Jigoro Kano

A small student with big ideas

Jigoro Kano was born in 1860 in Mikage, a town that is now part of the city of Kobe. As a young student in Tokyo he was small and often bullied, so he went looking for teachers of jujutsu, the old Japanese grappling arts.

He trained in more than one school and soon noticed that each had strengths and weaknesses, and that some training was too dangerous to practise freely. He began to imagine a new system that kept the best throws and holds, removed the most harmful techniques and could be practised safely at full effort.

The birth of judo

In 1882, aged about 21, Kano opened the Kodokan with just twelve tatami mats in space borrowed from a temple in Tokyo. He called his art judo, the gentle way. Students practised randori, free practice with a resisting partner, where the aim was to throw cleanly and with control.

The Kodokan grew from fewer than a dozen students to thousands. Today it is an eight-storey building in Tokyo and remains the world headquarters of judo.

Educator and Olympic pioneer

Kano was a career teacher and school director, and he saw judo as education for body and character. Two ideas sum up his thinking: seiryoku zenyo, maximum efficiency with minimum effort, and jita kyoei, mutual welfare and benefit, meaning everyone grows stronger by helping one another.

He also gave martial arts a gift used all over the world: ranks. In 1883 he introduced dan grades, and soon after his advanced students began wearing black belts to show their level.

In 1909 Kano became the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee, and he worked tirelessly to bring Japan into the Olympic movement. He died at sea in 1938 while returning from an IOC meeting.

Judo became an Olympic sport at the 1964 Tokyo Games, more than 25 years after his death. Every judoka who bows on a mat today is part of the system he built.

Judo as a school subject

Kano believed judo belonged in schools as physical education, and he worked to make that happen. Today judo is taught in Japanese schools and in clubs around the world, often as a first martial art for children.

Young judoka spend their first lessons learning ukemi, the art of falling safely. It is one of Kano's most practical gifts: a skill that helps people avoid injury in everyday slips and falls for the rest of their lives.

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