Jigoro Kano

Childhood and Younger Years

Jigoro Kano (Oct 1860 - May 1938) born into a Sake brewing family in the Japanese town of Mikage. His father was a great believer in the power of education and made sure that Kano was provided with a very good education. Kano's mother died when he was nine and his father subsequently relocated them to the capital Tokyo, where he enrolled his son in European run private schools so that he would improve his English and German Language skills.

Because of his intellectul tendancies on account of his education, the other students were jelous of him and this resulted in him being severely bullied at school and was frequently beaten by some of the other students. Kano was small and slight of build so he was not very strong and felt he was unable to defend himself, and so he sought to find a solution.

Nakai Baisei was a family friend who was part of the Shogun's Guard (Japanese Royal Guard). Upon hearing of Kano's dificulties he suggested that Kano investigate the study of Jujitsu in order that he might better defend himself from larger opponents. Nakai taught him a few techniques, and seeing their potential for self defence Kano was inspired to pursue the study of the jujitsu. His father was initially opposed to the idea but eventually relented after noting his deep interest in the subject, on the condition that he strive to master it

The Founding Of Judo

In 1877, Kano was successfully enrolled into the Tokyo Imperial University, and begain searching for Jujitsu Masters from whom he could learn the art. He would frequently train with a man called Fukushima Kanekichi who was a senior student but was unable to best him on the mat. Kano tried many techniques unsucesfully but continued to study and eventually discovered the "firemans carry" in a book on western wrestling and adapted it for use against his rival. Using this technique he triumphed and Kata-guruma (Shoulder-Wheel) remains part of the Judo syllabus to this day.

In August 1979 Jigoro Kano took part in a Jujitsu demonstration for the then US president Ulysses S. Grant with several others including a man called Iso Masatomo. Iso was a Kata (Forms) and Atemi (Striking) specialist and Kano began studying with him at his school. Whilst under the tutilage of Iso Masatomo Kano witnessed many forms of jujitsu and realised that he may never be able to beat some of them simply by training harder, in order to triumph he needed to train smarter.

In 1881 Iso died and the club was passed to Kano (who was then 21 years old). Based on his time training with Iso, Kano realised that he needed to combine the best of several forms of jujitsu in order to be the best. He also found that the the school of Kitō-ryū taught by Iikubo Tsunetoshi and their focus on throwing tequniques to be the most effective. It was from this school that he received his only verified grade of Nihonden Kito Judo in 1883.

A New Art

In the early 1880's Kano's sensei Iikubo Tsunetoshi came to train with and teach Kano at his own club multiple times a week. Over time studen and sensei began to change places. Kano focused his studies on how to read his opponents movements and break their balance. He concluded that to be effective an opponents balance must be broken before moving in for a tequnique. Upon discussing this with his sensei Iikubo he was told "I am afraid that I have nothing more that I can teach you" and shortly thereafter was provided all the documents for the Kitō-ryū school of jujitsu

Jigoro Kano combined the best techniques of multiple different schools of jujitsu with his own discoveries and included them in his own teachings. He took the throwing tequniques from Kitō-ryū, and the choking and pinning techniques from the Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū school. Although some of these techniques are no longer practiced, many of these are still found in the modern day Judo Kata's such as the Kime no Kata and the Koshiki no Kata

One of the former headmasters of the Kito-Ryu school had created his own Jikishin-Ryu style of jujitsu and coined the phrase "judo" in the process. Although this was not used, Kano revived this phrase and used it as the name for his own form of jujitsu. There was initially no clear separation between this unique form and jujitsu itself, only that it was another school

Qualifications

Curiously, being the father of Judo you might think that Jigoro Kano held the highest possible grade (10th Dan) however you may be suprised to know that he held no grade in judo whatsoever. He still held his Jujitsu grade of Nihonden however he was in essence an ungraded judoka. While this may sound strange this is actually because, being the creator of judo, there there existed nobody to examine and grade him and thus he remained ungraded

Death & Legacy

Kano Died on 3 May 1938 at 20:33 whilst on an ocean voyage on behalf of the International Olympic Committee. officially the cause of death was pneumonia resulting from several other health conditions however there was some suspicion surrounding his death due to his outspoken opposition to the Japanese militarism present at the time, and the suspicious deaths of several other opposition members.

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