|
|
To UM Judo Club
Webmaster
|
|
Donn Draeger lived a boyhood dream after he left the military, moved to
Japan, and studied martial arts there for over thirty years, apparently
living on his military pension and publishing revenues. Draeger is best
known for seven books: Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts, which is still in
print, and two trilogies. The first was a series of outstanding Judo
textbooks in which he promoted the serious study of Judo from an academic
standpoint, and strongly espoused weight training in Judo. The books are:
Judo Training Methods (1961), Judo for Young Men (1965), and Weight Training
for Championship Judo (1966). These three books are outstanding examples of
textbook publications, finely printed and bound, with slipcases and are
virtually unknown to the Judo public, although "Judo Training
Methods" has recently come back into print.
His more famous trilogy is "Martial Arts and Ways of Japan,"
which consists of three volumes: " Classical
Bujitsu","Classical Budo," "Modern Bujitsu and Budo."
These three firmly established Draeger as a serious historian and scholar.
An early proponent of sport Judo, involved with the Detroit Judo Club for
many years, as well as national level Judo in the United States, he later
tired of the politics of organized sports, and retreated to what he termed
"classical" styles. He published many papers and related books.
His home in Japan was kind of a way station for martial arts ex-pats from
various countries, and he may be as influential for the support he gave to
others who came to Japan to study, as for his own academic contributions.
See "Donn F. Draeger: A Lifelong Emodiment of the Samurai Code" by Robert W.
Smith Journal of Asian Martial Arts 8:3, 1999. Bibliography of
Draeger works at
Journal of Combative Sport: Enablers: Draeger Bibliography.
Donn Draeger died October 21, 1982, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
This page on this interesting figure of
20th Century martial arts history is under construction.
|
|