Three Things You Should Know About Muscular Christian History, and Don’t

[unrepentant progress]

I was already familiar with post-World War I muscular Christianity, and how it eventually evolved into and was subsumed by a broader eugenics movement, but I did not know about the pre-World War I Japanese-influenced origins.

“Japanese things are in fashion nowadays,” claimed one 1904 periodical. But “where does Japan get her muscle and pluck?” The Japanese are “an intelligent, wholesome people; strong, clean and moral.” Indeed, Americans would be served best “to take a few lessons from them, especially in the thoroughness with which they carry out anything they undertake”; and “this feature of thoroughness is strikingly manifested in their system of physical training [i.e. jiu-jitsu].” With the prevalence of hysteria, dyspepsia, feebleminded overbreeding, excessive whiskey consumption, tobacco poison, spermatorrea, and urban squalor in America, poor American health was in need of alleviation. Muscular Christians needed an exemplary—in martial arts as well as in life—and it was not themselves. With regard to physical culture, in Progressive era America, Japan led the way.

Touted because “a comparatively weak man, if he is thoroughly versed in its mysteries, can easily overcome and kill, if he please, an opponent greatly his superior in strength,” jiu-jitsu was seen as the pinnacle of skillful display, of brains over brawn. Theodore Roosevelt, who trained in different styles of wrestling, boxing, and savate (i.e. a French style of kickboxing), was probably the most vocal and high profile proponent and practitioner of Japanese martial arts; and he was not alone. Muscular Christian health reformers took on the Japanese cause.

“Although men of very small stature,” a 1904 Christian Advocate article exclaimed, the Japanese “are among the strongest in the world.” Fortunately, about a half an hour is “a long enough time to devote to jiu-jitsu,” and, “any boy of fourteen or fifteen who will faithfully practice their system of producing strength will find himself, at the end of a few months, able to cope in the feats of power with the average man of twenty-five, and all this without the dangerous practice of lifting very heavy weights.” Americans could be (and should be more) like the Japanese. The overall point of the article was that the Japanese simply breathe healthier; they have learned to take air better than Americans. An article from the Christian Observer that same year echoed this critique of American health culture, saying that “the Japanese have taught Europeans and Americans a lesson and quenched in some degree the conceit of Caucasian in his superior capacity to do all things.” It went on: “The Japanese are allowed to be among the very strongest people on the earth. They are strong mentally and physically.” And it is their diet “which enables them to develop such hardy frames and such well-balanced and keen brains.” The Japanese ate better. Even their women were better. Japanese women were more physically and mentally robust, less susceptible to hysteria and overwhelming nervousness than their Western counterparts. Not to be confused with the American woman who is easily shaken with a tendency to “rage inwardly at first,” a 1905 article in The Ladies’ Home Journal touted “the wonderful self-control of Japanese women”; it went on: a Japanese woman “is gentle and quiet, takes adversity without grumbling, makes the best of things, and has no nerves.” Better physical strength, better food, better air, better female psyches—all thanks to Japanese physical culture and jiu-jitsu. For further refinement of their gospel of health and fitness, Progressive era muscular Christians looked eastward.

Full post: http://usreligion.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-why-you-should-change-your.html

[Dawson Leery]

1. See this:

http://www.peterubel.com/health_wellbeing/is-it-time-to-put-an-end-to-high-school-sports-in-america/