The Butokuki

   At the end of the 19th century the Emperor of Japan, Mutsu Hito, decided to create an organization gathering all the grandmasters of the traditional and authentic Japanese martial arts: from ken-jitsu to ju-jitsu, from sumo to archery, etc.

   This institution was called Butokukai, taking again the name of a famous school formed in 782 A.D, in Japan by the Kimmu emperor, the famous academy of martial arts which formed the first “Bushi”, the fearsome Japanese noble warriors.

   The word Butokukai is usually translated “School of the warlike virtues”, its more correct translation, on the basis of its ideogram, is, significantly, “School of art to stop the lance” and thus to stop conflict, to defend peace.

   Thereafter this institution also accepted in its centre, by order of the Emperor, disciplines like judo, aikido and karate. This not without resistance on the part of the Butokukai grandmasters, who esteemed that while these emerged from authentic martial arts, they were not fully up to standard.

   This organization quickly became very powerful until reaching, in the 1930s, three million members.

   Alongside the Butokukai there were private organizations such as the Kodokan for judo, directed by grandmaster Jigoro Kano – which itself became part of the Butokukai, albeit with a not especially prominent role – the Aikikai for aikido and the Shotokan for karate, directed respectively by the grandmasters Ueshiba and Funakoshi; but by far the most respected organization was the Butokukai.

   Among other things, although judo was created by grandmaster Jigoro Kano - and thus its most important center was the Kodokan - the Japanese championships of this discipline were always gained by judokas of Butokukai: its ju-jitsu grandmasters wasted no time in creating a more efficient form of judo, thanks to their legendary skills.

   The Butokukai was inspired directly by the Bushido, the code of honor of the Bushi, the noble samurai of traditional Japan. At the headquarters in Kyoto, the Busen, where the elite trained, the schedule was severe: 8 hours training per day, as opposed to three hours at the Kodokan.

   With regard to ju-jitsu the grandmasters, until then rivals, had developed, still under the orders of the Emperor, a method derived from the most advanced techniques of their schools: ju-jitsu Butokukai.

   This method, known as the “supreme” method, was held top secret.

   It is at the end of the war, in 1945, that everything changes in Japan. The emperor surrenders in face of damage caused by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the grandmasters of Butokukai, considering surrender to be contrary to their samourai ethic refused to surrender, thus disobeying the emperor and consequently being punishable by death.

   These grandmasters who moreover saw the imposition by the Americans an article of the peace treaty specifying the final suppression of Butokukai, reacted by deciding in their turn that the authentic martial arts were to disappear with the Butokukai, so that they should never fall into the hands from the Americans, who for them were always enemies. They no longer taught their arts, and forced their remaining disciples to follow the same path.

   Thus they caused the disappearance of high-level authentic Japanese martial arts disappear.

   Only the forms of Ju-Jitsu adopted for a long time by special forces, the army and police forces and corps throughout the whole world could escape this disappearance; but it was only of elementary forms or, more rarely, an about average level of ju-jitsu.

   However, during the 1930s, Japan had established relations privileged with Italy, subsequently transformed into an alliance. Within this framework, there were exchanges of experts, sometimes in top secret. After complex negotiations, the Butokukai sent two Ju-Jitsu experts to Italy. This with the intention to train as many instructors as quickly as possible with a view to teaching Ju-Jitsu to Italian schoolboys and students.

   Mr Giuseppe Surace was chosen to receive this training by the chief of the youth movement of the Peninsula, Mr. Renato Ricci. Giuseppe Surace, a graduate of the higher Academy of physical education in Rome was a specialist in “saggi ginnici”: demonstrations where thousands of young people carried out together, in a stadium, a series of physical exercises.

   However, at the moment when the training of Giuseppe Surace had reached the required level, and when he was ready to start training instructors in turn, the Second World War broke out, and the program had to be suspended.

   But Mr Giuseppe Surace had a son who because of the rivalries of the time between the north and the south of Italy, was always getting into fights.

   Thus when, during the Christmas holidays, his father Giuseppe returned home thanks to a 15 days permission, he noticed his son’s bruises, that the boy sported with nonchalance. When carefully examining the mark left by a blow very close to the temple, he pointed out to him that one centimetre lower and he would have died as a result.

   Teacher-captain Surace decided that before leaving home again his kid was to learn Ju-Jitsu. In 15 days.

   And the training began. Eight hours a day, exactly as in the Butokukai in Kyoto: 4 hours the morning, 4 hours the afternoon.

   And it was precisely during this of daily and very malicious fights with boys usually older than him, that Stefano could try out for himself the incredible effectiveness of these “tricks” that Dad had taught him, and to practise them to perfection in all kinds of situations and all kinds of surfaces.

   The war over, young Stefano Surace had grown enough to train one-on-one directly with his father, who gave him as the last secrets he had learned from the grandmasters of the Butokukai which he had kept hidden. His father, out of respect for his promises to the grandmasters of the Butokukai, did not open a school. As for Stefano, he became a scout master, he limited himself to teaching some ‘self defense’ techniques to scouts, within the framework of the very sophisticated survival methods already used in this organization.

   Moving forward to the 1980s, Stefano Surace settled was then in Paris, as an official correspondent of an Italian news service. Here, he started practising ju-jitsu Butokukai with some friends, in a confidential way, in the room of the Italian catholic Mission in Paris. He did this both to keep in shape and to prevent a martial arts which represents the highest evolution of ju-jitsu - and an inheritance belonging not only to Japan but to all humanity – from disappearing forever.

   He was then contacted by Sylvain Salvini, a well-known martial arts historian and a former president of the federation of French boxing. Sylvain Salvini had read, in one of Stefano Surace’s books, that the latter had been attacked and yet had escaped from the tricky situation with Ju-Jitsu techniques.

    Stefano Surace allowed Sylvain Salvini to attend the one of his classes. Struck by what he had witnessed, Salvini spoke about it with Pierre Yves Bénoliel, editor-in-chief of the specialized magazine “Karate-Bushido”, and persuaded grandmaster Surace to give this magazine an interview which appeared at the end of September 1989. This article revealed certain principles which until then had been secret, not only of Stefano Surace’s art but also of other authentic martial arts.

   With this interview, ju-jitsu Butokukai started to emerge from the shadows. Several practitioners, or teachers, of other martial arts, wishing to achieve a higher level, contacted grandmaster Surace to be allowed to attend his classes.

   He had therefore to make his teaching officially by initially founding a dojo, “Ju-Jitsu Butokukai Club of France”, and a Federation, the FFJJBA (French Federation of Ju-Jitsu Butokukai and Associated disciplines); later, he will create the Butokukai Institute of Europe.