Officials at Marvel and DC had no information available about employees and advertisers from way back when, and the few comics pros of the period who returned my e-mails told me that the creative and advertising departments generally avoided one another. Unlike the comic artists and writers funded by their ad budgets, none of the marketers are legends. Few, too, probably directly interacted with the instructors themselves, which is just as well as it seems in one case, as we shall see, the instructor was extremely unhappy with the hyperbole.
It might be best to explore the Yubiwaza ads first. Any discussion of them likely makes the participants, dead or alive, cringe with embarrassment. Including all the colors of the rainbow, the ad is topped by a photo of Nelson J. “Mitch” Fleming, looking a bit imperious and, perhaps, stunned. “Boys! Men!” he says by word balloon:
I’ll help you master YUBIWAZA*
*(Yubiwaza is the secret, amazingly easy art of self-defense that turns just one finger or your hands into a potent weapon of defense–without any bodily contact…)
In just 2 hours after you receive “YUBIWAZA” you will be on your way to being an invincible Yubiwaza Master, at home, this Fast, EASY picture way or it costs you nothing.
It is commonly known that with the aid of Yubiwaza, young men—and girls too! —with only a few hours of training, turn back 2, 3 and even 4 attackers—temporarily DISABLING ONE, putting another to flight, making a third howl with pain, while the fourth begged his opponent to stop!
The experts in Japan, who know and teach these ONE-finger techniques, have now explained that YUBIWAZA is a centuries-old system of Self-Defense which is so simple and so effective that outsiders were never instructed in its use… Many of the very techniques in my Yubiwaza book, once highly guarded secrets of the ancient Samurai warriors never shown to outsiders are now shown to you—FIRST time!
Make no mistake! The world is crowded with anti-social enemies who think nothing of sticking a knife into the ribs…or attacking peace-loving citizens just for the fun of it…or molesting boys and girls shamelessly. There is a crying need for a system of self-defense that relies on KNOWLEDGE, not big muscles or strength…
And that system, yes, you guessed it, is YUBIWAZA.
Accompanying Fleming is a picture of his wife, Yoshie Imanami, who upstages her husband with the ad’s most memorable bit of phraseology:
“I weigh only 98 Lbs. —Yet I can paralyze a 200 pound attacker with just a finger—Because I know Yubiwaza!“
A quarter-page ad also exists, and this one is ceded entirely to Imanami, who makes an appeal to all the young women apparently reading Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales in 1968. Once again, Imanami brags about the power of her pretty little fingers:
“I CAN PARALYZE A 200-LB. ATTACKER WITH JUST ONE FINGER! Yet I weigh only 93 lbs.! YOU TOO can protect yourself with my SECRET Oriental System of Yubiwaza.
“Simply press your finger on one of the vital spots shown in this Yubiwaza system and your attacker may lose consciousness…or become paralyzed—completely unable to move. He releases his grip on you instantly—becomes helpless himself!”
Fleming was likely the first of the comic book senseis. Contemporary accounts indicate he was a serious martial artist, and his intentions to promote his style, Sosuishi-Ryu jiu-jitsu, were apparently good. Regardless, his Yubiwaza ads stand out as a prime example of martial arts marketing silliness. Fleming studied jiu-jitsu in Japan, where he was raised to third degree black belt and to brown belt in Kodokan Judo. There, he married Imanami, who apparently shared in his training.
As the story goes, the publisher of Yubiwaza signed up at Fleming’s New Jersey school for six months of private lessons back in 1960. The publisher convinced Fleming to write a book about his techniques. Fleming did, receiving only 200 bucks for his trouble. Fleming had no input on the advertising either, and here all his troubles began.
Yubiwaza is not a heretofore unknown martial art, which was probably what the publisher tried to make it sound like. Translated as “finger techniques,” it involves pressure point strikes with the fingers and thumbs. Calling Yubiwaza a martial art is akin to calling punching a martial art. What’s more, while some pressure point strikes require very little training (kick to the groin, anyone?), learning to correctly employ one to cause paralysis, or even to drop a weapon, takes years of training. On the off-chance anyone was ordering Yubiwaza with the intention of heading into a biker bar to pick a fight, this was dangerous stuff. It also made Fleming look and feel like a chump.
Fleming was extremely displeased with the ad and Yubiwaza, the manual, in general. Where he imagined a heftier book of 100 pages, the publisher slimmed it down to a mere 14. Yubiwaza was also more intended for women, not Boys! Men!, as shown by the instructional photos within it, showing Imanami defending herself against an “attacker”—namely, Fleming. He received letters of thanks from women who claimed this or that Yubiwaza technique saved their purses, honor, or lives, but Fleming disliked the trickery of it all. According to the Nov.-Dec. 1964 issue of Black Belt Magazine, he was especially frosted that the publisher created a “Yubiwaza Federation” (Yubiwaza came with an official membership card in this entirely unofficial, and wholly fictional, federation.)
