Women in Judo

Mike Callan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367279172
• eBook ISBN: 9781000522723
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is the first book to explore women's judo in all aspects, from the history and governance of the sport to cutting-edge sport science perspectives.

The book examines the story of judo for women, and how the history of the sport has paralleled the cultural and social challenges faced by women in both the East and the West.It considers the issues of leadership and governance in contemporary women's judo, and the obstacles to stronger involvement for women in the sport as a whole, as well as the rules and competition structures that shape the sport today.The book also looks at the tactical and technical considerations of coaching women in judo, and the significance of the coach-athlete relationship, as well the physiology of the athlete – including the female athlete triad – and how that relates to training, performance, technique and skill acquisition. A concluding chapter presents short biographies of the pioneering female judoka Rusty Kanokogi, Ingrid Bergmanns, Kaori Yamaguchi, Karen Briggs and Ryoko Tani.

This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in martial arts or women's sport and a useful resource for those studying sport history, sociology of sport, gender studies and sport development and coaching.

1 A history of women in judo

Amanda Spenn

DOI: 10.4324/9780429298738-2

Women at the Kōdōkan

Judo as a philosophical and physical construct was conceived by educationist Kanō Jigorō (1860-1938) in Tokyo in the 1880s, following his training in the Samurai jūjutsu traditions of the Tenjin Shin’yō-ryū and Kitō-ryū (ryū meaning school or discipline) (The Committee for the Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Jigoro Kano, 2011). Kanō took many of the fighting techniques he had learnt, and incorporated them into a modern physical culture, where they were combined with a moral code for living a useful life (Hamaguchi, 2006). In one of the earliest texts of Kanō’s lectures, given at the All Japan Education Meeting in 1889 on the ‘Contribution of Judo to Education’, he said, ‘By practising judo, the student will be able to acquire the benefits of physical education, become versed in methods of combat, and concurrently nurture their intellect and morality’ (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009). It was also in 1889 when Kanō first travelled to Europe, with Marseilles his first port of call (Murata, 1993). He visited many countries, promoting the benefits of judo where possible. In the previous year, the first published English language lecture to describe judo is thought to have taken place. Jointly given by Kanō and Reverend Thomas Lindsay at The Asiatic Society of Japan in Tokyo, the lecture gave a history of jūjutsu and introduced Kanō’s new system (Lindsay & Kano, 1889).

Kanō’s wish was for the promulgation of judo internationally, and he encouraged his students, first to establish schools across Japan, and later, he and a select few students began to take his ideas around the world. But it seems to have taken a decade for women to tentatively enquire about participation, and in 1893, Tomita Tsunejirō, one of Kanō’s earliest male students, was approached by Ashiya Sueko, a woman interested in the system. Bennett explains that after seeking permission from the master, Tomita began to teach Ashiya, followed by a small number of other women, in a small dōjō in Kanō’s garden (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009). Some six or seven years later, although he had allowed Tomita to teach women, when Kanō himself was approached by Ōba Hisaka and a few others ‘of a similar mind’, he would not give an answer until he had consulted his wife Sumako. Ōba later related that these women were mainly taught by Honda Ariya and Honda Masajirō, but Kanō took an interest in their progress and gave his individual attention when possible (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009).

Paralleled with sports and physical culture around the world in this period, with strenuous activity there came concerns for women’s health, and perhaps their reproductive ability (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 43). A particularly interesting example for the consideration of women’s health in judo training was Kanō’s personal student Yasuda Noriko, a 33-year-old woman who went to him with mental and physical issues in 1904. After six months of training she was engaged as a substitute teacher for the women’s classes. She later told the story about how she was instructed by Kanō to climb Mount Fuji with a group of others ‘to assess the positive affects judo was having on my physical and mental strength.’ She stated that ‘by the seventh rest station … the only ones who were still in good shape were myself and Ōba Hisaka. Everybody else became quite ill’. This appeared to be the confirmation Kanō needed for the beneficial health benefits for women, and according to Yasuda, he pledged to ‘make greater efforts to teach judo to women from now on’ (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009, p. 133; Mizoguchi, 2013, p. 122). However, training was adjusted to suit women’s perceived differences. Uzawa Takashi, the main teacher for women at the Kōdōkan from 1933, stated, ‘The physical endurance, physiological constitution, and psychology of women are different from that of males’, adding that it was ‘expected that young women would become mothers’ (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009, p. 135). Mizoguchi considers that it may not have been the prospect of motherhood, however, that concerned Kanō, but the lack of muscle strength inherent in a restricted life, and the dangers of shiai therein (Mizoguchi, 2013, p. 124). Whatever the reason, in direct contrast to the male strategy, women were not allowed to participate in matches as they might over-practise, and they were encouraged to train ‘rationally and to refrain from pushing themselves’ (Kano Sensei Biographic Editorial Committee, 2009, p. 135). This adjusted version of judo training was considered by Kanō to be of excellent physical and psychological benefit to women, and he began to encourage women across the world to participate (Miarka, Bastos Marques, & Franchini, 2011, p. 1016).

Women abroad

Throughout Euro-America at the turn of the twentieth century, the terms judo, jūjutsu and Japanese wrestling were interchangeable, and the art was mostly considered as self-defence rather than physical culture (Noble, 1999; “Ju-Jitsu and Ju-Do,” 1901). One of the earliest recorded incidents of Kōdōkan judo for women appearing outside of Japan was in the USA. Yamashita Yoshitsugu, a man born of Samurai heritage, and an early student of Kanō, was the instructor at Tokyo Imperial University and the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. In 1903, he received a letter from Samuel Hill, a wealthy and influential businessman from the USA, inviting him to teach Hill’s son in Seattle (Seale, 2013, p. 161). Yamashita agreed and arranged the trip with his wife Fude and a student, arriving in October 1903 with $500 in his pocket (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., 1903). He famously ended up as a teacher to the then President of the country, Theodore Roosevelt, but Yamashita’s wife became a celebrity in her own right, teaching female socialites such as Martha Blow Wadsworth and Katherine Elkins, and their children, and assisting her husband in public demonstrations (Seale, 2013; “Exhibition of Judo,” 1905). Rouse and Slutsky (2014) show that it wasn’t long before women in America were using the art for self-defence not just on the mat, but on the streets in 1905, with women such as Mary Steckler and Emelie Marten protecting themselves from attack (pp. 480–481).

In Britain, women first became involved very soon after the introduction of Japanese wrestling to the country, and almost simultaneously to American women. In 1903, there were classes for females in Golden Square, London, under the tutelage of Uyenishi Sadakazu, who had been invited from Japan along with his compatriot Tani Yukio by E. W. Barton Wright. By 1904 Phoebe Roberts, a young Welsh girl, was demonstrating along with Tani and Uyenishi, and Englishwoman Emily Watts (“Novel Ju-Jitsu Demonstration,” 1904 p. 6) (Callan, Heffernan, & Spenn, 2019). Watts wrote what is thought to be the first book on The Fine Art of Jujutsu by a woman and was teaching her own classes at the Prince’s Skating Rink in London. Harry Irving Hancock had written Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods two years before Watts’ publication, stating that ‘One of the phrases that should be stricken from the English language is “the weaker sex” ’, a sentiment with which the early female proponents no doubt agreed (Irving Hancock, 1904, p. 153). In 1904 Tani and another Japanese jūjutsuka Miyake Taro opened the Japanese School of Ju-Jitsu, where Phoebe Roberts was employed as an instructor (“Display of Ju-Jitsu,” 1904 p. 3; Tani & Miyake, 1906, p. 1). Uchida and Murata (2013/2014) show that the jūjutsu as practised by Tani and Miyake had strong similarities with Kōdōkan judo.

Roberts went on to marry fellow instructor Hirano Kyuzo, and in 1908 they travelled out to Spain and Portugal with some of the other Japanese men, demonstrating the art, making Roberts likely to be one of the first women to promote Japanese martial arts within mainland Europe (Callan et al., 2019). The couple settled in Portugal, and Roberts continued to teach and demonstrate, with an article in 1910 presenting her as ‘A Primeira Lutadora en Ju-Jutsu’ (JS., 1910, p. 86). Roberts wasn’t completely alone however; in Spain in 1908, a variety artiste Consuelo Portela, otherwise known as La Chelito, performed with Uyenishi at an exhibition, and in 1909, music hall performers Eido and his female ‘assistant’ Nelli were giving an exhibition of “jujutsu based dance” (Gutiérrez & Espartero, 2018, p. 80).

Further north, in Germany Erich Rahn, who had opened the first jūjutsu school in the country in 1906, was promoting the art to both men and women (Panzer, 2015, p. 95). He became interested in the physical benefits of jūjutsu, and in an article extolling the virtues of the art, The Berliner, Volkszeitung described Rahn as looking ‘much younger than he is, and claims Jiu-Jitsu has the same effect on ladies’ (KK., 1922, p. 1). Here too, jūjutsu made its way onto the stage; also in 1906, performing at the Apollo Theatre, there was a ‘Jiu-Jitsu Truppe’ consisting of four men and four women; however, a newspaper review claimed that only half of the audience appreciated the show due to the roughness and ‘barbaric nature’ of the entertainment (“Das Apollotheatre,” 1906 p. 6).

In 1909 Kanō was appointed as the first Japanese representative to the International Olympic Committee. In fact, he was the first Asian member, and his ambitions for internationalism w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Glossary
• Introduction
• 1 A history of women in judo
• 2 Teamwork as a method of governing in judo: a women’s perspective
• 3 Coaching women in judo
• 4 Training and physiological aspects related to judo performance in women
• 5 Perspectives on technique and skill adaption
• 6 Competition judo for women
• 7 Notable women judoka
• Index