Kano Jigoro (嘉納 治五郎 Kanō Jigorō, 28 October 1860–4 May 1938) was the founder of judo. Judo was the first Japanese martial art to gain widespread international recognition, and the first to become an official Olympic sport.
Pedagogical innovations attributed to Kano include the use of black and white belts to show relative ranking between members of a martial art style. Well-known mottoes attributed to Kano include "Maximum Efficiency with Minimum Effort" and "Mutual Welfare and Benefit."
In his professional life, Kano was an educator. Important postings included service as director of primary education for the Ministry of Education (文部省, Monbushō) from 1898-1901, and as president of Tokyo Higher Normal School from 1901 until 1920. As such, he played a key role in getting judo and kendo made part of the Japanese public school programs of the 1910s.
Kano was also a pioneer of international sports. Accomplishments included being the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (he served from 1909 until 1938), officially representing Japan at most Olympic Games held between 1912 and 1936, and serving as a leading spokesman for Japan's bid for the 1940 Olympic Games.
His official honors and decorations included the First Order of Merit and Grand Order of the Rising Sun and the Third Imperial Degree.
Early years: Kano Jigoro was born to a sake brewing family in the town of Mikage, Japan (now within Higashinada-ku, Kobe). The family sake brands included "Shiroshika", "Hakutsuru", and "Kiku-Masamune". However, Kano's father, Kano Jirosaku Kireshiba, was an adopted son who did not go into the family business. Instead, he worked as a lay priest and as a senior clerk for a shipping line.
Kano's father was a great believer in the power of education, and he provided Jigoro, his third son, with an excellent education. The boy's early teachers included the neo-Confucian scholars Yamamoto Chikuun and Akita Shusetsu. Kano's mother died when the boy was 9 years old, and his father moved the family to Tokyo. The young Kano was enrolled in private schools, and had his own English language tutor. In 1874, he was sent to a private school run by Europeans, to improve his English and German skills.
At the time, Kano stood 5 feet 2 inches but weighed only 90 pounds. He wished he were stronger. One day, a friend of the family, Nakai Baisei, who was a member of the shogun's guard, mentioned in passing that jujutsu was an excellent form of physical training. He then showed Kano a few techniques by which a smaller man might overcome a larger, stronger opponent. Kano decided he wanted to learn the art, despite Nakai's insistence that such training was an out of date and somewhat dangerous pastime. Kano's father also discouraged him from jujutsu, telling him to pursue a modern sport instead.
Jujutsu: Undeterred, when Kano started attending Tokyo Imperial University in 1881, he started looking for jujutsu teachers. He did this by first looking for bonesetters, called seifukushi, on the assumption that doctors knew who the better martial art teachers were. This brought him to Yagi Teinosuke, who had been a student of Emon Isomata in the Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū school of jujutsu. Yagi in turn referred Kano to Fukuda Hachinosuke, a bonesetter who taught Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū in a 10-mat room adjacent to his practice. Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū was itself a combination of two older schools, the Yōshin-ryū and Shin no Shindō-ryū.
Fukuda's training method consisted mostly of the student taking fall after fall for the teacher or senior student until he began to understand the mechanics of the technique. Fukuda stressed applied technique over ritual form. He gave beginners a short description of the technique and then had them engage in free practice (randori) in order to teach through experience. It was only after the student had attained some proficiency that he taught them traditional forms (kata). This method was difficult, as there were no special mats for falling, only the standard straw mats (tatami) laid over wooden floors.
Kano had trouble defeating Fukushima Kanekichi, who was one of his seniors at the school. Therefore, Kano started trying unfamiliar techniques on his rival. He first tried techniques from sumo. When these did not help, he studied more, and tried a technique ("fireman's carry") that he learned from a book on western wrestling. This worked, and kataguruma, or "shoulder wheel", remains part of the judo repertoire.
On 5 August 1879, Kano participated in a jujutsu demonstration given for former United States president Ulysses S. Grant. This demonstration took place at the home of the prominent businessman Shibusawa Eiichi. Other people involved in this demonstration included the jujutsu teachers Fukuda Hachinosuke and Iso Masatomo, and Kano's training partner Godai Ryusaku.
Unfortunately, Fukuda died soon after this demonstration, at the age of 52. Kano then began studying with Iso, who had been a friend of Fukuda. Despite being 62 years old and only standing 5 feet tall, Iso's jujutsu training had given him a powerful build. He was known for excellence in kata, and was also a specialist in atemi, or the striking of vital areas. In Iso's method, one began with kata and then progressed to free fighting (randori). Due to Kano's intense practice and his solid grounding in the jujutsu taught by Fukuda, he was soon an assistant at Iso's school, and in 1881, at the age of 21, he gained a license (kyoshi menkyo) to teach Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū.
While under Iso's tutelage, Kano witnessed a demonstration by the Yōshin-ryū jujutsu teacher Totsuka Hikosuke and later took part in randori with members of Totsuka's school. Kano was impressed by the Yōshin-ryū practitioners and realized that he might never be able to beat someone as talented as Totsuka simply by training harder: he also needed to train smarter. It was this experience that first led Kano to believe that to be truly superior, one needed to combine the best elements of several ryū, or schools, of jujutsu. Toward this end, he began to seek teachers who could provide him with superior elements of jujutsu that he could adopt.
After Iso died in 1881, Kano began training in Kitō-ryū with Iikubo Tsunetoshi. Ikubo was expert in kata and throwing, and fond of randori. Kano applied himself thoroughly to learning Kito-ryū, believing Iikubo's throwing techniques in particular to be better than in the schools he had previously studied.
Educator: Although Kano promoted judo whenever he could, he earned his living as an educator.
Kano entered Tokyo Imperial University during June 1881. He majored in political science and economics, which at that time were taught by the Department of Aesthetics and Morals. He graduated in July 1882, and the following month he began work as a professor, fourth class, at the Gakushuin, or Peers School, in Tokyo. In 1883, Kano was appointed professor of economics at Komaba Agricultural College (now the Faculty of Agriculture at University of Tokyo), but during April 1885, he returned to Gakushuin, with the position of principal.
In January 1891, Kano was appointed to a position at the Ministry of Education. In August 1891, he gave up this position to become a dean at the Fifth Higher Normal School (present-day Kumamoto University). One of the teachers at Fifth Higher between 1891 and 1893 was Lafcadio Hearn. Around this same time, Kano married. His wife, Sumako Takezoe, was the daughter of a former Japanese ambassador to Korea. Eventually, the couple had six daughters and three sons.
During the summer of 1892, Kano went to Shanghai to help establish a program that would allow Chinese students to study in Japan. Kano revisited Shanghai during 1905, 1915, and 1921.
In January 1898, Kano was appointed director of primary education at the Ministry of Education, and in August 1899, he received a grant that allowed him to study in Europe. His ship left Yokohama on 13 September 1899, and he arrived in Marseilles on 15 October. He spent about a year in Europe, and during this trip, he visited Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, and London. He returned to Japan in 1901. Soon after returning to Japan, he resumed his post as president of Tokyo Higher Normal School, and he remained in this position until his retirement on 16 January 1920.
Considering that he majored in political science and economics, Kano's family thought that after graduating from university, he would pursue a career in some government ministry. Indeed, through influential friends of his father's, he was initially offered a position with the Ministry of Finance. However, his love for teaching led him instead to accept a position teaching at Gakushuin. The students of Japan's elite attended Gakushuin and were of higher social positions than their teachers. The students were allowed to ride in rickshaws (jinrikisha) right to the doors of the classes, whereas teachers were forbidden. The teachers often felt compelled to visit the homes of these students whenever summoned to give instruction or advice. In effect, the teachers were treated as servants.
Kano believed this to be unacceptable. He refused to play such a subservient role when teaching his students. To Kano, a teacher must command respect. At the same time, he employed the latest European and American pedagogical methods. The theories of the American educator John Dewey especially influenced him. Kano's manner had the desired effect upon the students, but the administration was slower to warm to his methods and it was not until the arrival of a new principal that Kano's ideas found acceptance.
All this is to say that Kano's educational philosophy was a combination of both traditional Japanese neo-Confucianism and contemporary European and American philosophies, to include Instrumentalism, Utilitarianism, and "evolutionary progressivism", as Social Darwinism was then known.
The goals of Kano's educational philosophies and methods (indeed, the goals of most Japanese educational programs of the early 20th century) were to 1) develop minds, bodies, and spirits in equal proportion, 2) increase patriotism and loyalty, especially to the Emperor, 3) teach public morality, and 4) increase physical strength and stamina, especially for the purpose of making young men more fit for military service.
Calisthenics, especially as done in the huge formations favored at the time, could be boring, and at the high school and college levels, games such as baseball and rugby were more often spectator sports than a practical source of physical exercise for the masses. Moreover, at elite levels, baseball, football, and even judo did not put much emphasis on moral or intellectual development. Instead, elite coaches and athletes tended to emphasize winning, at almost any cost.
For Kano, the answer to this connundrum was one word: judo. Not judo in the sense of simply throwing other people around, and definitely not judo in the sense of winning at any cost. Instead, it was judo in the sense of "Maximum Efficiency with Minimum Effort" and "Mutual Welfare and Benefit." Or, as Kano himself put it to a reporter in 1938: "When yielding is the highest efficient use of energy, then yielding is judo."
International Olympics Committee: Kano became active in the activities of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in 1909. This came about after Kristian Hellstrøm of the Swedish Olympic Committee wrote to the governments of Japan and China to ask if they were going to send teams to the 1912 Olympics. The Japanese government did not want to embarrass itself on an international stage by saying no, so the Ministry of Education was told to look into this. The Ministry logically turned to Kano, who was a physical educator with recent experience in Europe. Kano agreed to represent Japan at the International Olympics Committee, and, after talking to the French ambassador to Japan and reading pamphlets sent by the Swedes, he got, in his words, "a fairly good idea of what the Olympic Games were."
Toward fulfilling his duties as a member, in 1912, Kano helped establish the Japan Amateur Athletic Association (Dai Nippon Tai-iku Kyokai), which had the mission of overseeing amateur sport in Japan. Kano was the official representative of Japan to the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912, and he was involved in organizing the Far Eastern Championship Games held in Osaka during May 1917. In 1920, Kano represented Japan at the Antwerp Olympics, and during the early 1920s, he served on the Japanese Council of Physical Education. He did not play much part in organizing the Far Eastern Championship Games held in Osaka in May 1923, nor did he attend the 1924 Olympics in Paris, but he did represent Japan at the Olympics in Amsterdam (1928), Los Angeles (1932), and Berlin (1936). From 1931 to 1938, he was also one of the leading international spokesmen in Japan's bid for the 1940 Olympics.
Kano's chief goal in all this was, in his words, to gather people together for a common cause, with friendly feeling.[43] His goals did not, however, particularly involve getting judo into the Olympics. As he put it in a letter to Britain's Gunji Koizumi in 1936:
“ I have been asked by people of various sections as to the wisdom and the possibility of Judo being introduced at the Olympic Games. My view on the matter, at present, is rather passive. If it be the desire of other member countries, I have no objection. But I do not feel inclined to take any initiative. For one thing, Judo in reality is not a mere sport or game. I regard it as a principle of life, art and science. In fact, it is a means for personal cultural attainment. Only one of the forms of Judo training, the so-called randori can be classed as a form of sport... [In addition, the] Olympic Games are so strongly flavoured with nationalism that it is possible to be influenced by it and to develop Contest Judo as a retrograde form as Jujitsu was before the Kodokan was founded. Judo should be as free as art and science from external influences -- political, national, racial, financial or any other organised interest. And all things connected with it should be directed to its ultimate object, the benefit of humanity."
Legacy: In 1934, Kano quit giving public exhibitions. The reason was failing health, probably compounded by kidney stones. "People don’t seem to think he will live much longer", the British judoka Sarah Mayer wrote friends in London. Nevertheless, Kano continued attending important Kodokan events such as kagami-biraki (New Years' ceremonies) whenever he could, and he continued participating in Olympics business.
In May 1938, Kano died at sea, while on board the NYK Line motor vessel MV Hikawa Maru. Because the Japanese merchant fleet of the 1930s used Tokyo time wherever it was in the world, the Japanese date of death was 4 May 1938 at about 5:33 a.m. JST, whereas the international date of death was 3 May 1938 at 8:33 p.m. UTC. The cause of death was officially listed as pneumonia. During the 1990s, there appeared allegations that Kano was murdered by poisoning rather than dying of pneumonia. Although this conspiracy theory proved popular on the Internet, there is no known contemporary documentation to support it.
Judo did not die with Kano. Instead, during the 1950s, judo clubs sprang up throughout the world, and in 1972, judo became an official Olympic sport. Kano's posthumous reputation was therefore assured. Nonetheless, his true legacy was his idealism. As Kano said in a speech given in 1934, "Nothing under the sun is greater than education. By educating one person and sending him into the society of his generation, we make a contribution extending a hundred generations to come."
Published works:
Kano, Jigoro. (October 1898 - December
1903). Kokushi.
Lindsay, Thomas and Kano, Jigoro.
(1889, 1915 reprint). "The Old
Samurai Art of Fighting without
Weapons", Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan, XVI, Pt
II, pp. 202-217.
Kano, Jigoro. (Jan. 1915 - December
1918). Jūdō.
Kano, Jigoro. (1922). "Jiudo [sic]:
The Japanese Art of Self Defence", Living
Age, 314, pp. 724-731.
Kano, Jigoro. (1932). "The
Contribution of Jiudo [sic] to
Education", Journal of Health and
Physical Education, 3, pp. 37-40, 58
(originally a lecture given at the
University of Southern California on the
occasion of the Xth Olympiad).
Kano, Jigoro. (1934). "Principles
of Judo and Their Applications to All
Phases of Human Activity",
unpublished lecture given at the
Parnassus Society, Athens, Greece, on 5
June 1934, reprinted as "Principles
of Judo" in Budokwai Quarterly
Bulletin, April 1948, pp. 37-42.
Kano, Jigoro. (1936). "Olympic
Games and Japan", Dai Nippon,
pp. 197-199. In Thomas A. Green and
Joseph R. Svinth, eds., Martial Arts
in the Modern World. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood, 2003, pp.
167-172.
Kano, Jigoro. (1937). Judo
(jujutsu) by Prof. Jigorō Kanō.
Tokyo: Board of Tourist Industry,
Japanese Government Railways.
Kano, Jigoro. (1937). "Jujutsu
and Judo; What Are They?" Tokyo:
Kodokwan.
Kano, Jigoro. (Undated.) Jujutsu
Becomes Judo.
Kano, Jigoro. (1972). Kanō
Jigorō, watakushi no shōgai to
jūdō. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu
Oraisha.
Kano, Jigoro. (1981). Kanō
Jigorō no kyōiku to shisō.
Publication data unknown.
Kano, Jigoro. (1986). Kodokan
judo/Jigoro Kano; edited under the
supervision of the Kodokan Editorial
Committee. Tokyo and New York:
Kodansha International.
Kano, Jigoro. (1995). Kanō
Jigorō taikei/kanshū Kōdōkan.
Tokyo: Hon no Tomosha.
