Judo
柔道A Japanese art of throws and grappling, Olympic since 1964; its idea is to use the opponent's strength instead of your own.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
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About Judo
Judo was created by Jigoro Kano in 1882, when he selected from the techniques of the old jujutsu schools those that can be practised at full effort against a resisting partner and discarded the dangerous ones. The result was a system in which one can train at a hundred per cent without serious injury — and that is why judo spread worldwide faster than its predecessors. The throw is the foundation. The aim is to put the opponent on his back with control and force; such a throw (ippon) ends the contest at once. When a throw fails, the fight continues on the ground (ne-waza) — holds, chokes and elbow locks. Kicks and punches do not appear in competition at all; they exist only in the demonstration forms (kata). Judo has been an Olympic sport since 1964 (women since 1992) and has one of the most developed competitive structures of any martial art. At the same time it keeps the educational dimension Kano stressed: conduct in the dojo, bowing, and breakfall practice from the very first lesson. For a beginner judo is an exceptionally good foundation. It teaches how to fall — a skill worth having off the mat as well — and gives experience of fighting real resistance. The load on the joints, above all shoulders and elbows, is real and tells with age; a good club adapts training volume accordingly.
History
Jigoro Kano (1860–1938) created judo in 1882 from the jujutsu schools Tenjin Shin’yo-ryu and Kito-ryu, which he had studied earlier. He founded the Kodokan in February 1882 at the Eisho-ji temple in Tokyo, and the first holders of shodan in August 1883 were Tsunejiro Tomita and Shiro Saigo. In 1922 Kano invited Gichin Funakoshi to the Kodokan for a demonstration, and karate then took over the kyu and dan system and the training uniform from judo. The International Judo Federation was founded on 11 July 1951 and was led in 1952–1965 by Kano’s son Risei Kano. The IOC admitted judo to the programme in 1960 and it has been Olympic since the Tokyo Games of 1964, with a single exception in 1968. Women have competed for Olympic medals since 1992, and in 1988 women’s judo was a demonstration sport.
Technique
Techniques are divided into throws (nage-waza) and groundwork (katame-waza). Throws are done with the hands, hips and feet, and on the ground holds, chokes and joint locks are practised. In competition joint locks are allowed only on the elbow joint. Strikes and weapons are forbidden in competition and in free practice, striking techniques (atemi-waza) exist only in kata. A throw judged ippon is assessed by the referees according to speed, force, landing on the back and control until the technique is completed. Two waza-ari also end the bout. A hold-down on the ground wins ippon after 20 seconds. For a grip below the belt or grabbing a leg the competitor receives a shido penalty, three shido mean disqualification (hansoku-make) and a head-first dive is punished by hansoku-make directly.
Training
The main form of training is randori, free practice with a partner at varying intensity. Uchi-komi is the repeated fitting of a technique up to the point of kake without completing the throw. From the beginning four kinds of falls (ukemi) are practised: backward, sideways, forward and with a roll. A study of ten judoka with brown and black belts measured a heart rate of 174–183 beats per minute during four randori of five minutes each. We have not been able to document the typical frequency of training or the ratio of technique, randori and conditioning. At 123 international competitions from 2005–2019, 78% of the 650 recorded injuries occurred in standing, and the most common type was a sprain (43.31%). At the Olympic Games 2008–2016 there were 9.6 injuries per 1,000 minutes of competition, and in Olympic wrestling 4.8. The knee, shoulder and fingers are most often affected, and the main mechanism is a fall after being thrown by the opponent.
Ranks and progression
Internationally six student grades (6th to 1st kyu) are used, with white, yellow, orange, green, blue and brown belts. There are ten master grades (dan): 1st–5th dan wear a black belt, 6th–8th dan red and white, 9th and 10th dan red, or possibly black. Only fifteen people have received the tenth dan of the Kodokan. The minimum age for student grades ranges from 3 to 15 years depending on the federation, for the first dan it is 15 in the United Kingdom and usually 16 in the USA. The Kodokan awards grades to judoka from all over the world, but the conditions are set by national federations. Ireland, for example, uses a points system, with points collected for wins over brown belts. We did not find in the sources the minimum times between grades or the typical time to a black belt.
Who it suits
Under IJF rules cadets are aged 15–17 and juniors 15–20, seniors have no upper limit, and only competitors aged 15 and over may compete at official IJF events. National competitions start earlier: Judo Victoria in Australia lets children compete from the age of 6, up to 15 they compete without joint locks and chokes, and a bout lasts 2–3 minutes. IJF veterans compete from category M6 (55–59 years) to M9 (over 70), from M7 without chokes and with a shorter bout. The British federation has since 2022 banned chokes in every bout involving a participant over 60. A review of 23 studies (2023) recorded in some of them a lower fear of falling after judo training and, in postmenopausal women, higher bone density and improved balance.
Competition
Under IJF rules a bout lasts four minutes for seniors, juniors and cadets alike. Men and women do not fight each other. Seniors compete in seven weight classes: men −60, −66, −73, −81, −90, −100 and +100 kg, women −48, −52, −57, −63, −70, −78 and +78 kg. At the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 there were seven weights for each sex. Since 2020 there has also been a mixed team competition, a team consisting of three men and three women. The Kodokan recognises ten kata, for example Nage-no-kata with fifteen throws practised on both sides and Katame-no-kata with fifteen groundwork techniques. We have not been able to verify competition in kata in the IJF rules.
Gear
The judogi consists of a heavy cotton jacket (uwagi), lighter trousers (shitabaki or zubon) and a cotton belt (obi). At IJF competitions one may enter only in a white or blue judogi and the competitor must have both colours. We did not find any mandatory protectors in the rules. Training takes place on tatami.
Philosophy
Kano formulated two principles: seiryoku zenyo (maximum efficient use of energy) and jita kyoei (mutual benefit). The central idea is that softness overcomes hardness. Among the ten kata of the Kodokan are two for self-defense, the Kodokan goshinjutsu and the women’s Joshi-goshinho in three parts (Tai-sabaki, Ridatsu-ho and Seigo-ho). The women’s section of the Kodokan has operated since 1923, and in 1972 Keiko Fukuda became the first woman with a 6th dan. The Kodokan building in Tokyo has five dojo including a women’s and a boys’ one, and the main dojo has 420 tatami.
Styles and schools
The mainstream of judo comes from the Kodokan. Alongside it, two branches arose that departed from it. The best known is kosen judo from the Japanese technical colleges (kosen), which from 1914 held their own competitions with almost unrestricted ground fighting. The Kodokan reacted: in 1925 it introduced strict rules for the transition from standing to ground fighting and banned all joint locks except elbow locks. Around 1929 it added the yusei-gachi rule, victory on the basis of better posture and technique when a match ends without a point. The mainstream thus shifted towards throws, while kosen judo continues to develop ground work. The second branch is the method of Mikinosuke Kawaishi, who arrived in France in 1935. He introduced seven belt colours there (white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown, black), whereas Japan used only white and black, and replaced the Japanese names of techniques with numbered ones, so that, for example, osotogari was taught as leg throw number 1. The Kodokan considered his method a simplification of traditional judo, and the dispute split the French Judo Federation, founded in 1946, into Kawaishi and Kodokan factions, which merged only in 1956.
Today
Judo is governed by the International Judo Federation, based in Budapest, which brings national federations together in five continental unions. Brazilian jiu-jitsu emerged from judo. Mitsuyo Maeda, a Kodokan judoka with a 4th dan, arrived in Brazil in 1914. In 1917 fourteen-year-old Carlos Gracie saw his demonstration in Belém, and then learned judo from Maeda or from his student Jacyntho Ferro. In 1925 the Kodokan restricted ground fighting in its competition rules, while kosen judo continues to develop groundwork and is often compared with Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
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Judoka also stood at the origins of aikido. Kenji Tomiki, a member of the Waseda University judo club, began with Morihei Ueshiba in 1926 and later founded the Shodokan school of aikido. In 1930 Kano watched a demonstration in Ueshiba’s dojo in Mejiro and sent Kodokan students to him, among them Minoru Mochizuki. A Kodokan judoka stood at the origins of sambo too. Vasily Oshchepkov received a nidan at the Kodokan in 1917 as the first Russian and is among the creators of sambo. At the 1964 Olympics the USSR won four bronze medals in judo, two of them in the lightweight class by Oleg Stepanov and Ārons Bogoļubovs, both USSR sambo champions. Georgian judo was influenced by the traditional jacket wrestling chidaoba. Some of the kimarite recognized by the Japan Sumo Association come from judo, among them ipponzeoi, the one-arm shoulder throw. The sumo wrestler Kaio, who had previously practised judo, defeated Musashimaru with it in November 2000.
In culture
Judo stands at the beginning of Akira Kurosawa's film career. His feature directorial debut was the film Sanshiro Sugata of 25 March 1943, based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita from 1942, whose adaptation Kurosawa asked the Toho studio for right after the book was published. The original version ran 97 minutes, the surviving one 79 minutes, because the studio shortened the film a year later without Kurosawa. Advertising also referred to Sanshiro Sugata. The character Segata Sanshiro, whose name and personality come from Kurosawa's hero, was the mascot of the Sega Saturn console and in commercials threw ordinary people over his shoulder. Judo also has a comic-book heroine in Japan. The judoka Ryoko Tamura, Olympic winner in the 48 kg category from Sydney 2000, got the nickname Yawara-chan after the girl from the popular judo comic Yawara.
Did you know
Jigoro Kano attended the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and met Pierre de Coubertin there, who praised judo in the Olympic Review that same year. Judo got onto the Olympic programme only in Tokyo 1964. It was there that the Dutchman Anton Geesink, 198 centimetres tall and weighing about 121 kilograms, won the open category, defeating the Japanese Akio Kaminaga in the final with the kesa-gatame hold. He was the only non-Japanese winner of the judo competitions at those Games. Already in 1961 he had become the first world champion who was not Japanese, added a third world title in 1965 and during 1987–2010 was a member of the International Olympic Committee. The open category disappeared from Olympic judo after the 1984 Games. The Japanese Yasuhiro Yamashita won 203 consecutive matches between 1977 and 1985. He has gold from the Olympics in Los Angeles 1984 and four world titles, and ended his career in June 1985.
Styles & Branches
Judo of Japanese higher schools and universities, with unrestricted transition to ground fighting. The first tournament was held in Kyoto in 1914, and Nanatei continues it today.
French method of teaching judo by Kawaishi Mikinosuke, with French names and numbered techniques. Coloured belts are linked to it, and from 1956 it coexisted with the Kodokan.
Frequently asked questions
What does judo mean?
Judo means the gentle way. It was created by Jigoro Kano in 1882, and in the same year he opened the Kodokan school, whose name means the place where the way is studied.
What is judo good for?
The International Judo Federation builds its Judo in Schools programme on eight values (friendship, honour, respect, modesty, courtesy, courage, self-control and sincerity) and cites benefits for the physical, mental and social development of children. A systematic review of studies from 2018 found better arm bone density, flexibility, muscular endurance and agility in children who practise it, but judo was not consistently better than other sports.
What are the belts in judo?
According to the examination rules of the Czech Judo Federation, student grades lead from 6th kyu with a white belt through yellow, orange, green and blue to the brown belt of 1st kyu, with two-colour intermediate grades between them. Master dan grades begin with the black belt, and under IJF rules 1st dan can be obtained from the age of 15.
At what age should you start judo?
The examination rules of the Czech Judo Federation set a minimum age of 6 years for the first student grade after the white belt and at least six months between further grades.
What is the difference between judo and jiu-jitsu?
Judo was created by Jigoro Kano from old jujutsu schools, from which he removed the most dangerous techniques and added free practice called randori. Brazilian jiu-jitsu then developed from Kodokan judo. Judo is decided mainly by a throw, while Brazilian jiu-jitsu scores positions on the ground and wins by submission.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.