Japan Grapplers?

Where have fighters such as rumina sato, sakuraba, hideo tokoro, caol uno, K-taro Nakamura, Mishima, and Sakurai learn all their submission skills. They all semm to be skilled submission artists but I can never seem to find what they train. Supposedly Sakurai trains at a Kosen Judo dojo and the Wayjutsu grappling coach is supposedly a Kimura student but what about these other guys. Do they train BJJ, judo, SAW or what?

I think Catch Wrestling has roots in Japanese Prowrestling and some of the guys would have learned it there.

Sakurai was a Judoka

Mishima was a Judoka

Nakamura might have been a Judoka...I could be thinking wrong Nakamura.

Sato I dunno catch wrestling?

Caol Uno was a wrestler who went to the school started by Kimura's student...can't remember his name.

Sakuraba was a wrestler turned prowrestler...see catch wrestling roots in Puroresu(Japanese Pro Wrestling)

Tokoro I have no idea.

This is just what I have read about online or seen on Tapes over the years. For a better answer post this in the Japan Q&A.

TTT

one thing i noticed was that during the mundials, that a lot of the high level belts, there were alot of japanese guys, a lot with sick skills.

i think a lot of it comes from the shooto, pankration, judo, jiu jitsu backgrounds. prowrestling as well

Japanese culture venerates grapplers and grappling. Same with Russians.

The formula.....all members train 6 days a week, share techniques with other schools, enter every kind of competition: Shooto, grappling, BJJ, Sambo, Wrestling, etc.

Oh yeah, monthly dojo fees always include unlimited training. Tournaments are organized and no one group gets special treatment.

Don't forget, BJJ is becoming very popular in Japan and most, if not all of the fighters mentioned above either train BJJ directly or train at BJJ schools at least occaisionally.

I think Yuki Nakai has a lot to do with the spread of bjj.

How about this BJJ Brown?

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Lot's of good grapplers here, definitely enjoying being able to turn up 6-7 days a week and have people to roll with.

Seems like the formula here is "roll lots, when you have trouble ask someone..."

I have trained in japan for an extended period of time. You must understand that they are not going to bjj classes in tokyo. As we all know the submission game has existed out there for a long time.

Almost all the fighters out there trained in judo for ages while at high school or younger. It is pretty difficult to find someone who hasnt trained in judo at some point out there.

The number of bjj school is minimal compared to the many hundreds of submission schools.

In fact many japanese say that bjj 'does not exist in japan' as if to say that there is nothing brazilian or gracie about there training.

In fact most mma school i have been to have the mat split into two, one side does submission wrestling and the other have striking/mma etc.

The japanese submission game stems from there base in judo and wrestling and progresses from there interest in mma, sambo and there competition experience against bjj guys.

Because the human body can only move in so many ways efficient submission wrestling whether it be judo, sambo, bjj will always look the same. Eventually the best techniques and strategies reveal themselves.

Matt Banks- nice point.

I guess I was talking more about the actual BJJ Blackbelts in Japan. Seems like there are quite a few of them as well, and we can probably point to Yuki Nakai as the most prolific teacher of that sport.

In any case, I love watching Japanese grapplers, as they have a tendency to go for the submissions, rather than outpoint their opponents.

In this interview I have found Mishima states that he started out in judo.
http://judoforum.com/index.php?showtopic=3318&st=75 One of the dudes on this forum claims Mach Sakurai trains with his Kosen judo club. Caol Uno's trainers include Ryusuke Moriyama and Yoshinori Ishi who I believe were Kimura students.