Before John Keehan the rich history of martial are was firmly established in the United States. This time line examines that history to gain a sens e of the forces that shaped the persona of John Timothy Keehan aka Count Dante.
The stances and single wrapped fist of Hausa boxers bear visual resemblance to illustrations of Ancient Egyptian and Hellenistic boxers. This has caused speculation that Hausa boxing is directly related to Ancient Egyptian boxing[8] and who influenced whom is always a contentious topic, but the argument is supported by theories that the Hausa people used to live farther east, toward Sudan, than they do today. Dambe is a form of boxing associated with the Hausa people of West Africa. Historically, Dambe included a wrestling component, known as Kokawa, but today it is essentially a striking art. The tradition is dominated by Hausa butcher caste groups, and over the last century evolved from clans of butchers traveling to farm villages at harvest time, integrating a fighting challenge by the outsiders into local harvest festival entertainment. It was also traditionally practised as a way for men to get ready for war, and many of the techniques and terminology allude to warfare. Today, companies of boxers travel, performing outdoor matches accompanied by ceremony and drumming, throughout the traditional Hausa homelands of northern Nigeria, southern Niger and southwestern Chad.[1] The name "Dambe" derives from the Hausa word for "boxe", and appears in languages like Bole as Dembe.
Africa smelted iron already in ancient times, 500 BC or even earlier. In the regions of Tanzania inhabited by the Haya people, carbon dating has shown that blast furnaces were as old as 2000 years, whereas steel of this calibre did not appear in Europe until several centuries later.. The Hayas made their steel in a kiln shaped like a truncated upside-down cone about five feet high. They made both the cone and the bed below it from the clay of termite mounds. Termite clay makes a fine refractory material. The Hayas filled the bed of the kiln with charred swamp reeds. They packed a mixture of charcoal and iron ore above the charred reeds. Before they loaded iron ore into the kiln, they roasted it to raise its carbon content. The key to the Haya iron process was a high operating temperature. Eight men, seated around the base of the kiln, pumped air in with hand bellows. The air flowed through the fire in clay conduits. Then the heated air blasted into the charcoal fire itself. The result was a far hotter process than anything known in Europe before modern times. Anthropologist Peter Schmidt wanted to see a working kiln, but he had a problem. Cheap European steel products reached Africa early in the 20th century and put the Hayas out of business. When they could no longer compete, they'd quit making steel.
In Egyptian pictographs depicting the exploits of Ramses III, the pharaoh is shown wrestling with foreigners and subsequently vanquishing them. These images serve to buttress the reputation of Ramses and Egypt as a whole, but they may have been more propaganda than reality. Nubian wrestlers had a dynamic style of fighting similar to today’s freestyle wrestling, explains Steve Craig in Sports and Games of the Ancients. Egyptians seemed to defined any darker-skinned Africans as “Nubians,” although there is currently a group of people known as the Nuba in Sudan who continue to have their own sport of wrestling which includes regular competitions that are community events featuring food, dancing, and wrestling matches.
Palmares, or Quilombo dos Palmares, was a fugitive community of escaped slaves and others in colonial Brazil that developed from 1605 until its suppression in 1694. It was located in what is today the Brazilian state of Alagoas. No contemporary document calls Palmares a quilombo, instead the term mocambo is used. Palmares was home to not only escaped enslaved Africans, but also to mulattos, caboclos, Indians and poor whites, especially Portuguese soldiers trying to escape forced military service.
Palmares, or Quilombo dos Palmares, was a fugitive community of escaped slaves and others in colonial Brazil that developed from 1605 until its suppression in 1694. It was located in what is today the Brazilian state of Alagoas.
The earliest known historical record of Capoeira as a martial art is approximately 1770, long after early years of slavery. No further accounts of Capoeira are found until the early 1800's in the form of various police records from Rio de Janeiro.
Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives opening up more trade with Japan in what was called the Bakumatsu. When Commodore Matthew C. Perry's four-ship squadron appeared in Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay) in July 1853, the bakufu (shogunate) was thrown into turmoil. Commodore Perry was fully prepared for hostilities if his negotiations with the Japanese failed, and threatened to open fire if the Japanese refused to negotiate. He remitted two white flags to them, telling them to hoist the flags when they wished a bombardment from his fleet to cease and to surrender.[9] To demonstrate his weapons Perry ordered his ships to attack several buildings around the harbor. The ships of Perry were equipped with new Paixhans shell guns, capable of bringing destruction everywhere a shell landed.[10][11]
In 1867/68, the Tokugawa era found an end in the Meiji Restoration. The emperor Meiji was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo which became the new capital; his imperial power was restored. The actual political power was transferred from the Tokugawa Bakufu into the hands of a small group of nobles and former samurai. Like other subjugated Asian nations, the Japanese were forced to sign unequal treaties with Western powers. These treaties granted the Westerners one-sided economical and legal advantages in Japan. In order to regain independence from the Europeans and Americans and establish herself as a respected nation in the world, Meiji Japan was determined to close the gap to the Western powers economically and militarily. Drastic reforms were carried out in practically all areas.
Gichin Funakoshi (November 10, 1868 – April 26, 1957) was the creator of Shotokan karate, perhaps the most widely known style of karate, and is attributed as being the 'father of modern karate.'[1] Following the teachings of Anko Itosu, he was one of the Okinawan karate masters who introduced karate to the Japanese mainland in 1921. He taught karate at various Japanese universities and became honorary head of the Japan Karate Association upon its establishment in 1949.
In 1879, President U.S Grant was in Japan on a state visit and observed a demonstration of judo techniques by 19-year-old Jigoro Kano.
Jiro Kano at age 22 founds his own system of jujitsu called Kodendan Ju(do). He emphasized his art as a do or a way of life, with many ideas, philosophies, and ethics, as well as a pseudo-sport and physical activity in peace time. Kodokan Judo was founded by Jigoro Kano, who as a youth began practicing jujutsu* as a way to strengthen his frail body. Kano studied both the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu and Kito-ryu styles of classical jujutsu, eventually mastering their deepest teachings, and supplemented this training with an avid interest in other combative forms as well. Integrating what he considered the positive points of these with his own ideas and inspirations, he established a revised body of physical technique, and also transformed the traditional jujutsu principle of "defeating strength through flexibility" into a new principle of "maximum efficient use of physical and mental energy." The result was a new theoretical and technical system that Kano felt better matched the needs of modern people.
Morihei Ueshiba was born in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan on December 14, 1883.[1] [2] The only son of Yoroku and Yuki Ueshiba's five children, Morihei was raised in a somewhat privileged setting. His father was a rich landowner who also traded in lumber and fishing and was politically active. Ueshiba was a rather weak, sickly child and bookish in his inclinations. At a young age his father encouraged him to take up sumo wrestling and swimming and entertained him with stories of his great-grandfather Kichiemon who was considered a very strong samurai in his era. The need for such strength was further emphasized when the young Ueshiba witnessed his father being attacked by followers of a competing politician.[3] Ueshiba is known to have studied several martial arts in his life but he did not train extensively in most and even his training in Yagyū Shingan-ryū was sporadic due to his military service in those years. Records show that he trained in Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū jujutsu under Tozawa Tokusaburō for a short period in 1901 in Tokyo; Gotō-ha Yagyū Shingan-ryū under Nakai Masakatsu from 1903 to 1908 in Sakai, and judo under Kiyoichi Takagi 1911 in Tanabe.[1
Abolition of slavery on May 13, 1888. After the abolition, some ex-slaves returned to Africa, but the majority stayed in Brazil. The planters being no longer interested in them as a work force, most headed to the cities to form slums and shanty towns. There was no employment in the cities either, and many organized into criminal gangs. Others, more fortunate because of their knowledge of capoeira, were hired by politicians as bodyguards. All were seen by the government as a "plague." Capoeira is considered the domain of thugs and criminals and is outlawed.
Vicente Ferreira Pastinha (commonly called Mestre Pastinha) (April 5, 1889, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil – November 13, 1981) was a mestre (a master practitioner) of the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira.
Because of it's association with crime capoeira is outlawed
Edward William Barton-Wright C.E., M.J.S. (member of the Japan Society) (1860–1951) was a British entrepreneur specialising in both self defence training and physical therapy. He is remembered today as one of the first Europeans to teach Japanese martial arts and as a pioneer of the concept of hybrid martial arts.
Manuel dos Reis Machado, commonly called Mestre Bimba (born November 23, 1899, Salvador, Brazil – February 5, 1974), was a mestre (a master practitioner) of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira.
Yoshiaki Yamashita, 6th dan, was the first person to teach judo in the U.S. He arrived in 1902 at the invitation of Mr. Graham Hill, director of the Great Northern Railroad.
Yoshiaki Yamashita teaches Judo to society women and eventually to President Theodore Roosevelt, who become a 3rd Degree black belt. During his time in office there is a Judo dojo in the White House.
Gichin Funakoshi introduces Karate to Shuri School Districts in Okinawa. Karate becomes accessible to populous upon a recommendation from Doctors in 10902. Gichin Funakoshi began giving demonstrations.
In January 1905, Yamashita got a job teaching judo at the U.S. Naval Academy. There were about 25 students in his class, including a future admiral, Robert L. Ghormley.[20] The position ended at the end of the school term, and Yamashita was not rehired for the following year.[21] When President Roosevelt heard of this, he spoke to the Secretary of the Navy, who in turn told the Superintendent of the Naval Academy to rehire Yamashita.[22] Consequently, Yamashita's judo was taught at the Naval Academy throughout the first six months of 1906
Gichin Funakoshi and students begin giving first public demonstrations of Karate throughout Okinawa. In 1906 Gichin Funakoshi and some of his friends formed a group that made public demonstrations of karate all over Okinawa, this must have been the first time karate was made public. They were present for the inaugural ceremony of the, at that time, new prefecture building, many important people were present at the event. Gichin Funakoshi was asked to preside a group of five great masters of karate. Master Funakoshi was also the first expert to introduce karate to the main islands of Japan, in 1916 (1917 by other sources) he did a demonstration in the Butoku-den in Kyoto, at that moment in time this was the official headquarters of all martial arts in Japan.
The first Kodokan judo school in the U.S. opens in Seattle.
• Jackson Johnson - Heavyweight Boxing Champion 1908-1915
John Frederic Coulon (February 12, 1889 – October 29, 1973) was the bantamweight boxing champion of the world from 6 March 1910, when he wrested the crown from England's Jim Kendrick, until 1914, when he was defeated by Kid Williams. He would later become John Keehan's boxing instructor.
In 1928, a new chapter in the history of capoeira began, as well as a change in the way black people (of African descent, brought to Brazil as slaves) were looked upon by the Brazilian society. After a performance at the palace of Bahia's Governor, Juracy Magalhães, Bimba was finally successful in convincing the authorities of the cultural value of capoeira, thus in the 1930s ending its official ban, in effect since 1890.
Machado founded the first capoeira school in 1932, the Academia-escola de Cultura Regional, at the Engenho de Brotas in Salvador, Bahia.
In 1936, Bimba challenged fighters of any martial art style to test his regional style.
Count Juan Raphael Dante (born John Timothy Keehan in Chicago, Illinois, 4 February 1939, died 25 May 1975) was a controversial American martial artist figure during the 1960s and '70s who claimed he could do extraordinary feats such as Dim mak.
An Egyptian fresco, dated to 3400 BCE, and depicting military training at Beni Hassan is the world's oldest known artistic representation of an organised fighting system. In gymnasiums similar to those of Greece, recruits would practice wrestling, callisthenics and duelling with single-stick. The attacking weapon apparently had a basket-guard protecting the hand, while the left forearm had a splint strapped on to serve as a shield. Soldiers fought with spears, large shields with an eye-hole, clubs, axes, poleaxes, flails, bows, slings, and swords of various forms.
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