Professor Yamashita Comes to America in 1902

Sam Hill, a Seattle businessman, brought Professor Yoshiaki Yamashita to the United States in 1902.  Professor Yamashita intended to help spread Dr. Jigoro Kano’s relatively new martial art of Judo.  Accompanying Professor Yamashita was his student Mitsuyo Maeda.  Maeda would go on to teach Carlos Gracie in Brazil.  The Gracies modified the techniques into the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Over the next several years, Professor Yamashita gave private demonstrations and taught student throughout the United States.  Professor Yamashita was reluctant to give public demonstrations.  Already in his mid 40s, the 5’03” and 135 pound Yamashita had to worry about being defeated by a less skilled but younger and stronger opponent.  Yamashita did not want to take any action that would bring his art into question.

Professor Yamashita gave a number of private demonstrations that were by invitation only.  The success of the Seattle demonstration in 1902 led to Professor Yamashita leaving for Washington, D.C.  He taught several prominent residents including President Theodore Roosevelt.  Professor Yamashita would eventually promote President Roosevelt to brown belt.

President Roosevelt prevailed upon Professor Yamashita to teach Judo at the U.S. Naval Academy.  Yamashita resisted at first but the Sunday, January 5, 1905 edition of the Washington Times carried a story that Professor Yamashita agreed to teach at Annapolis.  He originally stated that he could not be induced to teach at the academy but President Roosevelt must have been very persuasive.

At the end of July 1905, Professor Yamashita held a Judo demonstration, which included lectures by several Japanese scholars.  The delegation used the demonstration to rally support for the Japanese government during the Russo-Japanese War.

After teaching six more months at the Naval Academy, Professor Yamashita returned to Japan for good in the summer of 1906.  A seventh degree black belt at the time of the trip to America, he would eventually become the first tenth degree red belt in the art.  Only Dr. Kano ever held a higher rank.

Judo would become the most popular martial art in America until it was eclipsed by Karate in the 1960s.  Few other martial arts could boast that a United States President was a practitioner.

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