Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 41 minutes ago
Sadakazu Uyenishi is one of the most important figures in martial arts history that almost nobody talks about.
In the early 1900s, he opened Britain’s first commercial jujitsu school in London. He fought boxers and wrestlers in public challenge matches. He taught arm bars, collar chokes, and rear naked chokes decades before Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu existed as a named art.
And here’s the remarkable part:
The man who would later teach the Gracie family — Mitsuyo Maeda — chose to train with Uyenishi in London.
Uyenishi was trained at the Handa dojo in Osaka under Mataemon Tanabe, the famous Fusen-ryū jujitsu master who defeated Kodokan judoka using groundwork and submissions. That same system was adopted by the Japanese government for police training — and Uyenishi brought it directly to Britain in 1900.
In this video, I explore:
Uyenishi’s training under Mataemon Tanabe
The Fusen-ryū groundwork lineage
The origins of newaza-heavy jujitsu
How Uyenishi influenced Mitsuyo Maeda
Why his 1905 textbook looks uncannily like modern BJJ
And why his story changes how we understand BJJ history
If you train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling, or care about martial arts history, this is a story you need to know.
#MartialArtsDocumentary #ForgottenHistory #JiuJitsu #BJJ #MartialArtsLineage
Sadakazu Uyenishi is one of the most important figures in martial arts history that almost nobody talks about.
In the early 1900s, he opened Britain’s first commercial jujitsu school in London. He fought boxers and wrestlers in public challenge matches. He taught arm bars, collar chokes, and rear naked chokes decades before Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu existed as a named art.
And here’s the remarkable part:
The man who would later teach the Gracie family — Mitsuyo Maeda — chose to train with Uyenishi in London.
Uyenishi was trained at the Handa dojo in Osaka under Mataemon Tanabe, the famous Fusen-ryū jujitsu master who defeated Kodokan judoka using groundwork and submissions. That same system was adopted by the Japanese government for police training — and Uyenishi brought it directly to Britain in 1900.
In this video, I explore:
Uyenishi’s training under Mataemon Tanabe
The Fusen-ryū groundwork lineage
The origins of newaza-heavy jujitsu
How Uyenishi influenced Mitsuyo Maeda
Why his 1905 textbook looks uncannily like modern BJJ
And why his story changes how we understand BJJ history
If you train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling, or care about martial arts history, this is a story you need to know.
#MartialArtsDocumentary #ForgottenHistory #JiuJitsu #BJJ #MartialArtsLineage
