12/02/2025

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Judo – 4 Out of 5 Enjoy the Frequent Flier Miles!

Judo – 4 Out of 5 Enjoy the Frequent Flier Miles!

You have some questions about judo? In this article I am going to cover the most basic ones, like where it was founded, aspects of the sport, and ways to win among other things. Like wrestling, judo is quite demanding. Often takedown sparring, referred to as nage-waza, is basically an hour or more of throwing other humans over your head or taking free flights onto a crash pad. Many people believe the best fighting art or self-defense art is judo due to the fact that if you execute a throw properly, the attacker will be going for a ride and landing on their head on the ground. Training in judo will make you strong, determined, and well conditioned. It will also make you sore, destroy your hands, and deform your fingers if done properly.

What is Judo?

The meaning of judo is “gentle way.” It is anything but gentle. The sport is downright rough. I figure “gentle way” really signifies the way in which you utilize your energy and momentum. Ideally, you use the momentum of your opponent against themselves which reduces the amount of work you have to do in order to throw or submit them. You’ll see below but Kano phrased it maximum efficiency, minimum effort.

Judo is an Olympic sport and also now plays a fairly large role in the development of today’s mma fighters. Judo is said to have been created in Japan by Jigoro Kano in the late 19th century. The objective of judo is to throw your opponent to the ground, control them, then you can either subdue them with a pin, or force the opponent to submit with a submission such as a joint lock or choke. Striking, as well as weapon defenses, are a part of more traditional judo, but only in pre-arranged forms (kata.) These pre-arranged forms are not allowed in competition or free practice (randori.) I didn’t even know judo had katas until 2-3 weeks ago.

Brief History of Judo

Judo practitioners are referred to as judoka. The philosophy judo was developed with became the model for other modern Japanese martial arts. This has led to the development of Sambo (a Russian martial art of self-defense) and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Yes, bjj and judo are very closely related with bjj descending from judo. Jigoro Kano, a person of great learning in several fields of study, was born into an affluent family. Central to his vision for judo were two principles; “maximum efficiency, minimum effort, mutual welfare & benefit,” and “gentleness controls hardiness”. In other words, if opponent A is resisting opponent B, the more powerful opponent B is will result in A’s defeat. If opponent A adjusts to, modifies his game plan, and evades opponent B, that will cause B to lose his balance, his powers will be reduced and opponent A will defeat him. Very basic principles right? It seems like the creators of martial arts, Kano, Helio Gracie, all have very similar character traits. It’s almost as though they can see something about the human body that we can’t.

I found this to be an interesting tidbit about Jigoro Kano. When he went to boarding school at an English-medium school in Tokyo, there was a bullying endemic at the school. Sound familiar? This caused Kano to seek out a jujutsu training gym where he could train, in hopes to stand up to the bullying going on at this school. Finding a trainer was more difficult than he thought, and it took a while to find a willing teacher, until finally he located Fukuda Hachinosuke, a teacher of jujutsu and also a bone setter. He had a 10 mat dojo located near the temple, where he was teaching five students. Kano came to believe that jujutsu was not the right term for his art, mainly because of the principles he lived by. But also due to him realizing that this one way he had been learning was not all encompassing. He recognized that to defeat anyone, just training harder wouldn’t cut it. Kind of like what Bruce Lee would do 100 years later, Kano sought to take what was best and what worked from various styles. So he changed the term to ju-do meaning way, road, or path.

Techniques, Rules, & Recent History

There are three categories of techniques in judo, which were mentioned previously; throwing, grappling, and striking. Judo is well known for nage-waza, throwing techniques, and katame-waza, grappling techniques. The person who performs the technique or motion is known as the tori or taker, and the person to whom it is performed on is known as the uke or receiver.

In 1899 the first formal set of contest rules for judo were created. Competition lasted for 15 minutes and was judged on the basis of nage-waza, throws, and katame-waza, grappling. The winner would have been awarded two ippons, one full point, the highest score a judoka can achieve. Throwing the opponent onto their back or pinning them on their back for a sufficient amount of time or by submission are other means of victory. Submissions can be achieved through shime-waza, a judo choking technique, or kansetsu-wasa, joint locks. These locks were designed to put severe, disabling pressure on the joints. Finger, toe, and ankle locks were prohibited.

Judo’s international profile was advanced at the introduction of the World Judo Championships in 1956. Thirty-one athletes from twenty-one countries competed in this event the first year. Judo was introduced as an Olympic sport for men in the 1964 Games in Tokyo. Then, about 20 years later, the Women’s World Championship was introduced, in 1980, mainly as a demonstration event. In 1987 the men’s and women’s championships were combined. In 2011, participants numbered 871 competitors from 132 countries.

Judo as an Olympic sport met with some protests. Quoting Kano about the potential of judo’s inclusion in the Olympics – “judo in reality is not a mere sport or game. I regard it as a principle of life, art and science. In fact, it is a means for personal, cultural attainment. Judo should be free as art and science from any external influences, political, national, racial, and financial or any other organized interest. And all things connected with it should be directed to its ultimate object, benefit of humanity.”

Pretty heady stuff wouldn’t you say for a martial art designed around flipping people upside down? From its throwing techniques to its submissions on the ground, judo is no walk in the park. Judokas are some of the most dedicated athletes in the world, they receive very little to no recognition unless they can somehow make it to the Olympics or find a career in mixed martial arts. If you are looking into martial arts and have always wondered about judo, this is its history in a nutshell.