The man generally considered to be the inventor of modern judo is Jigoro Kano. He was born on October 28th, 1860 (which was the year of the monkey) in a little village called Mikage in the city of Kobe.

During the 1860s Kano's father, a high-ranking official, worked for the shogunate government. A born organizer, with a strong sense of social responsibility, he contributed to the modernization of Japan and opening Hyogo harbour to foreign trade.

Young Kano was obviously influenced by his father. In 1870, after the death of his mother, his father and Jigaro moved to Tokyo. Jigoro was sent for English lessons to Mitsukuri Shuhei, a renowned scholar dedicated to educational reforms. As a boy Jigoro Kano was frail but also quick-tempered. Being educationally gifted, he studied with boys who were older and bigger and he soon needed to find a way to defend himself.

At the age of 14, he entered the Foreign Languages School, a part of the Kaisei Gakko and he decided to learn more about the art which enabled the weak to overcome the strong. In Tokyo, it was then very hard to find anyone who knew how to teach the ancient art of jujutsu.

In 1877, Kano was eager to learn more about this ancient practice. After months of patient research, he finally managed to find a former Kobusho jujutsu master, Fukuda Hachinosuke. Two years later, when General Ulysses Grant came to Japan, Kano knew enough to take part in a jujutsu demonstration.

When Fukuda died, in 1877 Kano took over Fukuda's school.  He kept on studying with Fukuda's teacher, Iso Masamoto. In 1881, he started studying the jujutsu of the Kito school, the spiritual side of jujutsu, with another Kobusho teacher, Iikubo Tsunetoshi. Iikubo, an expert at throws, gave less importance to kata, but the main kata originally performed with armour, (koshiki no kata) was kept.  It was one of Kano's favourites and in 1929 he performed it before the Emperor. The Kito school is also at the origin of the name judo. Kano deliberately chose it to underline the moral side of his system. In 1882 Jigoro Kano was appointed lecturer in politics and economics at a private school for the nobility, Gakushuuin where he was to teach for some years. He also started a private school, the Kano Juku.

Kano Juku was a preparatory school whose main goal was to build up the characters of the pupils who lived there. However, this year is said to be the date of the formal beginning of his judo academy, the Kodokan, in a space rented from a small Buddhist monastery in Tokyo. The number of his students increased, coming from all over Japan.  Many left old masters to train with Kano. The Kodokan had to move several times in order to find space for the new recruits. Kano's method was adopted by the police and the navy and introduced to schools and universities. It rapidly spread overseas. What came to be known as Kodokan judo was a combination of several schools of jujutsu and ideas taken from interviews, and forgotten techniques. Kano's method derived from old-style jujutsu techniques but it definitely differed from the methods of the past. Getting rid of all dangerous, killing or maiming jujutsu waza, Kano forced opponents to grapple with one another. Thus, he restricted violence. So as to make them safer he improved falling techniques. Kano designed judo as a way to develop harmoniously the intellectual, moral and physical aspects of the education of young people.

In 1909, Japan received an invitation to take part in the International Olympic Committee. Jigoro Kano was chosen as Japan's representative. Jigoro Kano was the first Asian member of the IOC. As yet, there was no general sports organization in Japan that could send athletes to the Olympics. Thus, in 1911, the Japan Amateur Athletic Association was founded and Jigoro Kano was installed as the first president. At this meeting, it was decided that Japan would participate in its first Olympics at the 5th Olympic Games to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912. It was not until 1964 that Kano's dream became a reality when judo was accepted as an olympic discipline for the 18th Olympic Games in the capital of Japan.

We leave you with an extract from a speech given by the great master himself at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles on the occasion of 11th Olympiad, 1932.