Is Judo Dying?
By Vern Borgen[1]
In 1981 John Holm (of Minneapolis) told me that judo was
dead. I had been in judo for only a few
year at that time and was really excited about it and I choose not to believe
him.
A few years ago while visiting with one of the major martial
arts equipment vendors I was told that the judo market had fallen off sharply
during the 80s and hadn’t recovered, while most of the other martial arts have
continued to grow.
I wear a jacket with our club emblem and name emblazoned on
the back and people stop and ask me what Judo is – some entertain me with a
weird movie-do rendition kung fu stance accompanied with a screaming
“whaaaaaaaa.” Maybe Judo is dying.
But I don’t like to think that way, and when recently asked
my opinion about how to improve and strengthen Judo I wrote this essay to one
of our national leaders.
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The United States became a great technological power and
remains there not because we established an elite group of scientists and
engineers but because we valued education above all else. Each community established a local school
system and taught the basics to everyone, not just those most able. These young people graduated and went on to
the colleges and university and specialized in a subject of most interest to
themselves. Each university had
something just a bit different to offer but all were useful in one way or
another. The students, their professors
and their counterparts in industry went to seminars and meetings and shared the
knowledge they had learned and discovered in their studies and in their
research. The students graduated and
some became professors and others became captains of industry and a select few
went on the win Nobel prize and do other great things. We did this not by placing the greatest value
on the Nobel prize but by getting everyone involved in the *means*, by making
education for every person the most valued thing, so all would have the benefits,
then and only then did we achieve the highest pinnacle. (By the way our education system is
attributed, in large part, to the work of Mr. Horace Mann, a contemporary of
Dr. Jigoro Kano.)[2]
One of my concerns is that the big three Judo organizations
(USJA, USJF and USJI[3])
alienate a lot of people by being elitist, by creating programs where the
athletes are regarded the most and the means is denigrated. I would guess that better than half the
people doing Judo in the USA could be classified as “Classical or Traditional
Judoka”, and further stick out my neck and say that most of them are not registered
with the USJA, USJF or the USJI. (I know
many ‘Traditional’ sensei who only register those people in their clubs who
compete.) These traditional schools of
Judo teach a style of Judo that was practiced at the Kodokan while Dr. Kano was
alive. In addition to tachi and katame
waza, Traditional Schools of Judo also practice wrist locks, atemi and weapons. The philosophical teachings of Dr. Kano are
held in the highest regard and so these programs are truly for the young and
old, men and women, the healthy and the sick.
Each individual is nurtured, as a gardener would care for a treasured
tree. By denying these folks we have
alienated them and their support. We
sometimes forget that people don’t have time to be competitors because of other
obligations; they are at practice because it is FUN. We also forget that ‘real’ money comes from
people with jobs – competitive athletes for the most part are young, are in
school and have little money – it doesn’t make sense to support an organization
on their backs.
1. I personally feel
that these Traditional Judo Schools are the future of Judo in this
country. My argument starts with the
simple assertion that non-athletes outnumber athletes. These non-athletes represent all walks of
life: doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, police, businessmen and women,
waitresses, clergy, mechanics, et cetera…. If we could recruit them into
non-sport Judo programs we accomplish a number of things. (A lot of these people already exist - we
have close to 80 people on the mat every week and only 20 or so are registered
with the USJA.)
A. These people for
the most part are stable members of the community, are employed and as a group
would provide a firm basis to build a dojo (in physical, mental and spiritual
sense.)
B. These people
become Judo instructors, referees and tournament officials, administrators –
essentially the movers and the shakers of Judo.
C. These people
become mentors and role models for the youth and the young adults in our
programs and in our community. We must
remember that the ultimate goal of judo is not the *gold medal* but to *make
good people*.
D. We will have a
larger base of informed consumers of Judo goods and entertainment (shia).
E. Since they are
employed they also contribute to the financial security of the group both local
and national. Judo as a non-sport is
still a good exercise; physically, mentally and spiritually. Learning to fall safely and defend yourself
are admirable skills and easily learned by ALL.
I have a friend who has taught Judo to people confined to
wheelchairs. There is a tremendous
market for judo based self-defense – just look at the market share that Gracie
Jujitsu is picking up.
Additionally, these schools act as repositories of
information. Judo is just too large for
anyone person to know it all. There is
just too much to learn even for a life time.
Each of these schools is into a different thing. Even in sport Judo schools there are
differences, some specialize in mat work and others in arm locks. If there are more schools, doing more things,
there is going to a more information generated and stored – this then becomes
the body of knowledge of Judo.
[As an example, our school is using a syllabus that was
developed by Kenshiro Abe, one of Sensei Kyuzo Mifune’s uchideshi.[4] This syllabus emphasizes simple techniques
and broad movement in the beginning – it flows like Aikido. We have found this syllabus to be an
interesting and enlightening method for studying Judo movement. As students become brown and black belts
their knowledge of technique is on par with students doing Judo at a USJA Club
(we actually require a LOT more out of our students than the USJA does.) We do all of the formal kata of the Kodokan,
Mifune’s kata of counters, and two katas by Geoff Gleeson. We are trying to recreate the style of Kyuzo
Mifune. I should also say that a dozen
or so of our group compete in shiai in Canada (our closest competitors,
Winnipeg is 220 miles away) and do quite well in both the novice and advanced
divisions. We also practice Judo with
weapons – for the most part our weapons system uses the Philippine Arnis[5]
sticks and the jo. We have found that
our gripping skills have become much more effective since we started doing
Arnis.]
To build a strong Judo organization we must include “All the
people.” We must modify our Judo
programs for “all the people, young and old, male and female, the healthy and
the sick.” Once we do this we will have
a large base of Judoka upon whose backs we can build “an awesome Judo
organization”, BUT WE HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR DIVERSITY AND
THE VALUABLE ROLE THAT THEY WILL PLAY!
2. We need to become
more professional. I am an engineer by
profession. The engineering society of
which I am a member has two meetings a year.
At the meetings we participate in seminars and committee meetings. There are formal dinners and professional
speakers.
This is a good place to share our understanding of the body
of knowledge of Judo. As a Judo
community we have a lot of diverse ideas; some of us practice Judo as a sport
and others as a martial art and some both, some of our styles are very linear
and other more circular, some of us emphasize kata over randori and others the
reverse. At an annual meeting we could
share some of this stuff. Mini seminars
would be a good format to demonstrate a new throw or to discuss a kata – to
present information about liability insurance, legal aspects of self-defense,
massage therapy, how to tape an ankle, Dr. Kano’s cosmology…. We should get
together for formal dinners to acknowledge the success of our fellows.
3. We need much
better communication, not just to let people know what is going on, but to
educate… Kano would roll over in his grave if he knew just how little
communication there was. Kano’s idea of
Judo was to teach social education, it is precisely here where we are lacking
the most.
I personally feel that we lose a lot of students because the
Judo community has no magazine that extols the benefits of Judo. I have been a member of the USJA for close to
20 years – it is difficult for me to sell “my” organization when it has very
little to offer, especially to beginners.
I think that having a good magazine that educated would be a great
seller. I was at a book store in Fargo a
few days ago and noticed that there were several Aikido Today Magazines on the
rack. Odd, I thought, as there is no
Aikido club within 250 miles of Fargo – when asked, the proprietor told me that
they sell out every month! Why isn’t
there a good Judo magazine on the rack?
Also I might add that the Aikido Today Magazine is non-partisan and
demonstrations of technique are not included – essentially an Aikido magazine
for “everyone”.
If we want to attract the kind of athletes that are going to
win gold medals for the United States in the Olympics and train them, we are
going to have to build up a tremendous Judo base and the only way I can see to
do that is to make Judo an activity for everyone, not just elite athletes. Right now the best athletes are attracted to sports
that make it to TV and newspapers, there is no glory in Judo. BECAUSE NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT IS! We need to develop local Judo as an activity
for the athlete and non-athlete as well.
We need to respect and reward the good work of the athletes and the
non-athletes as well. We need a forum at
which we can share information and we need a good magazine that shares the
stories of Judo, the history, the personalities (we need to interview our sensei(s),
especially the older ones – so we can all share in their wisdom), we need to
share the lives of people who are doing Judo… if we can’t Judo IS DEAD.
Yours in service to Judo.
Vernon A. Borgen Sensei
[1]
This essay was written in early 1996 and reposted to the Judo-L, an internet
bulletin board administered by Steven Cunningham on 19 February 1997.
[2]
Horace Mann is called the “Father of American public education.”
[3]
Now USA Judo
[4]
This is not correct. Kenshiro Abe was
the leading graduate of the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai (Martial Arts Teachers
College in Kyoto, Japan. He was sent to
England to teach Judo, Kendo, Karate and Aikido. While in England he established the Kyushindo
Society, a school of martial arts with a syllabus similar to the one he learned
at the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai. Later the
Kyushido Society was resurrected as Zen Judo by Dominic McCarthy.
[5]
Learned from Grand Master Jose Bueno.
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