About

Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu

Developed by Alexander M. Marshall after a lifetime of study in a wide variety of martial arts, Akayama-Ryu jujutsu is a comprehensive fighting system. An advanced student of the art is capable of throwing and pinning an opponent, applying joint locks, chokes and immobilization techniques, striking and kicking the vital areas, attacking nerves, breaking bones, and using a wide variety of small, easily concealed weapons. It is an extremely practical combat art, applicable to both civilians and law enforcement officers.

Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu Evolution

Sensei Alex Marshall founded Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu in 1988 after over sixty years of dedicated study of the combat arts. Beginning with boxing and wrestling, Mr. Marshall was also a fencer and mounted lancer during his time at Alabama Polytechnic University, now Auburn University. Following graduation, he sought out and studied under a number of talented Japanese judoka and jujutsuka, eventually earning Black Belts from several organizations.

While teaching defensive tactics at the Birmingham Police Academy, Mr. Marshall began to formulate a practical system of combat utilizing the principles of off-balancing and leverage found in Japanese grappling arts. Judo and Aikido strongly influenced him, but it was the brutal efficiency of Jujutsu that formed the core of the art he was to name Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu.
In 1988, holding high dan rank in Judo, Aikido and two styles of Jujutsu, Mr. Marshall established Akayama-Ryu as a separate and distinctive system and named Mark Barlow and Richard Worthington as the senior instructors.

In the final years of his life, Mr. Marshall further refined and formalized the techniques and rank requirement. Upon his passing in 1994, Mark Barlow assumed the day to day management of the system and became the Senior Instructor. Akayama-Ryu is still growing and evolving. Under the leadership of the senior yudansha, Akayama-Ryu has grown and prospered and we now have dojo in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The practicality and effectiveness of Akayama-Ryu has been recognized and emulated by dojo and instructors across the country and Barlow Sensei and Worthington Sensei have taught at seminars in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Trindad & Tobago. Thanks to the stringent requirements of rank and the quality of our instructors, Akayama-Ryu will continue to be one of the premier martial arts available today.

About Alex Marshall, the Founder of Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu

Sensei Alex Marshall held advanced rank in Kodokan Judo, Tomiki Aikido, Shinin-Ryu Jujutsu, and Jikishinkage-Ryu Aikijujutsu before creating Akayama-Ryu Jujutsu. Beginning his study of the Japanese grappling arts shortly after World War I, Sensei Marshall continued to seek out and train with some of the finest instructors in the world. Time after time, black belts were awarded to him, only to be left in his bag when he entered a new dojo seeking further training.

Sensei Marshall's primary instructors were Okabayashi Sensei, Shishido Sensei, and Toshiaki Takikawa, all very talented judo and jujutsu Sensei. Shihan Takikawa introduced Sensei Marshall to the Aikijujutsu system of Jikishinkage-Ryu developed by his family in 1600 and handed down from generation to generation.

Along with teaching Judo at various YMCAs, colleges and community centers, Sensei Marshall taught self-defense to police cadets for almost 20 years as the Defensive Tactics instructor for the Birmingham Police Academy. He also taught a handful of senior students jujutsu at his home on weekends. This core group of students and the intense training sessions provided the foundation for Sensei Marshall's development of Akayama-Ryu. Until shortly before his death in 1994 at the age of 87, he was the first on the tatami and the last to bow out. It was his strength of character and his exceptional ability that forged the system we teach today