Judo History 

Judo was founded in 1882 at the Kodokan institute in Tokyo, Japan by Jigoro Kano, one of the most famous, visionary and influential educators in world history.  It is a modernized and standardized form of the various styles of Jiu-jitsu that had developed in Japan through the feudal age, in particular the Kito School, which specialized in throwing techniques, and the Tenshin Shin'yo School, which emphasized grappling and striking skills.  Kano lived at a time when Japan was trying to 'catch up' and emulate the great Western empires, particularly the British.  He was an avid scholar of English literature, philosophy and sport, and was a high-ranking educational official in the Japanese government.  As a youth he became a passionate devotee of the traditional samurai art of Jiu-jitsu, and studied a number of styles under various masters.  In spite of living at a time when the Japanese were turning their backs on their own culture and aping Western ways, Kano was dedicated to preserving Jiu-jitsu.  He saw in it an ideal educational programme.  However, the government, caught up in modernization programmes and eager to adopt Western physical education methods such as gymnastics and ball sports, did not at first agree.  Jiu-jitsu was almost entirely practiced through drilling pre-arranged self-defense routines in partners, which were known as 'kata'.  This kind of activity, while having some physical merits, did not, in their eyes, match up well against Western sports.  There was not enough thinking involved, for one thing, and the Jiu-jitsu kata, which had been elite samurai battlefield and police-work oriented activities, were not considered to be interesting enough to hold the attention of the Japanese people at large.  Jigoro Kano, however, saw a lot of potential in Jiu-jitsu, and was sure it could be something even BETTER than any Western sport or recreational exercise.  In fact, he had already adopted a free-fighting focus in his own club, making his form of Jiu-jitsu very much like a Western sport.  This free-fighting is called randori and is at the heart of Judo.  However, the purpose of randori is still the same as the kata training, which it grew out of, in that both partners are trying to develop their fighting skills, and even help each other to do so, and NOT to merely try to beat each other.  This concept is known as "MUTUAL BENEFIT", "JITA KYOEI" in Japanese.  Randori was of course around long before Kano was born.  Its purpose was to experiment with different versions of the pre-arranged kata attacks.  For example, what if the attacker strikes on a different angle than the kata dictates?  What if instead of reacting in 'this' way, the opponent reacts in 'that' way?  Randori was for discovering how to solve these kinds of problems.  Kano, however, put a special emphasis on randori, making it the major part of his training method.  When Kano presented his system to the educational officials again, he emphasized the THINKING nature of randori, since the participant has to think and react quickly, creating strategies and predicting the opponent's tactics.  He also emphasized the INTERESTING aspect of it, since this kind of back and forth high-speed physical chess game is a lot of fun, and very exciting for the partners.  His speeches and publications are still very much in existence, so we can gain an excellent understanding of his ideas and aims.  Having explained his method of Jiu-jitsu in this way, he won over the governmental authorities, and Judo was adopted as an essential part of the Japanese public education system.  It was also adopted by the police forces after a show-down tournament between Kano's fighters and all-comers from different Jiu-jitsu schools.