Judo, and where the black belt came from
In 1882 a young teacher in Tokyo called Jigoro Kano opened a school for a new art he called JUDO, meaning the gentle way. He had studied the older fighting art of JUJITSU and took out its most dangerous moves, keeping the THROW, the SWEEP, the GRIP and the hold-downs, so students could practise at full strength without getting badly hurt.
Kano also created the ranking system, giving a BLACK BELT to students who reached the expert grades. The rainbow of coloured belts in between came later; a judo teacher in Paris, Mikonosuke Kawaishi, introduced them in the 1930s so European students could see their progress. Judo joined the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, and to the shock of the host nation a Dutchman, Anton Geesink, won the open category.
Karate's empty hand
KARATE comes from Okinawa, an island chain south of mainland Japan, where local fighting styles mixed with methods brought from China. Its name was once written with characters meaning Chinese hand. In the 1930s these were changed to characters meaning empty hand, which sound the same. Students learn each KATA, a fixed sequence of moves against imaginary opponents, and train in a DOJO, the place of the way.
The teacher is the SENSEI, which means one who was born before. Karate appeared at the Olympics only once, in Tokyo in 2020, and was dropped from the next Games.
Bowing is part of the training in every Japanese art. Students bow when they step on to the mat, to the sensei and to each partner before and after practice, as a sign of respect and of trust, since each partner is about to let the other throw or strike at them.
Kicks, skill and flowing movement
TAEKWONDO is Korean, named in 1955, and means roughly the way of foot and fist. It is famous for high and spinning kicks, and at Olympic level each KICK and PUNCH is scored by electronic sensors in the players' body protectors and socks. It has been an Olympic sport since Sydney 2000.
In Chinese, KUNG FU originally meant any skill gained through long, hard work, so a fine cook or painter could have kung fu too. The actors in The Matrix trained in it for months. AIKIDO, founded in Japan by Morihei Ueshiba in the 1920s and 1930s, turns an attacker's force against them, and most styles hold no competitions at all.
Sumo
SUMO wrestlers fight in a raised clay ring about four and a half metres across. Before a bout they throw salt to purify the ring, a custom linked to Shinto, Japan's native religion. A wrestler loses if he steps out of the ring or touches the floor with anything but the soles of his feet, and many bouts last just a few seconds.
Sumo has no weight classes, so a small wrestler can face one twice his size. GRAPPLING, balance and a low STANCE count for more than any single STRIKE, and the top rank, yokozuna, is so hard to reach that only around seventy wrestlers have held it in some three hundred years. Many martial arts share this DISCIPLINE, and our samurai page covers the warrior class behind several of them.