Unit 5 · A School with a Rulebook

In Japan from the 1600s to the 1800s, many teachers taught jujutsu. The word means the gentle art or the soft skill. It was a set of ways to handle an attacker without a weapon, or with a small one.

Each teaching family was called a ryū, which means a school or a stream. A ryū had its own name, founder and lessons. Records list many different jujutsu ryū in this long era, called the Edo period.

A ryū often gave written scrolls to its best students. These scrolls named the lessons and the teachers before them. The scrolls were private. Outsiders could not easily read them or join.

In 1868 a new government took power in Japan. This change is called the Meiji Restoration. The new leaders wanted railways, factories, an army like Europe’s and public schools for all children.

The new government ended the old ranks of society. The samurai, a warrior class, lost their special place. In 1876 a law banned most people from wearing swords in public.

Many old arts looked out of date in this fast new Japan. Some jujutsu teachers lost their students and their pay. Some performed for money. Some ryū closed, and their lessons were nearly lost.

Kanō Jigorō was born in 1860 in Mikage, near Kobe, Japan. His family moved to Tokyo when he was a boy. He was a strong student in English and other school subjects.

As a teenager, Kanō wanted to study jujutsu. He found a teacher named Fukuda Hachinosuke of the Tenshin Shin’yō-ryū. After Fukuda died, he trained with Iso Masatomo of the same school.

Later Kanō trained with Iikubo Tsunetoshi of the Kitō-ryū. Now he knew the lessons of two different schools. He began to compare them and keep what he thought worked best for students.

In 1882 Kanō opened a training room at Eishōji, a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. It had only a few mats. He called his school the Kodokan. The name means a place for teaching the way.

Kanō named his subject judo, the gentle way. The word ju is the same one in jujutsu. Do means a way or path. Kanō chose do to show that judo was a way of living and learning, not only fighting.

The school moved several times as it grew. It needed bigger rooms for more students. Today the Kodokan Judo Institute stands in the Bunkyō area of Tokyo, and it still keeps judo’s official ranks.

Kanō was a teacher first. In 1889 he gave a talk in Tokyo on judo and education. He said judo could train three things: the body, skill in contests, and the mind and character.

In 1922 Kanō began the Kodokan Culture Society. He used two short phrases to sum up judo. Seiryoku zen'yō means best use of energy. Jita kyōei means mutual welfare and benefit, or you and others doing well together.

These ideas made judo sound like a school subject. Parents and schools could see a goal beyond winning. Kanō wanted students to use judo lessons in study, work and daily life.

Old ryū often marked progress with private scrolls. Kanō used numbered ranks instead. Beginners held kyū grades. Advanced students held dan grades, counted first dan, second dan and up.

In 1883 Kanō gave the first dan grades. Two of the first were his students Saigō Shirō and Tomita Tsunejirō. Over time, a black belt became the visible sign that a student held a dan rank.

A number is easy to read. A student from one judo club could tell another club what rank they held. The Kodokan kept records of each promotion. This made ranks public, not secret.

Kanō worked in education for most of his life. For many years he was the head of the Tokyo Higher Normal School. A normal school is a college that trains new teachers.

Teachers trained there went on to schools across Japan. In the early 1900s, Japanese middle schools began to offer judo and kendo, the sword art, as school subjects. Judo now had a place in the school timetable.

Kanō also looked beyond Japan. In 1909 he became the first member from Asia on the International Olympic Committee, called the IOC. He traveled to Europe and the United States many times to speak about judo.

Kanō died in 1938, on a ship coming home from an IOC meeting in Cairo, Egypt. By then judo clubs met in Britain, France and elsewhere in Europe, the Americas and other parts of Asia.

After World War II, national judo groups wanted to hold contests together. In 1951 they formed the International Judo Federation, or IJF. A federation is a group of member groups that agree on shared rules.

The IJF set rules for world contests. It ran the first World Judo Championships in Tokyo in 1956. The Kodokan still kept ranks in Japan, while the IJF ran world events.

Tokyo hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964. Judo was on the program for the first time. The contests were held in the Nippon Budokan, a new hall built in Tokyo for martial arts.

There were four events, all for men. Three had weight classes, groups of athletes of similar body weight. The fourth was an open class for any weight. Japanese athletes won the three weight-class gold medals.

The open class ended in a surprise. Anton Geesink of the Netherlands beat Kaminaga Akio of Japan for the gold. His win showed that judo now belonged to athletes from many countries.

Kanō taught some women judo privately in the early 1900s. In 1926 the Kodokan opened a women’s section. Women trained there, but for decades they had few official contests.

Keiko Fukuda trained at that women’s section in the 1930s. She was the granddaughter of Fukuda Hachinosuke, Kanō’s first teacher. She later taught judo in California for many years, and USA Judo named her tenth dan in 2011.

Judo joined the Paralympic Games in Seoul in 1988. Paralympic judo is for athletes who are blind or have low vision. Women’s judo became an Olympic medal sport in 1992 in Barcelona.

Kanō’s Kodokan used named kinds of practice. Kata are set forms. Two partners follow a fixed order of named movements, like a written piece of music. Kata kept older lessons from being lost.

Randori means free practice. Partners practice with each other without a set order, and no one keeps score. Kanō thought randori and kata worked best together.

Shiai means contest. A shiai has a winner and a loser, so it needs clear rules. Who may enter? When does it start? What counts as a score? The contest is where judo needed a written code most.

In judo’s early years, many contests were held between Kodokan students and students of older jujutsu schools. Each side could argue about what was fair. Written rules helped settle those arguments before a match began.

Around 1900 the Kodokan wrote down its own contest rules. The rules named how a match was scored and which moves were not allowed. The Dai Nippon Butokukai, a national martial arts body founded in Kyoto in 1895, also worked on shared rules.

After the International Judo Federation formed in 1951, it wrote the rules for world contests. The IJF still updates its refereeing rules, usually every few years. A club in Illinois and a club in Japan can read the same rules.

In a judo contest, the referee is the official on the mat who runs the match. The referee uses Japanese words everywhere, from Brazil to Canada. The words came from the Kodokan’s Tokyo rooms.

Hajime means begin. The referee says it to start the contest. Matte means wait. The referee says it to pause the match, for example when athletes go off the mat area.

Sore made means that is all. The referee says it when time runs out. Keeping these words in Japanese lets athletes who share no language still understand every call.

Judo rules name different scores. The highest is ippon, which means one full point. When a referee calls ippon, the contest ends right away, even if time is left on the clock.

A smaller score is called waza-ari. The IJF rules have changed how waza-ari counts several times. The rules also removed a smaller score called yuko in 2017, to make scoring simpler to follow.

Senior IJF contests today last four minutes. If the score is tied when time runs out, the contest goes to golden score. In golden score, the first athlete to score wins.

Early judo contests in Japan often did not sort athletes by weight. A small athlete could face a much larger one. Kanō taught that skill could overcome size, and stories of small winners were told proudly.

Modern contest rules use weight classes for fairness and safety. At the 1964 Olympics, men’s judo had three weight classes and an open class. The number of events grew in the years after.

The open class was dropped from the Olympics after 1984. Since 2000, Olympic judo has had seven weight classes for men and seven for women. Each class has a set top weight, weighed before the contest.

A rulebook does more than list scores. It also says what is not allowed. Judo rules have always named some moves as banned in contests, because they are too dangerous. Referees stop a contest when one is tried.

A small penalty is called shido, which means guidance. A referee may give shido when an athlete avoids contact or steps out of the contest area. Too many shido can cost an athlete the match.

The biggest penalty is hansoku-make, which means defeat by a serious rule break. It ends the contest. An athlete can also be given hansoku-make for acting against the spirit of judo, such as disrespect.

In Japan, people bow as an everyday greeting and a sign of respect. Kanō’s Kodokan made the bow part of judo practice. The Japanese word for a bow is rei.

The IJF rules say athletes bow to each other at the start and end of a contest. Many judo clubs also ask students to bow when they step onto or off the mat. Clubs describe it as a sign of respect for partners and the room.

In judo, the bow is a greeting, not worship. The dojo, or practice hall, may also be a school gym or a rented room. Clubs around the world keep this Kodokan custom.

Fifteen years before the Kodokan opened, boxing got a written code in England. The Queensberry Rules were published in 1867. John Graham Chambers wrote them, and the Marquess of Queensberry gave them his name.

The rules called for a ring 24 feet across, rounds of three minutes and padded gloves. A boxer who went down had ten seconds to get up. The Marquess was a Scottish nobleman, John Sholto Douglas.

Judo and boxing grew in different lands and have different rules. But both codes did the same big job. They wrote down a start, an end, what was banned and how a winner was named.

For most of judo’s history, both athletes wore white. Referees and viewers could mix them up. In the late 1990s, the IJF began using one blue jacket and one white jacket in top contests.

Rule changes also add new events. At the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, judo added a mixed team event. Each team had both men and women from one country.

Some people in judo argued against changes like the blue jacket. They said white was part of Kanō’s tradition. The IJF decided that clear viewing mattered more. A living code is argued over and rewritten.

Every martial arts school has a safety routine. Students warm up and check the floor before they move.

1. Have a grown-up nearby who knows you are practicing.

2. Clear a space. Stretch your arms out and lift one knee. If you touch nothing, the space is big enough.

3. Bare feet are best on a mat. On a smooth floor, wear sneakers, not socks, so you do not slip.

4. Warm up for three minutes: march, swing your arms in big circles, and lift your knees.

5. Watch each move in the Dojo first. Try it slowly, then a little faster.

What helps: practice each move a few times on one side, then the other. Short, regular practice works better than one long try.

Stay safe: strikes and kicks go into the air, never at a person. Keep kicks at knee or belly height. Falls happen only on a mat or soft grass, with a grown-up. Stop if something hurts.

When Kanō Jigorō opened the Kodokan in Tokyo in 1882, safe falling, called ukemi, was one of the first things students learned. Every throw ends with someone landing, so landing safely comes first.

1. Sit on a mat with your legs out in front. A grown-up is beside you.

2. Lift your arms in front of you and tuck your chin to your chest.

3. Roll back slowly onto your rounded back.

4. As your back meets the mat, slap the mat with both arms, palms down, at a slant away from your body.

5. Roll back up to sitting.

What helps: keep looking at your belt the whole time. Your chin stays tucked, so your head never touches the mat.

Stay safe: practice falls only on a mat or soft grass, with a grown-up. Never on a hard floor.

Judo throws can land a person on their side. The side fall teaches how to land there safely, spreading the landing across the arm and side.

1. On a mat, with a grown-up near, squat down low with both arms in front.

2. Slide your right leg and right arm across in front of you.

3. Roll down onto your right side. Keep your chin tucked.

4. Slap the mat with your right arm, palm down, a little away from your body.

5. Sit up, then practice the left side.

What helps: start very low. The lower you start, the softer the fall.

Stay safe: only on a mat or soft grass, with a grown-up. Stop if your shoulder or head hurts.