Judo the gentle way, chapter no.1

  Judo martial art and combat sport created inJapan in 1882 by Kano Jigoro. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an opponent to submit by joint locking or by executing a strangle hold or choke.

His grandfather ran his own record label sake. However, the father of Jigoro - Kano Jirosaku Kireshiba - due to the fact that he was the eldest son, did not take over the family business. Instead, he became a priest and also an official of Shinto, which had sufficient influence to put his son at the University of Tokyo in 1877. He was a very good student. In 1882 he became Professor of political science and economics, and then began working as a lecturer at the elite Gakushuin school in Tokyo.

Kano, as a youth, he was not strong or large (at age 20 he weighed no more than 45 kg), which are often teasing him. At the insistence of a family friend, Nakai Bansei'a (a member of the Guard Shogun), began training ju-jitsu. However, encountered difficulties in finding an appropriate teacher. Finding a suitable school for you - Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū - Jigoro started systematic training, and in the age of 21 he won the title of "Shihan" (master) and became an assistant instructor, who, however, soon fell ill and died. Kano was a different school - Kito-ryu, in which more emphasis on fighting than on formal systems of the executioner.

In the meantime, Kano began to develop my own techniques and improve those already known to him. Developed techniques such as Kata-guruma or uki-goshi. At age 22 he began leading his own school of fighting in the Buddhist temple in Kamakurze. Two years later, the school will be moved, called the Kodokan and become the first and the largest school of judo in the world. At first, this style was known as Kano Jiu-Jitsu or Kano Jiu-Do. Among the first students master the most well known are: Yoshitsugu (Yoshiaki) Yamashita - the future coach of President Theodore Roosevelt, Tsunejirō Tomita - author of judo "Sugata Sanshiro" and Sakujirō Yokoyama - known in his day as "The Devil Yokohama. 

Kanō Jigorō

In 1935 Kano received the Asahi Prize for outstanding contributions to the development of art, science and sport. In 1938 he went to a meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Cairo and he was able to promote Tokyo as a place for the next Olympics in 1940 while in her first time was to be presented to judo, but not as an Olympic sport. On the way back from this meeting, 4 May 1938, Kano died of pneumonia on board the ship Hikawa Maru. He was 78 years old.

Until 1952, judo trenowało more than 6 million people in over 30 countries worldwide.

In 1964, judo became an Olympic sport for men and women under pressure from the U.S., since 1988, also for them. The sport has become one of the most popular combat sports in the world.