Japan Loses International Judo Influence

[Greji]

Small bump: tonight at the tender age of 76, Anton Geesink passed away. (No English sources available yet)

Sad to hear. Even with all the honors and kudos, his life off camera was a bit sad. RIP Anton...

[sublight]

Japan's judo decline could be be because the All Japan Judo Federation has no interest in changing from their standard teaching method of "thug beats up little kids." Fewer kids may want to try judo for the same reason sumo stables aren't drawing recruits.

Japan Times: 108 school judo class deaths but no charges, only silence

"Over the 27-year period between 1983 and 2009, 108 students aged 12 to 17 died as a result of judo accidents in Japanese schools, an average of four a year," Uchida said. "This is more than five times higher than in any other sport. About 65 percent of these fatalities came from brain injuries. This is clear evidence of a dangerous trend in Japanese schools."

The statistics are doubly alarming because they have no parallel in other developed nations.

A representative from the British Judo Association said, "to our knowledge, there have been no deaths or serious brain injuries in judo in the BJA."

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan's judo decline could be be because the All Japan Judo Federation has no interest in changing from their standard teaching method of "thug beats up little kids." Fewer kids may want to try judo for the same reason sumo stables aren't drawing recruits.

Japan Times: 108 school judo class deaths but no charges, only silence

I've heard that's also the reason you can't really take up judo as an adult in Japan the way you can other martial arts. If you aren't a black belt by your late teens they want nothing to do with you. If you do join practice you either have to sit at the kiddy table or get tossed around like a ragdoll without ever actually learning anything. I guess it's kind of like wrestling in the US in that sense though. It's not like there are wrestling academies at strip malls the way there are karate, tae kwon do, or Brazilian jiu-jitsu schools. However, if an unusally high number of kids are dying because of abusive training methods it's a fucking national disgrace. I hate what excessive litigation has done to US society but maybe the Japanese need be a little more sekkyokuteki about lawsuits.