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HINTS FOR JUDO
By D. Risei Kano
THE MISSION OF KODOKAN JUDO ?The spiritual aspect
of judo is rarely discussed in daily conversation among judo students.
Students prefer to discuss how they or their competitor won a particular
match or judo tournament. Judo is more than how an opponent or
a method of self defense, it encompasses the hidden spiritual discipline
with each person.
The Judo Research and Development Group (JRDG),
presents an excerpt from Mission of Kodokan Judo, from the February
1974 issue of Kodokan Magazine. This article was written by D.
Risei Kano, the former President of the Kodokan.
Japan today, is confronted with quite an unusual
situation in our constitution paragraph number one; "This
institution is to teach and promote 'Judo' in order to train both
the mind and body of the people." However giving further thought
to the concept of Kodokan judo, the former Professor Kano emphasized
the learning of a way of life through Judo, and that it (Judo)
contains a much deeper, wider scope of thought behind it which
is almost impossible to compare with another type of sport activity
with just a competitive aspect.
With the approach of the new year, I reviewed
the 'mission' of Kodokan Judo, as was written by the former Professor
Kano, and I was very interested to find that a certain paragraph
of his writing may be considered by us as a warning of the current
world situation. A part of the paragraph reads as follows: "Recently
in our country, there has been a steadily increasing number of
people who dislike work and pursue leisure and extravagance. Almost
everywhere individuals and organizations are fighting with resultant
loss of energy that is needed for positive action. In order to
save them from this situation, a principle of judo, based on the
maximum efficiency concept should be applied as one aspect of modern
society and as a natural result of the application of the principle
of maximum efficiency, a mutual welfare and prosperity is believed
to be the only effective way to ease and neutralize the forces
among these individuals and organizations."
In our society today, when we teach the righteous
way of life based upon the Theory of judo which embodies the principles
of continuous improvement of society, then this righteous life
provides a basis of definite proof of this principle and unifies
the peoples' way of thinking. Various religious and learned points
of view are then made abundantly clear.
Furthermore, when we speak about our international
relations, Japan now is in the situation of an isolated son from
the rest of the world. Our country has many different characteristics
in comparison to western nations, such as, not only race, but also
language, religion, tradition, customs, etc.. Therefore, it is
quite clear that the maintenance of truly honest good-will with
different nations requires a tremendous effort. Nevertheless, our
people in Japan have been neglecting this necessary effort and
due to this we cannot find a sincerely friendly nation in the world
today.
Reviewing current relations with our closest nation,
China, with which we have had much affiliation for several thousand
years, it seems that though it has a similar race, culture, and
writing system to ours, our people do not have much interest in
this important international relationship. In order to improve
current international relations, there is no other way than practicing
a mutual prosperity and welfare concept.
This editorial (by Jigoro Kano) was published
forty years ago, however, I feel that his view can be applied to
our current situation as very apropos advice.
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