Rizal as Sportsman
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 03 Jan 2011
Last Thursday, the nation commemorated the death anniversary of National Hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, who was shot dead by musketry at Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park at the Luneta) on December 30, 1896 for inspiring the Filipinos to raise arms against Spain.
President Nonoy himself led in the celebration by recalling the heroic deeds of the Pride of Calamba in Laguna that were also the subject of numerous stories and columns that appeared in almost all the major newspapers.
None, however, wrote something about the National Hero being a sportsman.
Not many know that besides engaging himself in fencing like many of the illustrados and inteligencia during those times, chess and arnis, Dr. Rizal was also a practitioner of judo.
And if the former Philippine Amateur Judo Association president, retired police officer Rey Jaylo is to be believed, Dr. Rizal earned the distinction of being the first Filipino and, for that matter, Malay, to have practiced and taught the martial arts event.
Writer Consolacion Cristobal-Reyes once wrote that during one of Dr. Rizal?s visits to Japan, he admired the simple but bountiful of beauty of that country, the industriousness of the people and the distinctiveness of the Japanese art and culture.
Judo was among the arts that caught the attention of Dr. Rizal, who, at that time, was courting a Japanese beauty, who Capt. Jaylo identified only as Osei San.
The girl?s father Jiguro Kano, Jaylo attested in an interview while still at helm at PAJA, happened to be a proponent of the Kodokan style of judo and in his desire to attract the girl enrolled at the school ran by the San?s father where he learned the rudiment of the sport.
Dr. Rizal fell in love, not only with the girl but the sport as well, whose principle of employing the mental and physical strength taught to him by Kano, he espoused even when he returned to the country.
Kodokan involved the practiced the ?Way of Ju,? which means natural way which accords with the truth of the universe and the one that human beings have to follow.
?Dr. Rizal?s exile to Dapitan gave him the opportunity to practice the educational theories he learned from his travel around the world,? Cristobal-Reyes wrote in her article.
?He opened a school of judo for seventeen boys, mostly sons of of the living citizens of the town,? the article said.
?Aside from teaching his students the three Rs, Rizal made his pupils do rigid physical training he learned while a judo student,? Cristobal-Reyes wrote. ?With the seashore serving as outdoor gymnasium, he and his pupils set up bodybuilding paraphernalia composed of parallel bars, Roman ring and chinning bar.?
?Together with his physical fitness program, Rizal propagated the Japanese sport of judo, Spanish fencing, American boxing, the native arrnis and marksmanship,? the article said.
Jaylo, for his part, said that this is probably is the reason why up to this day, youth from Zambaonga, especially those from Dapitan, continued to be source of good judokas.
Incidentally, John Baylon, who only two months ago, had won his ninth gold medal in that sport in the Southeast Asian Games, comes from Zamboanga.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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