Jiro Takaesu

Jiro Takaesu (1901-2004)

Jiro Takaesu (1901-2004) was a karate master that immigrated from Okinawa to São Paulo, Brazil. When he was 100, a celebration was done with all the Okinawan community and with his old students. His older brother, Kamado Takaesu, was a direct student of Choyu Motobu. Kamado was very respected as a Udundi master. When Seikichi Uehara, the heir of Choyu Motobu’s Udundi came to Brazil, his first stuff was to visit Kamado.

Jiro Takaesu taught to few students out of Okinawa community. I don’t know whom into the community trained with him, but the late Moritoshi Nakaema, my very friend and one of my masters, trained some time with him. Nelson dos Santos (who introduce me to the Takaesu’s style) was one of the gaijin who trained with him. The Takaesu’s daughter was an expert in her father’s karate and he also taught to a famous mekata dancer (mekata), miss Kayo Tatsue.

Hanshi Takaesu’s 100^th birthday commemoration (at left). In the center, sensei Moritoshi Nalaema and at right sensei Nelson dos Santos.

Two brazilian students involved in professional fighting - Milton Rosa, a professional boxer, and Nelson dos Santos, that was a judo fighter those times – was accepted by Jiro Takaesu to learn karate. Nelson began his trainings with Takaesu in 1954, being introduced by Milton. Since then, Nelson left definitively the judo and dedicated entirely to karate. He taught to me the Takaesu’s karate, a very simple but efficient method.

Milton Rosa was a champion in the featherweight boxing category during many years and his strange form of fighting (posture and punchings) was nothing more than karate, unknown to the general public whom attended boxing fights in the 50s. The “secret techique” of Milton was the daily makiwara training.

Takaesu never worried with dans or promotions; his karate was a regional style that he brought to Brazil. He had few students, and his dojo was in the backyard of his house where there were several makiwaras. When I was introduced to this karate, I trained in the same way in the backyard of Nelson’s house where he also had some makiwaras. Although he was a Shotokan karate master very respected in the Brazilian karate community, the Nelson’s kumite was centered in the Takaesu’s style.

Demonstration of Sanchin (Nakaema and Nelson) during the Talaesu’s birthday commemoration.

The system

Takaesu’s method was based in four principles: makiwara, icihgi ichiri, ura-gake and kake-daoshi. About 50% of the training were on the makiwara, and each technique repeated to exhaustion to be mastered (ichigi ichiri). Ura-gake was an exercise to be trained with a partner to develop power, protect the centerline and hit the opponent into short distnces. Naifanchi and Sanchin (three steps) was the kata of the system. The others - Passai and Kusanku - were not taught occasionaly. All jissen techniques were based in Naifanchi. Sanchin had only three steps forward and not finished with mawashi-uke (a day I visited Takaesu together Nelson and ask him about this; he said that had learned this kata without this movement).

Blockings were trained with two partners knelt on the ground sitting on the heels, the knees touching that of the partner: tori does tsuki to face of uke, and this block with uchi-uke, and vice-versa, so techniques changes to tsuki to stomach and block with gedan-uke. There was two blocks against mae-geri: (1) sukui uke and (2) a downward block with kentsui raising up immediately the hand in a clenched fist to the meotode. All blocking and attack techniques should be done preserving the centerline protected.

There was just one kihon with short range steps using tsuki that changes immediately to meotode-no-kamae to protect the center. The kicks were taken below the waist, except for (bo-geri) which must hit the chin. There was a trick that sensei Nakaema called “Motobu’s jumping” which consisted of jumping over the opponent by twisting their neck (a chair was used for training). Nidan-geri was the other jumping tech. The training included also geta and nigirigame (using large wine bottles).

Takaesu’s kumite was based in kake-daoshi. This is blameworthy today but in the interest of the documentation I will explain it here. According Takaesu, kumite should be learned acquiring experience in actual fightings and discuss it post-factum with the sensei, and he explained how to improve them.  Milton Rosa and Nelson, being professional fighters were accepted due their experience in professional challenges and in “unconventional fights”. This was how the secret of kata were disclosed. By this reason, Takaesu prefered to taught to professional fighters. His karate concept were not compatible to the public teaching. Karate was violence under control. “You must learn the basics, practice a lot of makiwara, and ask to streets teache kumite to you”.