Today's Doodle honours Kano Jigoro, the 'Father of Modern Judo' on his 161st birth anniversary.
A series of neat panels illustrate the life of this remarkable man who developed the institutions that globalised Judo (柔道 lit. "gentle way"), to take it beyond the Samurai class, to make it an international olympic sport.
This also brought back memories of the University of Tsukuba where I had my first brush (and bruises, sprains and near dislocations!) with this remarkable art of self-defence. Memories of stepping into the airy, well-lit Budokan for the first time; the tatami-matted practice halls; the feel of coarse, stiff judo-gi outfit that would break your fingernails, and that peculiar smell of deodorants mixed with sweat, blood and dried.
I had been amazed to see how men and women trained together, and how once a month, the elite Tsukuba Blue Team held an open house with other enthusiasts. Olympic medallists sparred with schoolchildren on one side, and grandfathers teaching pigtailed grand-daughters on the other.
A portrait of Kano Sensei and his many quotations lined a wall in the Budokan, looking down on us with with his bemused, slightly bored expression, watching over various groups going through their paces - sparring, fighting, and learning how an opponents physical strength could be used against them.
Tsukuba University apparently grew from the educational institutions Kano set up a century earlier. Sometime during 2010 the university suddenly decided to replace the statue of a Greek hero with that of this venerable teacher. So imagine our surprise when during a visit to the post office, we looked up to find that in place of a naked, muscular European, stood a fully clothed statue of the man who repackaged Jujitsu into Judo for the world!
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate - and less expensive - to have a sporty statue of his in front of the university Budokan or Sports Department, but then, when it comes to sentimental matters, the Japanese do not seem to believe in Kano Jigoro's dictum - "Maximum efficiency with minimum effort" (精力善用 seiryoku zen'yō)!
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REFERENCES & LINKS
* The pioneer of Judo - https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/en/about/history/kano/index.html
* The Olympic Movement and J Kano - https://www.joc.or.jp/english/historyjapan/kano_jigoro.html
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