It has been said that the origin of Japanese wrestling dates back 1,960 years when two men stood up face to face and kicked each other, one kicked the other in the ribs and stamped on and crushed his waist and killed him, this has been regarded as the origin of jujitsu.

About 400 years ago the Takenouchi school of jujitsu was systemized. Sixty years later a Chinese came to Japan aand taught the art of boxing. And forty years later another Chinese visited Japan and introduced an art of seizing one's opponent. Through the process of elimination, and harmonization, a new art known as Yawara was created and popularized. This is the origin of the present day jujitsu.

Jujitsu is the term which has been applied, at different times, to the whole of the ancient Japanese national art of unarmed self-defense practiced by the Samurai or "warrior class" of Japan. The basic principle of this art is to avoid or give way before an opponent's superior weight and strength in order to overcome him by using his weight and strength to his disadvantage.

The older term JUJITSU, or gentle art,gave way in later years to the word JUDO, or gentle way,which stressed the ethical and philisophical concept of DO or a way in harmony with natural law. When the Japanese Ministry of Education adopted a limited form of the national art (Kodokan Judo) for sports instruction in the secondary schools, JUDO came in time to denote only the sport based on JUJITSU, and JUJITSU remained the only word to denote the entire art.