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We define jujutsu as “an art of weaponless fighting employing holds, throws and paralyzing blows to subdue or disable an opponent.” This is not a bad definition of jujutsu, merely incomplete. To better understand jujutsu, it is necessary to look at its origins and the fundamental principles that underlie this comprehensive fighting system. Jujutsu's origins have been largely lost in Japan's prehistory. Even before the Samurai of ancient Japan existed, jujutsu-like combat forms were being developed and used in combat. The first records of combative grappling can be found shortly before 750 A.D. This is an historical and well-documented fact. Another fact is a samurai was seldom, if ever, without a weapon. That leads to the question of why a group of warriors who were always armed would devote the time and considerable effort and energy to develop a system of purely empty-hand combat. Obviously, they wouldn't. Classical jujutsu maintained a balance of weapon and empty-hand methods with a great deal of overlap and blending. Therefore, jujutsu was designed originally as an auxiliary skill to be used in conjunction with weapon arts, not as a replacement.

Samurai of pre-Tokugawa Japan were required to be adept in a vast range of combat skills. Kyujitsu, kenjutsu, bajutsu, sojutsu and kumi-uchi were among the basics, these being the techniques of the bow and arrow, the sword, horsemanship, the spear and grappling in armor. These skills were part of a vast array of bugei or martial arts, essential to combat in feudal Japan. The term bujutsu also means martial arts but came into use much later and tends to be used today when listing such non-sport arts as kenjutsu, iaijutsu and aikijutsu. Under a daimyo (a regional authority) or within a family clan, instruction was offered to retainers or family members in the weapons and skills of the Samurai as taught by their particular ryu. While ryu is usually translated as school or style, there were often many different arts taught within any one ryu. In order to adequately prepare their members for combat, the ryu instructors would have needed to teach a wide variety of bugei. Most ryu contained some jujutsu methods.

Terminology varied from system to system, taijutsu, wajutsu, torite and yawara being just a few of the names used for various jujutsu-like systems. Regardless of the name used, the underlying principle remained the same with jujutsu being a secondary study and a part of the whole, not separate unto itself. It was not until the Edo period (1603-1868) that jujutsu became a generic term used to describe this wide range of techniques. This period is considered the “Golden Age” of jujutsu, when the major schools flourished and technique was brought to its highest level. With the coming of the Tokugawa shogunate and its control of Japan at the beginning of the 1600's, battlefield combat largely became a thing of the past. As the need for standing armies and the mobility required by war declined, many ryu began to reflect this change. Samurai were able to concentrate on one aspect of combat and attempt to master all aspects of it. As duels to the death were frowned on by the government, the severity of the techniques began to lessen and the ability to control or disable an opponent using non-lethal methods became respected and valued.

During the more than two hundred years of the Tokugawa rule, a general peace existed in Japan. Shut off from the rest of the world and tightly controlled and regulated to the smallest detail, Japanese society was prevented from returning to its former state of civil unrest by a Big Brother government that severely punished nonconformity and political activism. It was during this period that jujutsu reached its zenith and much of what we recognize as jujutsu today was developed.