Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

(jûdô practitioner). Older systems more commonly awarded diplomas or
certificates, and historically seldom established any formal hierarchies
among students prior to graduation from training. Recognition of various
intermediate ranks among students became more common during Japan’s
peaceful Tokugawa era, but retained a feudal flavor of esoteric initiation.
Rank among students was not signified in any uniform, visible manner. The
emphasis instead was on access to, and eventual mastery of, a school’s “inner”
or “secret” teachings (okuden). The highest award in this methodology
was the menkyo kaiden, which certified that the bearer had attained
mastery of the system. By contrast, the “black belt” of the dan/kyû system
is usually taken to indicate a “serious student” or “beginning teacher” of a
style; the lack of secrecy in the jûdô tradition, and in most modern derivations
of martial arts, changes the meaning of initiation. Progress in the pursuit
of jûdô can include rites of passage and formal recognition of proficiency,
but tends to reflect the Meiji values of Kanô rather than the feudal
orientation of its root arts. As the American jûdôka Bruce Tegner wrote in
response to assorted Western folklore about the black belt, “The earliest
black belt holders were not deadly killers; they were skilled sportsmen”
(1973). Indeed, belt rank and sport competition were both highly controversial
Kanô innovations that continue to lend themselves to a wide range
of interpretations, criticisms, and uses and abuses to this day.
The freestyle practice of jûdô techniques takes two forms, shiai (contest)
and randori, which is an unchoreographed but not formally competitive
exchange of throws and counters. Kuzushi, or unbalancing, is fundamental
to both practice forms, and is carried out in accord with the jûdô
proverb “When pulled, push; when pushed, pull!” It is also a jûdô cliché,
first widely noted in the early years of Western jûdô, that size and strength
are relatively unimportant in the employment of the art; this probably derived
largely from the success of relatively diminutive Japanese experts
against larger but unschooled antagonists. Unfortunately, this proved illusory
in the case of jûdô players of comparable skill who were greatly mismatched
in size, and designated weight classes are thus a feature of modern
sport jûdô.
Today, the International Jûdô Federation is the governing body of
Olympic jûdô, while the Kôdôkan in Japan remains the world headquarters.
A variety of national and international federations for jûdô study and
practice exist worldwide, and instruction is relatively easy to come by. Jûdô
players have also ventured into interstyle grappling events, and jûdô remains
a strong influence on grapplers of other styles (especially those, such
as the Russian sambo, that include the wear and use of a jacket).
As the first Asian martial art to gain a worldwide following, jûdô had
important formative influences on many other styles. In particular, those
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