I was at a lot of those events, covering them for Black Belt back in the day. Reading about them was the only way a lot of martial arts guys found out what happened at shows in Japan, especially the ones that weren't available on PPV outside of Japan.
The whole idea is that they are dueling on the island, like in the old Miyamoto Musashi story about his sword fight on the actual little island called Ganryujima. The fog represents the surrounding water.
The male/female difference in Japan's Olympic performances is a good question, especially since some of those female medalists started out at Kiguchi Dojo.
As for my book, there are links in my sig that are where I usually announce those things. If Sherdog let's me, I'll announce it here as...
Lots of people haven't, but I think they'd find the story of his influence pretty interesting. That's why I wanted to include him in the book. Here's a link that shows him coaching Gomi and Sudo. It's all in Japanese, but gives an idea of his influence.
Good questions, especially the first one. Since he's in his 70's, I don't think he actively coaches much anymore. But Rumina Sato does occasionally put up pics on Facebook of Kiguchi-san teaching at his gym.
All good questions. Thanks for that. Looking forward to any more you come up with.
And yes, there's not much about him in English. That's one of the reasons I wanted him in the book. It's a really interesting story that hasn't been told.
Good question. I don't think so, but that's something I'll clear up in the interview. He has trained multiple Olympic medalists and, if I remember right, he was the national team coach for awhile. Kiguchi-san's biggest wins were Japanese national titles and (again, if I remember right) one at a...
Hi, guys. I started a similar thread in the World MMA forum, but wanted to let the diehard grapplers of Sherdog know that 1.) this old school Sherdogger is currently working on a book about the kakutougi boom of the early 2000's here in Japan and 2.) I'm interviewing Noriaki Kiguchi for it next...
Old school Sherdogger and occasional author here. I'm currently working on a book about the kakutougi boom of the early 2000's here in Japan and I'm interviewing Noriaki Kiguchi for it next week. For those who don't know, he was a champion wrestler way back in the late 60's and was a coach for...
For those interested in what's going on grappling-wise in Japan, they just held the 2017 Combat Wrestling World Championships here last weekend. Here's a link to the results page. I imagine the FICW president @Ivaylo Ivanov will post more about it soon. I just felt like posting something here...
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