Sadakazu Uyenishi

Sadakazu Uyenishi (1880-?) was amongst the first Japanese jujitsu practitioners to both teach jujitsu and to compete using the art outside Japan.

Uyenishi was born in 1880, probably at Osaka Prefecture in Honshu, the main island of Japan. His father, Kichibe Uyenishi, had been a famous athlete, noted for his unusual physical strength and skill at kenjutsu, horsemanship, swimming and sumo wrestling.

Sadakazu’s first martial training was in kenjutsu. As he was contemplating a military career, his father encouraged him to begin training in jujitsu and he enrolled in a local dojo; in an interview, Uyenishi noted that it had been the school of Yataro Handa in Osaka. Uyenishi also later referred to having won several jujitsu competitions during his teen years.

Uyenishi was also a skilled exponent of rokushakubo and hanbo (combat techniques with a six-foot and three-foot staff, respectively).

In the year 1900, aged twenty, Uyenishi travelled to London at the invitation of Edward William Barton-Wright, the founder of the eclectic martial art of Bartitsu. Soon after his arrival in London, Uyenishi joined fellow expatriate Japanese wrestler Yukio Tani on the teaching faculty of Barton-Wright's Bartitsu Club in Shaftesbury Avenue. Tani and Uyenishi also began to distinguish themselves as professional wrestlers, competing successfully against much larger opponents in the contests promoted by Barton-Wright.

After the Bartitsu Club closed down (circa 1902), Uyenishi continued his work as a professional wrestler and also taught jiujitsu classes at the self defence academy that had been established by his former Bartitsu Club colleague, Pierre Vigny. His abilities as a teacher were often remarked upon, and by 1903 he had established his own dojo, the School of Japanese Self Defence, at 31 Golden Square, Picadilly Circus.

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