Judo is to give you something for life

By

Judo is not football.

When we are young, we play football, and we are told, Try and win, try and win’. But the main purpose is to develop our physique. It’s not for most schoolboys to become professional footballers.

In the same way, judo is to give you something for life, and for most of us it is not to become contest leaders.

Dr Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, regarded judo as a training for life. He thought it was much better for this than ball games which are not natural activities.

But fighting is a natural activity and if the natural activity can be spiritualised and made rational, so that instead of making enemies, you are making friends, then it will give you something for life.

Similar Posts

  • The dragon mask I

    By

    With age, a judo expert’s speed begins to decline and he has to find means to offset this against up and coming opponents. One of them is to establish a psychological ascendancy over a younger man who may be actually stronger in fighting ability. This can be done by preventing the junior from estimating the…

  • Kangeiko

    By

    Going straight at a thing is a very important part of the training of the ‘Ways’. One aspect of this is to practise under unfavourable conditions deliberately. Suppose you’re a poet – one day in the middle of winter you should get up at half past three, throw open the windows and, without any heating,…

  • The dragon mask II

    By

    When I was practising judo at the Kodokan in 1940, Japan and Britain were moving nearer and nearer to war. There was fairly widespread belief in Japan that they were being encircled by potential enemies. I experienced hardly any hostility on the personal level. There was, however, one man at the Kodokan, a tough young…

  • Outer and inner balance

    By

    People who live in towns (in other words, most people) keep themselves upright by looking at the walls when they are indoors, and looking at the corners of the buildings when they are outside. They use these things to tell them what is vertical. This is proved by putting people in special rooms where the…

  • Run-up

    By

    To deliver the cricket ball, the bowler has to make a long run-up. He runs towards the wicket, and then bowls the ball. With this method, he can make it fly much faster than anyone can do from a standing position. Similarly, the golfer needs a backswing for his drive, and a boxer needs some…

  • Inspiration

    By

    You may think that everything that can be discovered has been discovered but that is not true. In the old jujitsu schools which emerged during the prosperous times in Japan from the middle of the 16th century they used to hold inside the sleeve. You can get a very strong grip there and it is…