Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Moshe Feldenkrais published Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense as a training manual for Haganah recruits in 1930. The Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization, which sixteen-year-old Moshe Feldenkrais joined at its inception in 1920. Ten years later, this book describing his training method was published based on a decade of field experience.

His years of hand-to-hand combat spurred Moshe to write this book that presents his unusual self-defense method. The book is based on all movements of defense, where the first movement is the natural reactive movement that a person does without thinking. He concluded that any effective self-defense system must be based on a person’s automatic movements when attacked.

Shortly after Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense was published, Feldenkrais left Tel Aviv to continue his education in Paris, where he met Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo. After reviewing Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense, Kano engaged Feldenkrais to co-found the Jiu-Jitsu Club de France.

Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense is the first blossom of Moshe’s genius. This book contains the seeds that germinated and, many decades later, grew into the Feldenkrais Method®.