding the domestic industry. It would also bring along western clothing with European clothes as a popular new choice of wardrobe.
Among the things that were imported, the western style walking stick was one of them, and it quickly became a very popular item in Japan, especially for former samurai who were not allowed to wear swords anymore as a sign of their high status and other high-ranking individuals. In 1885, Uchida Ryogoro, who was a student of Shinto Muso-ryu (jodo), devised a new set of self-defence techniques for the tanjo drawn primarily from existing jodo techniques. He did this as a way of popularizing jodo. From the techniques originally created by Uchida Ryogoro a set of 12 kata were put together, with the assistance of his son Uchida Ryohei, and organized into a system which was named Uchida-ryū Tanjōjutsu.
Read more about this topic: Uchida Ryu Tanjojutsu
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)