The Contribution of Judo to Education
by Jigoro Kano
The object of this lecture is to explain to you in a general
way what Judo is. In our feudal times, there were many military
exercises such as fencing, archery, the use of spears, etc. Among
them there was one called Jujutsu which was a composite exercise,
consisting principally of the ways of fighting without weapons;
using, however, occasionally daggers, swords and other weapons.
The kinds of attack were chiefly throwing, hitting, choking, holding
the opponent down and bending or twisting the opponent's arms or
legs in such a way as to cause pain or fracture. The use of swords
and daggers was also taught. We had also multitudinous ways of defending
ourselves against such attacks. Such exercise, in its primitive
form, existed even in our mythological age. But systematic instruction,
as an art, dates only from about three hundred fifty years ago.
In my younger days I studied this art with three eminent masters
of the time. The great benefit I derived from the study of it led
me to make up my mind to go on with the subject more seriously,
and in 1882 I started a school of my own and called it Kodokan.
Kodokan literally means a school for studying the way, the meaning
of the way being the concept of life itself. I named the subject
I teach Judo instead of Jujutsu. In the first place I will explain
to you the meaning of these words. Ju means gentle or to give way,
Jutsu, an art or practice, and Do, way or principle, so that Jujutsu
means an art or practice of gentleness or of giving way in order
to ultimately gain the victory; while Judo means the way or principle
of the same.
Besides the acquisition of useful knowledge, we must endeavor to
improve our intellectual powers, such as memory, attention, observation,
judgement, reasoning, imagination, etc. But this we should not do
in a haphazard manner, but in accordance with psychological laws,
so that the relation of those powers one with the other shall be
well harmonized. It is only by faithfully following the principle
of maximum efficiency - that is Judo - that we can achieve the object
of rationally increasing our knowledge and intellectual power.
Can this principle be applied to other fields of human activity?
Yes, the same principle can be applied to the improvement of the
human body, making it strong, healthy and useful, and so constitutes
physical education. It can also be applied to the improvement of
intellectual and moral power, and in this way constitutes mental
and moral education. It can at the same time be applied to the improvement
of diet, clothing, housing, social intercourse, and methods of business,
thus constituting the study and training in living. I gave this
all-pervading principle the name of "Judo". So Judo, in
its fuller sense, is a study and method in training of mind and
body as in the regulation of life and affairs.
We can say that Judo is an art because it is a method of
arriving at self-realization and true self-expression. We can further
say that Judo is a science because it implies mastery of various
laws of nature: gravity, friction, momentum, velocity, weight transmission,
and unison of forces. In its most important phase, it constitutes
a kind of higher logic developed through practice and the ascencion
of the true personality: a realization of the spiritual self in
the philosophic rather than the religious sense of the word.
.....Jiichi Watanabe and Lindy Avakian
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