Notable Judoka

There have been many famous people who did Judo and many people who became famous for doing Judo. Some of the ones you might want to learn more about are below:

Sensei Mifune in his later years, teaching a student

Sensei Kyuzo Mifune Is in many of the videos on our Youtube channel. He was one of Kano’s early students and is said to be the most technically perfect judoka ever.

At 5'2" tall, Kyuzo Mifune was not a big man. But as the videos of the judo master shows, strength doesn’t come from size alone. Mifune is considered to be one of the finest judo technicians ever! He was in his 70's when those videos were made, and all of the 'challengers' were young and quite high ranking accomplished black belts in their prime, according to several sources these men were not trying to take it easy on the old man, he was just that good.

Mifune was born in 1883 in Iwate Prefecture and began Judo in 1897 when he was 13. His energy and diligence saw him progress rapidly, and in 1945, at the age of 61, he was promoted to Tenth Dan, the highest rank. He was only the fourth judoka to achieve this honor. After Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, Mifune is often considered to be the greatest or at least most technically perfect judo practitioner ever.

Mitsuyo Maeda

Maeda was one of two of Kano’s students who came to N. and S. America, and somewhat of a mentor to Sensei Mifune when he was young. He was asked to teach Judo at the US Naval Academy in the early 1900's. Legend says he won 2000 matches. He was an incredibly strong and tough Judoka, he was the Sensei who taught Carlos and Helio Gracie his methods which then went on to become Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, because of this he is considered the father, or grandfather of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He was also known as Count Combat (Conde Koma) and at the time was considered the toughest man alive. He promoted the spread of Judo not so much by teaching it as by beating all comers of any style and proving to them that (at least his) Judo was best. Read more about him here

Masahiko Kimura

Kimura - Kimura was the only man to ever defeat Helio Gracie. In Judo and BJJ, the reverse ude-garami arm lock is often called the “Kimura”, due to his famous victory over Gracie jiu-jitsu legend Hélio Gracie. His time came after Maeda but was also considered one of the greatest fighters of all time. He won many championships. He was extremely driven, at the height of his career Kimura's training involved 1000 push-ups and 9 hours of practice every day.(!)

After an intense fight where he became a national champion in 1935, beating an older and more experienced opponent in a grueling bout he said this:

I wanted to win All Japan Championship just once. But once the dream came true, I did not want to give up the title. I felt like defending the title again and again. I got up from futon, turned on the light, and looked at my body. Neither my height (169cm) nor weight (86kg) is outstanding. There was no guarantee that I could continue to defend the title judging from my body size. I kept on thinking everyday, “I want to become a true winner.” About 10 days after this, I came up with a good idea. That is, “San-bai no Do-ryoku (Triple Effort)”. Up until that day, I had practiced about 6 hours every day. I thought practicing twice as much as others would be enough since I had heard that others were practicing about 3 hours a day. In reality, however, they had been practicing about 4 hours a day (which I found later). But now that I was the champion, others would start to train 6 hours a day to beat me. I could not beat them as long as I trained ONLY as hard as others. If my opponents train twice as hard as others, then, I will train 3 times as hard as others, so I began to train 9 hours a day. This way, I would gain extra 3 hours a day, and I will do this everyday. I practiced “Triple Effort” everyday.

That is someone who wants to be the best. It is not usually about talent. Extremely hard work generally beats talent.

Yamashita Yoshitsugu (February 16, 1865 – October 26, 1935, also known as Yamashita Yoshiaki), was a Japanese judoka. He was the first person to have been awarded 10th degree red belt (jūdan) rank in Kodokan judo, although posthumously. He was also one of the Four Guardians of the Kodokan, and a pioneer of judo in the United States.

He was descended from Samurai, and had studied Jujutsu since he was a boy. He joined the Kodokan of his childhood friend Jigoro Kano, as its 19th member in 1884.

Yamashita was known for his many street fights. In the most famous instance, he got involved in a brawl with no less than 17 laborers in Tokyo due to a dispute in a restaurant. Despite their vast numeric advantage, added to the fact that some of them wielded knives, Yamashita and a fellow judoka (which may have been Maeda) disposed of all the men, purposely breaking the arms of three of them in the process.

“Always try to think of improvement, and don't think that you are too good. The latter is very easy to do while learning judo.”

Yamashita is responsible for introducing Judo to the United States. To learn more read about him in the History of Judo page.

Keiko Fukuda - Was one of the (maybe the) first Japanese women to travel from Japan overseas to teach Judo. She traveled to Australia and the Philippines, and settled in the United States to live and teach. She is the highest-ranked female judoka in history, holding the rank of 9th dan from the Kodokan (2006), and 10th Dan from USA Judo (July 2011) and from the United States Judo Federation (USJF) (September 2011). She was the last surviving student of Kanō Jigorō. To date she is the only woman to ever be promoted to 10th Dan in Judo.

Sarah Mayer was an English Female Judoka, who traveled to Japan in 1934 to study at the Kodokan. In 1935 she became the first non-Japanese female black belt.

Rena "Rusty" Kanokogi (née Glickman, Stewart) was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935. The family home in Coney Island was not a stable one, and she began working in various jobs at the age of seven. In her adolescence, she led a street gang known as the Apaches. In the 1950's, she used her brother's weights for weight training and also worked out on the punching bag at the gymnasium. In 1955, a male friend showed Kanokogi a judo technique that he had learned, and she immediately became interested in the martial art. Kanokogi recalled that she was attracted to the art because it calmed her down and helped her develop self-control. She learned judo in her local neighborhood and tried to partake in judo competitions. In 1959 she disguised herself as a man to compete because women were not allowed to compete in AAU Tournaments at the time. She won her matches and earned a medal at the tournament, but had to return it after acknowledging that she was a woman. Traveling to Japan to continue her judo training, Kanokogi became the first woman allowed to train in the men's group at the Kodokan. She is perhaps best known for pioneering women's judo competition at the Olympic Games.

There are others, such as Ronda Rousey, Kayla Harrison, Jim Bregman, Donn Drager, Gene Lebell, Phil Porter, Gary Goltz, Pat Burris, and many more. It is interesting to learn about Judo’s history and the people who made it popular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_judoka#Notable_competitors

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