THE DAY JUJITSU DIED

Let us look at one historical instance that illuminates a lesson in task saturation, or what Miyamoto Musashi called "sword flowers."

- MARK HATMAKER

Jujitsu just happens to be the vehicle of this lesson. The art is not being picked on at all. The focus is less on the art than it is on the mind of the combat athlete who "fixes" beyond good sense or good health.

We will begin in France, spend time in a Black Hawk helicopter, allow a samurai to throw shade and wind up with pupils dilated for wiser choices with respect to tactics and strategy.

Early 20th-Century France: Edmond Desbonnet was a physicalculture purveyor and entrepreneur. Like all good businessmen, he kept an eye out for ways to increase his client count. During a trip to London in 1905, he encountered an exhibition involving an exotic art from Japan that was called jujitsu but was probably mostly judo. Taro Miyake was wowing spectators with his adept use of leverage to toss larger and stronger people willy-nilly.

Desbonnet saw an opportunity. He hired Miyake and his equally able colleague Kanaya to come to France for a few months to teach his core cadre. The French showed great enthusiasm for this "new" fighting art.

After they left, Desbonnet contracted Ernest Regnier, a combination man that is, a boxer who's also a wrestler-to go to London and learn all he could from Miyake and Kanaya. Afterward, he was to bring home his knowledge of the art and teach it within Desbonnet's establishment.

Regnier was not only a skilled boxer-wrestler, he was also a powerful, if smallish, man who took to jujitsu like a duck to water. He used his conditioning base and wrestling foundation to quickly become as capable as his instructors.

The combat-evolved Regnier then returned to France. To showcase his commitment to the new way, he even decided to Japanize his name to Re-Nie.