Why Judo is Not Popular in America

[tshadowchaser]

The next time the Oplimpics are comeing up get everyone you know to write a letter to the television company that will be showing it in your area and request that more judo matches be shown. Tell them you do not care if your country is represented in the event or nor that you want to watch the matches. Do this in advance of the event by at least 6 months and maybe if they get enough requests they will show more of it . With enough publicity and coverage the sport and art may once again gain favor with the public and grow.
Shadow
:asian:

 

[JDenz]

I have some Judo on tape from other oylmpics but mostly from the candian stations. It is the same thing with wrestling you have to tape 10 hours of olympics to catch half a match.

 

[Abbax8]

I'm 47 years old , started judo when I was 12. Back then there was no yuko or koka. That was just sloppy judo. Bent over grappling was called bullwork and frowned upon. you trained to fight for 20 or 30 minutes continuously because international matches were 20 minutes long back then. Many a night we did randori for 3 hours. How long you were on the mat depended on your desire to improve. Slamming into the floor is a beautiful thing, whether I'm the slammer or the slamee! I teach judo at a TKD school. TKD classes are full, judo classes are small. Kids don't like the pain inherent in judo. Fewer adults willing to put up with it as well. I sometimes dream about huge classes with tons of students. But if the price of success is changing judo even more to make it popular, why bother. The list of banned techniques seems to continue to grow. Kani Basami-out, Flying Juji- out. Tomoe Nage might as well be out as you get penalized for dropping. And forget about Ne Waza. Half the fun was fighting on the mat working for an advantage- physical and mental chess. That is the Martial Aspect and the Art and the Way of Judo. Most people doubt if judo if effective on the street. I've even read posts from young judoka who are convinced their only doing a Sport. Judo is widely popular elsewhere in the world. Competition is only one part of it there. There's the exercise, the character development- it takes guts to be thrown, the camaraderie, the self defense aspect, the moral training- right use of force. These are what drew me to judo 35 years ago. I believe they can draw people today.

Peace
Dennis

 

[arnisador]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/commonwealthgames2002/hi/judo/newsid_1939000/1939925.stm

 

[JDenz]

fail I can't get that stupid Link to work

 

[arnisador]

It works for me--click on it, don't cut-and-paste, as it's abbrievated for display.

 

[jeffbeish]

Dennis, corner judges used yuko or koka in larger tournaments to base their calls when a judgment was needed. This was also used in Japan, or at least when I lived there in the early 1960’s. Since I’ve been out of the loop for 20s year now I am not sure what they do now. Anyway, you’re right about slop Judo; it started sometime in the mid-1970’s and just stuck with us.

 

[JDenz]

Yes I got it to worl I think I was just having browser problems. Slop Judo started because it is the best way to win. Sports are al about copying what is in and what is winning championships.

 

[arnisador]

It's a shame, but on the other hand, it's hard to fault people for using what works, and for improvising to gain an edge over their opponents.

 

[whackjob-san]

I agree with what everyone said. Sport Judo has gotten worse, not better over the years. Insurance companies and lawyers have destroyed judo competition, removing all of the visually interesting and dynamic techniques for "safety" reasons. Kids are learning this watered down crap-version of judo dictated to them by some judo political suck*ss governing organization, NOT what the founder taught!!! (Not that it matters anyway, because kids have gotten WAAAYYYYYYYYY too lazy and soft nowadays. They don't want to work or exert effort for anything in their lives. We're all doomed!)

I was hoping Mike Swains revised Sport Judo would change alot of that, but like I said; if we don't have the youth we have no future.

 

[whackjob-san]

Originally posted by arnisador
It's a shame, but on the other hand, it's hard to fault people for using what works, and for improvising to gain an edge over their opponents.

That's the reason I stopped competing in judo. I'd be losing matches to these guys using slop techniques that did nothing but work the point system, while I'd be thinking in my head that this guy would be dead if we were out in the parking lot due to the position he put himself in! My sensei would rage, telling me not to do this or that because the judges would penalize me for it, I just couldn't put aside my commen sense for the benefit of points. Another teacher of mine would always say that "Practice doesn't make perfect. Pracice makes permanent." I discovered my priority was self-defense, and I wasn't going to jeopardize my safety by practicing faulty and unsafe technique.

 

[jeffbeish]

I stopped competing because at the tender age of 25 I began to lose : ) Reminds me of a friend who said: “It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- until you lose.” While I must confess that the last matches of my last tournaments were done without much competition training, took off three years, it as not due to someone else but because of me. I had only been away from Okinawa and Japan (proper) for three years I had lost the edge and without constant practice in Judo one tends to dull in tournament skills. Those skills have always been different that dojo randori or whatever, or even when we had club Vs club kohaku shiai. For some reason those contest seemed to me to be more “technically” pure.

After I began teaching my methods changed to combat the “slop Judo” that I found disgusting, but adapted to never the less. I did try to maintain some forms of Judo decorum, in that I offered my students some inside dirty tricks when all else failed. It must have worked because my clubs brought home a lot of trophies. They mixed some slop (get the initial koka total early) then run the clock out by trying ippon Judo. Usually their opponents would commit a foul or slip up and allow their slop to dominate their brain cells and my student would be deemed favorable to corner judges.