Judo in Canada


The Japanese martial art Judo has been practised in Canada for nearly a century. The first Judo dojo in Canada, Tai Iku Dojo, was established in Vancouver in 1924 by Shigetaka "Steve" Sasaki. Sasaki and his students opened several branch schools in British Columbia up until 1940, when all dojos were shut down by the government and their Japanese members forced into internment camps due to fears that Japanese-Canadians would act against Canada on behalf of Japan during the Second World War. After the War was over, the government encouraged internees to relocate, and many of Sasaki's students went on to establish their own dojos across Canada.
The Canadian Kodokan Black Belt Association was incorporated in 1956 and recognized by the International Judo Federation in 1958. Now known as Judo Canada, it is the national governing body and a federation of associations in each of the ten provinces and three territories. Today, an estimated 30,000 Canadians participate in Judo programs in approximately 400 clubs across Canada.

Ranking

Judo uses a hierarchical ranking system divided into kyū and dan grades that its founder, Jigoro Kano, adapted from the ranking system for the traditional board game Go. Kyū grades are for students ranked below black belt, and dan grades are for judoka who have a black belt. A person's rank is represented by a number, and the names of each grade are a combination of the name of the number in Japanese and the appropriate suffix. For kyū grades, this number goes down with each promotion, usually starting at sixth kyū and ending at first kyū. For dan grades, the number goes up with each promotion, starting at first dan and ending at tenth dan. Grades are also differentiated by belt colour. Kano originally adopted white and black belts in 1886 to mark the distinction between kyū and dan grades, and red and white and solid red belts were later introduced to distinguish judoka who were sixth dan and higher. Coloured belts for kyū grades were first introduced by Mikinosuke Kawaishi in France in 1935 because he felt that European students would progress more quickly if they received visible recognition of their achievements.
In Canada there are six kyū grades for seniors, eleven kyū grades for juniors, and ten dan grades that are restricted to seniors. Both senior and junior students begin as white belts and progress with promotion through yellow, orange, green, and blue, to brown belt. Half-grades for juniors were introduced in 2010 and are represented by belts that combine the colours of the previous grade and the next grade. The first five dan grades are represented by a black belt. Judoka ranked sixth to eighth dan may wear a red and white belt, and those ranked ninth or tenth dan may wear a solid red belt, but this is not required and the black belt remains the standard for all dan grades. In the past women's belts would include a white stripe in the centre of the length of the belt to differentiate them from men, but this is much less common now.
Grade6th5th4th3rd2nd1st
NameRokkyūGokyūYonkyūSankyūNikyūIkkyū
Colourwhiteyelloworangegreenbluebrown
Age–68101214

Grade1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th
NameShodanNidanSandanYondanGodanRokudanShichidanHachidanKudanJūdan
Colourblackblackblackblackblackred-whitered-whitered-whiteredred
Age1517202429374759––
Time1 yr2 yrs3 yrs4 yrs5–8 yrs8–11 yrs10–13 yrs12–15 yrs––
Points120160200240280320360400––

Grading and promotion

Minoru Hatashita
Yoshitaka Mori
Tom Mukai
Genichiro Nakahara
Yutaka Okimura
Mamoru Oye
Yonekazu Sakai
Shigetaka Sasaki
Masao Takahashi
Satoru Tamoto
Goki Uemura
Duncan Vignale

Promotions are regulated by Judo Canada using guidelines set by the National Grading Board. Most of the responsibility for grading, however, is delegated to other organizations. All kyū grade promotions are based on examination at the student's club by the club's head instructor or grading board following the Judo Canada grading syllabus. Shodan to hachidan promotions are based on examination by a provincial or territorial grading board, and must be ratified by Judo Canada. Kudan and judan promotions are rare honours that are conferred directly by Judo Canada, the International Judo Federation, or the Kodokan.

''Kyū grades''

The time between promotions for kyū grades varies, and is based on a combination of skill, physical fitness, age, regular attendance at classes, frequency of classes per week, student–teacher ratio, facilities and equipment, and the disposition of the student. Students must be at least 6 years old to be promoted and at least 15 years old to be eligible to test for black belt.
Each kyū promotion requires a test of proficiency in a specific set of techniques. The foundation of the syllabus is Kano's revised Gokyo no Waza from 1920, which covers Judo's 40 fundamental throws. There are now 67 official throws, however, and Judo Canada's syllabus does not directly match each stage of the Gokyo. Some throws are now associated with different grades than indicated in the Gokyo, the 27 throws that were added in 1982 and 1997 have been incorporated into the curriculum at various stages, and each kyū also requires proficiency in certain hold-downs, arm-locks, strangles and chokes. Ten competition points are required for most promotions after gokyū, and parts of the Nage-no-kata must be demonstrated during examinations beginning at sankyū. Finally, students are also expected to remain proficient in all techniques associated with their previous grades, and to develop an understanding of Judo's history and standard Japanese terms.

''Dan'' grades

The requirements for dan promotion are more demanding and cover age, time in current grade, points total, and how those points were earned. To test for black belt, a person must be at least 15 years old, have been an ikkyū for at least one year, been active in Judo for at least three years with a valid association membership, and have 120 points. Points can be earned through competition, technical activities such as attending an instructional clinic or assisting with club development, volunteering at Judo events, and consistent class attendance on a yearly basis. They cannot be accumulated until after promotion to ikkyū, and they reset after each promotion. People under the age of 20 must earn at least one third of their points through competition. The number of points awarded varies with each activity and its details: a win in competition by ippon, for example, is worth 10 grading points, whereas a win by waza-ari is worth 7 grading points. If all of these conditions are met, the person can register for their provincial or territorial association's next black belt grading. The examination requires: demonstration of eight throwing techniques from the Gokyo, three hold downs, three strangles or chokes, and three arm-locks, all chosen by the examiners at the time of the examination; demonstration of the ability to successfully apply such techniques at full force and speed against a resisting opponent in randori ; and demonstration of the first three sets of the Nage-no-kata as tori.
Second to fourth dan have similar but progressively higher requirements, with the necessary minimum age, time in current grade, number of points, and the number and type of techniques to be demonstrated increasing with each grade. From fifth to eighth dan the minimum time that must be spent in the current grade varies according to the way that grading points are earned and their distribution among the different point categories. These distributions are categorized as either 'outstanding', 'excellent', 'very good', or 'good': an 'outstanding' candidate for godan, for example, can be promoted after five years in the previous grade, but a 'good' candidate would have to wait eight.

High-ranking Canadians

There have only been seventeen judan judoka in history, fifteen promoted by the Kodokan and two by the International Judo Federation. None of them are Canadian, but Canada does have a group of more than 100 kōdansha, all of whom have devoted much of their lives to Canadian Judo.
The late Yoshio Senda became Canada's first kudan in 2007, and since then three more Canadians have been promoted to kudan by Judo Canada: Yeiji Inouye, Raymond Damblant, and Hiroshi Nakamura. Eleven Canadians are ranked hachidan, twenty-seven are ranked shichidan, and approximately 85 others are ranked rokudan. The names of the ninth and eighth dan holders are listed in the tables to the right. A typographic dagger follows the names of those who are deceased. A registry of approximately 5000 black belts ranked shodan to hachidan in the years 1946–1997 is included in Glynn Leyshon's book Judoka: a history of Judo in Canada.

International competition

World

Canadians have won five Olympic medals in Judo since it was added to the Summer games in 1964. Doug Rogers won silver in the +80 kg category in 1964, Mark Berger won bronze in the +95 kg category in 1984, Nicolas Gill won bronze in the 86 kg category in 1992 and silver in the 100 kg category in 2000, and Antoine Valois-Fortier won bronze in the -81 kg category in 2012. Sandra Greaves became the first woman to compete for Canada in Olympic Judo in 1988. The Canadian Judo team trains at the National Training Centre in Montreal under Gill's direction.
Eleven medals have been awarded to Canadians at the World Judo Championships. Rogers won bronze in the +80 kg category in 1965, Phil Takahashi won bronze in the -60 kg category and Kevin Doherty won bronze in the -78 kg category in 1981; Gill won silver in the 86 kg category in 1993, bronze in 1995, and bronze in 100 kg in 1999; Valois-Fortier won silver and bronze in the -81 kg category; and Christa Deguchi won bronze and gold in the -57 kg category. Jessica Klimkait and Louis Krieber-Gagnon both won gold at the 2013 the World Cadets Judo Championships.

Regional

Canada's greatest success in international competition, however, has been at the Pan American Games, with a total of 76 medals ranging from gold to bronze awarded since 1967.

Judo for the visually impaired

Judo is also practised by visually impaired athletes, and became a Paralympic sport in 1988 for men and 2004 for women. While often referred to as 'blind judo', it includes athletes with three different levels of visual impairment, all of whom may compete against one another so long as they are in the same weight category. The only differences between Olympic and Paralympic judo are that judoka with visual impairments take hold of their opponent before the start of the match, and the mat has different textures to indicate zones and the competition area.
Judo for the visually impaired has a long history in Canada and, according to a newspaper article published in 1952, Ottawa was the home of the only judo club for the blind in the world at the time. In most circumstances, however, visually impaired and sighted judoka belong to the same clubs and practice together.

International competition

Canada was first represented in international competition by brothers Pier Morten and Eddie Morten at the 1988 Paralympics, where they each won bronze in the 65 kg and 71 kg categories, respectively. Pier, who is the first deaf-blind person in the world to earn a black belt in judo and was inducted into the Judo Canada Hall of Fame in 2012, also won bronze in the 71 kg category in 1992 and the -73 kg category in 2000 at the Paralympics, making him Canada's most successful visually impaired judoka. William Morgan won bronze at the International Blind Sports World Championships in 2006, and placed fifth in the 2004 and seventh in the 2008 Paralympics, where he was Canada's only competitor. Justin Karn, Tim Rees, and Tony Walby represented Canada in the 2012 Paralympics. Tom Thompson, head instructor at the Brantford Judo Club, has coached the national Judo team for the past four Paralympics. A video of Morgan explaining Paralympic Judo is available in the 'External links' section below.

Judo for people with other disabilities

Judo is also practised by people with disabilities other than visual impairment, such as the members of the Jita Kyoei Judo Club at the Community Head Injury Resource Services in Toronto, who all have Acquired Brain Injury. Judo in such circumstances, however, is rare, non-competitive, and focused on recreation and rehabilitation.

Public service

Canadian judoka have been decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Rosette and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette.
Four judoka have been awarded Membership in the Order of Canada, the country's second highest civilian honour of merit, for outstanding contributions to their communities through Judo: James Driscoll of Belleville, Ontario, Yuzuru Kojima of Richmond, British Columbia, Yoshio Senda of Lethbridge, Alberta, and Hiroshi Nakamura of LaSalle, Quebec.
Four judoka are members of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame: Doug Rogers as an athlete, and Frank Hatashita, Yoshio Senda, and Shigetaka Sasaki as 'builders'.
Two Canadians have been decorated by the Emperor of Japan in recognition of their service in improving the status of Japanese-Canadians through a lifelong commitment to the promotion and development of Judo in Canada: Masao Takahashi with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2002, and Yuzuru Kojima with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2011.

Research

Judo has been the subject of significant academic research worldwide, most notably in Japan. It has received relatively little attention in Canada, but Judo research has been conducted by Canadians working in several different disciplines.
The most widely cited publications are journal articles and books written by sports scientists. The earliest, "A physiological profile of the Canadian judo team" by A.W. Taylor and L. Brassard, was published in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness in 1981. The similarly titled "Physiological profiles of the Canadian National Judo Team" was published by S.G. Thomas, M.H. Cox, Y.M. LeGal, T.J. Verde, and H.K. Smith in the Canadian Journal of Sport Sciences in 1989. A third article, "Physical performance attributes of junior and senior women, juvenile, junior, and senior men judokas", presents the results of a study of the 1989 Alberta Judo Team and was published by N.G. Little in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness in 1991. Kinesiologist, 1993 Canadian Champion, and former member of the Canadian Judo team Wayland Pulkkinen self-published The Sport Science of Elite Judo Athletes: a Review & Application for Training in 2001. Two undated articles derived from the book are available on the website JudoInfo.com.
Other authors have focused on the social aspects of Judo. The most complete history of Canadian Judo is Glynn Leyshon's Judoka: the history of Judo in Canada. However, while Leyshon is Professor Emeritus of Kinesiology at the University of Western Ontario, Judoka is a popular history published by Judo Canada rather than an academic study. Anne Doré's article "Japanese-Canadian Sport History in the Fraser Valley: Judo and Baseball in the Interwar Years" and Joseph Svinth's book Getting a Grip: Judo in the Nikkei Communities of the Pacific Northwest, 1900-1950 both address the history of Judo in British Columbia. Luiz Moraes' PhD thesis in Education at the University of Ottawa, Influences on the development of beliefs of Canadian expert judo coaches and their impact on action, describes the beliefs of Canadian Judo coaches and how these beliefs were represented in their actions during training. And finally, Michelle Rogers' MA thesis in Anthropology at the University of Victoria, Twentieth Century Travels: Tales of a Canadian Judoka, examines the life of her father, Olympian Doug Rogers, and uses his story as a case study of how large-scale global processes can influence the life of an individual.

Popular culture

Television and film

Judo has not received widespread attention in Canadian television and film, but it has not been absent either.
Most of Judo's television appearances that are not directly related to the Olympics occurred in the 1950s on either the CBC or its French-language counterpart Radio-Canada, and coincided with the spread of new Judo clubs throughout the country following the Second World War. The earliest seems to be an interview at the Ottawa Judo Club, conducted in French by then-journalist René Lévesque and accompanied by a demonstration, in 1955. Another French-language interview and demonstration, this time focusing on the role of women in Judo, also aired on Radio-Canada two years later. The first coverage of Judo on English television appears to have been in 1956, starting with a demonstration by Fred Okimura and assistants on the Vic Obeck Show, and then in an episode of the information program Tabloid, titled "From foe to friend: Japanese culture in Canada". The episode covers several different elements of Japanese culture, and includes a Judo demonstration by Frank Hatashita and his daughter Patsy Yuriko Hatashita. Four other programs aired episodes that included Judo demonstrations or interviews with judoka from 1957–59. In 1971 the children's show Alphabet Soup ran an episode titled "J is for Judo" which featured journalist and judoka Frank Moritsugu instructing host Mavis Kerr in the basics of Judo, and in 1976 The National Film Board of Canada produced a seven-minute 'sport interlude' titled "Capsule – Judo" that was shown on television as part of the coverage leading up to and during the Montreal Olympics.
The most common television coverage of Judo in Canada, however, is interviews conducted with Olympic athletes, particularly after a medal has been won, along with short athlete profiles that are interspersed throughout coverage of the Games. One such profile, shown during the 2012 Olympics as part of a CTV series called "The Difference Makers", features Kelita Zupancic, who was training in Japan during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster.
The National Film Board has also produced two short documentaries about Judo. The first is Judo Jinks, hosted by journalist Fred Davis, which includes a brief history of Judo, some demonstrations, and an interview with judoka Bernard Gauthier. The other documentary, Judoka, features Doug Rogers and was filmed after he won silver In Tokyo. It shows his intensive training under the famous Masahiko Kimura, and glimpses of Rogers' life in Japan. A link to the full documentary in high definition is available in the 'External links' section below.

Other visual arts

In 2010 the Portrait Society of Canada held a month-long exhibition at the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto, titled "Canadian Olympic Athletes: a Dialogue in Art", that featured portraits of Canadian Olympic athletes painted by members of the Society. One of the portraits, painted with oil by Society founder and president Veronica Kvassetskaia-Tsyglan, is of judoka Sasha Mehmedovic, who competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

Music

Musician Mark Kasprzyk, who previously went by the stage name 'Kazzer', was an alternate for Canada's 2000 Olympic Judo team. In the video for his best known song as Kazzer, "Pedal to the Metal", Kasprzyk confronts a bully and disables him using the Judo throw ippon seoi nage. He now goes by 'Kaz' and is the front man for the group Redlight King, best known for a song titled "Old Man" that samples fellow Canadian Neil Young's song by the same name.

Postage

In 2012, Canada Post announced that it would issue a postage stamp featuring a photograph of Nicolas Gill as the flag bearer for the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. The stamp is part of a series titled "Definitives: Canadian Pride". Canada Post also issued a stamp that illustrated Judo for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1975.

Public life

One of Canada's most famous judoka is former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Trudeau began practising Judo sometime in the mid-1950s when he was in his mid-thirties, and by the end of the decade he was ranked ik-kyū. Later, when he travelled to Japan as Prime Minister, he was promoted to sho-dan by the Kodokan, and then promoted to ni-dan by Masao Takahashi in Ottawa before leaving office. Trudeau began the night of his famous 'walk in the snow' before announcing his retirement in 1984 by going to Judo with his sons.
Other Canadian politicians and their families have also been associated with Judo. The children of Trudeau's successor in office, Brian Mulroney, also practised at the Takahashi Dojo, and Judo Canada has presented two honorary black belts to Members of Parliament: Minister of Health and Welfare Judy LaMarsh at the Eastern Canada Championships in 1964, and former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker at the Senior Women and Junior National Championships in 1979.

Images