Jigoro
Kano was born on October 28, 1860 in East Nada district of the city of Kobe
to a sake brewing family at a time of great political turmoil in Japan.
Many types of physical exercises such as fencing, archery and the use of
spears were very popular during this time. Among them was a self defense
sport called Jujitsu which was primarily a method of fighting without weapons.
It incorporated throwing, hitting, chocking, and locks.
By
the age of 16 Jigoro was only 5’2” and 90 lbs. He needed to
learn self defense in order to survive the bullies in his neighborhood but
his father forbade him to take Jujitsu. He didn’t enroll into a Jujitsu
school until he was in Tokyo at the Imperial University. This dojo, run
by Master Fukuda had a great impact on him, even though he was only there
for less than a year. Fukuda emphasized technique and free fighting as oppose
to kata and formal exercises. After Fukuda’s sudden death, a 19 year
old Jigoro enrolled into another school and over the next two years concentrated
exclusively on training.
By the time he was 21, Kano had become a master in Tenjin-Shinyo-Ryu Jujitsu.
It was during this time Jigoro began working on some new throws in order
to reform Jujitsu into a new kind of martial arts. This interest was triggered
after he lost against a 200 lbs competitor. He wanted so bad to beat the
much larger opponent that he read and studied everything he could get his
hands on. The original idea was merely to reform Jujitsu but the more he
studied the more he began adapting various techniques and eliminating anything
that was too dangerous. At the age of 22 he founded his first dojo: Kodokan.
It is said that the day Jigoro defeated his own master was the day Judo
was born. Next>>
