was a Japanese martial artist and film choreographer.

Early life

Sugino was born in Naruto village, Chiba prefecture, in December 1904. When he was a child, his family moved to

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. He first encountered martial arts at

Keio University , abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally established as a school for Rangaku, Western studies in 1858 in Edo. It was granted university status in 1920, becomi ...

, where he enrolled in 1918; here he joined the

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...

kendo is a modern Japanese martial art, descended from kenjutsu (one of the old Japanese martial arts, swordsmanship), that uses bamboo swords ( shinai) as well as protective armor ( bōgu). It began as samurai warriors' customary swordsmanship ex ...

sumo is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by th ...

and

kyūdō ''Kyūdō'' () is the Japanese martial art of archery. Kyūdō is based on ''kyūjutsu'' ("art of archery"), which originated with the samurai class of feudal Japan. In 1919, the name of kyūjutsu was officially changed to kyūdō, and following ...

clubs, among others. In particular, he studied judo under Kunisaburo Iizuka, one of Japan's top collegiate coaches at the time. Discovering a proficiency for judo, he started his own dojo (the Kodokan Judo Shugyojo) in Kawasaki after a brief stint as a bank clerk.

Martial arts career

Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, introduced Sugino to the Katori Shinto-ryu school of

kenjutsu is an umbrella term for all ('' ko-budō'') schools of Japanese swordsmanship, in particular those that predate the Meiji Restoration. Some modern styles of kendo and iaido that were established in the 20th century also included modern forms o ...

in 1927. Sugino also started studying Yoshin Koryu under Genro Kanaya around this time. He met

aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art which is split into many different styles including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai, and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practic ...

's founder

Morihei Ueshiba was a Japanese martial artist and founder of the Japanese martial art, martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as "the founder" or , "Great Teacher". The son of a landowner from Tanabe, Wakayama, Tanabe, Ueshiba studied a number of ...

in the early 1930s, and studied aikido sufficiently to gain a teaching license and open an

Aikikai The Aikikai is the original school of Aikido. It is centered on the Aikikai Foundation in Japan, and its figurehead is the Doshu (the family heir of the founder of Aikido). It is represented globally through the International Aikido Federation ...

-affiliated dojo by 1935. By the 1940s he was teaching kenjutsu, aikido, judo and

naginatajutsu is the Japanese martial art of wielding the . The naginata is a weapon resembling the European glaive and the Chinese Guandao, guan dao. Most naginatajutsu practiced today is in a modernized form, a ''gendai budō'', in which competitions also ...

full-time.

Move to Fukushima

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Sugino's home and dojo were destroyed by bombing raids on Kawasaki. Sugino and his family fled to Fukushima, where he spent most of his time in martial arts training and used his medical knowledge (he had run a bone-setting clinic from his dojo in Kawasaki) to help the injured. After the war, the family returned to Kawasaki, where his clinic became very busy treating the war-wounded. By 1950, he had constructed a new dojo.

Film career

In 1953, Sugino was asked to provide sword instruction for the actors in

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

's film, ''

Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai action film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Taking place in 1586 in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, it follows the story of a villag ...

''. Originally the work was shared between Sugino and Junzo Sasamori of the Ono-ha Itto-ryu, but Sasamori pulled out early in the filming due to teaching commitments abroad. Sugino is also credited as fencing instructor for Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress" and "Yojimbo". His choreography for the fights departed from earlier,

Kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

-influenced work and focused on making the scenes as realistic as possible. Furthermore, Sugino also did the choreography for

Hiroshi Inagaki was a Japanese filmmaker who worked on over 100 films in a career spanning over five decades. He is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed filmmakers in the history of Japanese cinema, having directed several ''jidaigeki'' epics s ...

Samurai Trilogy The ''Samurai Trilogy'' is a film trilogy directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto and Kōji Tsuruta as Kojirō Sasaki. The films are based on '' Musashi'', a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa about the famous duelist ...

References

External links

Interview with Yoshio Sugino of Katori Shinto-ryu, 1961
*https://suginodojo.localinfo.jp/pages/928156/katori {{DEFAULTSORT:Sugino, Yoshio 1904 births 1998 deaths Japanese male judoka Japanese swordfighters 20th-century Japanese sportsmen