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Judo

Judo is a popular wrestling form developed from jujitsu in 1882 by Jigoro Kano, a Japanese educator. Like jujitsu, it attempts to turn an attacker’s force to one’s own advantage. Considering judo uses holds, chokes, throws, trips, joint locks, kicks, and atemi (strikes to vital body areas), it is hard to believe that its name comes from the Japanese word Ju meaning “gentle.” Judo is a discipline practiced today by over six million Japanese and many more athletes worldwide. Judo was first included in the Olympic Games in 1964.

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Scoring
All scoring and refereeing terms are in Japanese. During a contest, for either men or women, a judoka (a person who practices the art of judo) may record an ippon (full-point), a waza-ari (“almost” ippon, a half of a point), a yuko (“almost” waza-ari, a quarter of a point), and a koka (“almost” yuko, an eighth of a point). There are negative scores too, resulting from hansoku-make (very grave infringements), keikoku (grave infringements), chui (serious infringements), and shido (slight infringements). The negative scores are recorded in favor of the contestant who did not commit the violation.

Competition
A judo match is won by the first to score an ippon or its equivalent, which is the sum of two waza-ari, known as an awaste ippon. A judoka earns an ippon by throwing his opponent to the mat (or tatame) with considerable force or speed, maintaining a hold for 30 seconds, applying armbar (elbow-joint-locking) techniques, or choking the rival while avoiding any action that might injure the neck or spine. (It is not allowed to put a lock on any bodily joint other than the elbow, as this could seriously injure the opponent.) An awaste ippon is earned by successfully executing one of the throwing techniques, which is given a waza-ari, followed by a 25-second hold-down, or vice versa, or by winning a waza-ari at the same time the opponent received a keikoku. If neither contestant is able to do this within the time limit, then a decision is rendered by the referee and two judges based on who demonstrated the better judo technique. Any lesser scores earned are counted toward the decision. Judo is divided into weight categories much like boxing. For the Sydney Olympic Summer Games they were extra lightweight, half lightweight, lightweight, half middleweight, middleweight, half heavyweight, and heavyweight.

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Portions of the above text were excerpted from Share the Olympic Dream--Volume II.
© 2001 by Griffin Publishing Group/United States Olympic Committee.

For information on purchasing Griffin materials, please visit the Griffin Publishing Group Web site at http://www.griffinpublishing.com.

 

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