Danzan-Ryu Jujitsu was founded by Prof. Henry Seishiro Okazaki in Hawaii around 1922. He emigrated to Hawaii in 1906. In 1909 he was diagnosed by a doctor to have been suffering from incurable tuberculosis. After learning this Okazaki started to practice Jujitsu in earnest and in defiance of death. His frantic efforts and devotion to Jujitsu miraculously healed his tuberculosis Okazaki relized that he owed his life completely to Jujitsu, and decided to devote the rest of his life to the teaching and promotion of Jujitsu.
While he was in Hilo, Hawaii he mastered the Yoshinryu, Iwagaryu, and Kosogaburyu schools of Jujitsu. He then combined these schools with the Karate techniques of the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) and the knifing techniques of the Philipines, and created his own Danzan-Ryu school of Jujitsu.
In 1924 Okazaki returned to Japan, traveled extensively while visiting more than fifty Jujitsu dojos that were scattered between Morioka City in the north and Kagoshima in the south, studying the “Okugi” (Secret Teachings). He mastered 675 techniques of Jujitsu. Read about the KODENKAN JUJITSU OKUGI®
Upon his return from Japan he then started teaching on the island of Maui for a short period. Then in 1929 he moved to Honolulu where he bought the “Nikko” (Rays of the sun) residence at South Hotel Street. He converted it into the “Okazaki Seifukujitsuin” (Okazaki adjustment and restoration clinic), while at the same time he founded the Kodenkan Dojo where he taught Jujitsu until a series of strokes eventually caused his death in 1951.
Instruction at the Kodenkan…
The Jujitsu which is taught at the Kodenkan school in Santa Clara is the most accurate and up-to-date version of Prof. Okazaki’s system taught today. This uncompromising curriculum consists of the following:
- Yawara – hand arts
- Nage Te – throwing arts
- Shime Te – grappling arts
- Fusegi Jitsu – self-defense arts
- Oku Te – combination of arts
- Kiai no Maki – strength and weapon arts
- Kappo – resuscitation arts
- Seifukujutsu – restoration therapy
- Other advanced arts…