Judo4Parents.com Blog

Judo, as well as being a martial art and form of exercise is also a sport. It is both a Commonwealth and Olympic sport, with athletes competing from almost every country in the world. Like all sports, there are winners and losers and competitions for all levels. Competitions start from a young age and this is often a source of concern for parents.

Competition for children is a difficult subject, there are a wide range of opinions on the various merits and negatives about letting kids compete.

One school of thought is that children should not compete until quite late (teens). Another opinion is that the younger your child starts the better. To make things even more complex, some people think that kids should start young, but that the competitions should be geared towards being fun. Yet another view is that younger children should compete and care about winning, but that there should be events for all levels and lots of events, so that everyone has an opportunity to win medals, certificates, etc.

Now… for your child, you will need to make a decision based on your personal opinions and on your child’s abilities, temperament and desires.

In Judo, competitions are an important opportunity for a Judo player to test themselves (and what they have learned) against new people, different people and people who have learned different things from different instructors, coaches and training partners.

In Judo, competitions generally have 4 medalists. One Gold, One Silver and two bronze medals. The reason being that all those players who lose to the Gold and Silver medalists during the competition, go into a “repechage”. The repechage is used to decide the two Bronze medals.

The argument for using a repechage system is that if your child loses to the eventual gold medalist in their first fight, they would have no opportunity to progress further. So, they go into the repechage and get to compete against all the other players who lost to the Gold medalist. The other “side” of the repechage is those players who lost to the Silver medalist. So the two bronze medals go to the winners of each side of the repechage. It’s your “second chance” if you draw the eventual gold or silver medalists early in the event.

So there you have it, a basic introduction to competitions for Judo.

Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunny/50481562/

Bowing in Judo is really important and yet hardly ever discussed in classes, this has often lead to misunderstandings and problems, especially in relation to religious beliefs. Hopefully this post will help you understand why we bow, what it means to bow, how we should bow and why we keep bowing in Judo.

To understand bowing in Judo you need to know a little about the history of Judo and the Japanese culture from which Judo was born.

Judo was “created” in 1882 by a Japanese man called Jigoro Kano. It was created/founded in the city of Tokyo in the country of Japan. It is and remains a Japanese sport/art and as such carries with it some of the culture, traditions and etiquette of it’s country of origin. Bowing in Judo is part of this Japanese origin.

The “REI” (ray) or bow is normally done at the start and end of the class, and at the start and end of fights in most Judo clubs. The start and finish bows are often done from a kneeling position, whilst the others are normally done standing.

The bow in Japanese culture is used much the same way as the handshake is used in western culture. It is used as a greeting (and farewell), it is used to shown respect between two people. In Judo it is the same, we bow as a sign of respect for the people/person we are training with.

In Judo their is no religious content to the bow, it is about respect and to a degree sof-control. At the end of every match in a Judo competition both competitors bow to one another, to show respect to the other person. It is arguably one of the reasons that Judo does not have the problems with fist fights breaking out that other sports have. Respect for others is “baked in” to Judo and shown physically through the bow.

A interesting phenomenon that I have observed occurring more and more is that after players bow, they will also shake hands. This is a great indicator of what the bow means to Judo people, and also of the great mixing of cultures in Judo. A bow is the Japanese (eastern) way of shaking hands and the handshake the western way of bowing. The fact that Judo people are now bowing and shaking hands is a sign perhaps that both cultural groups wish to show their respect in each others way.  That is to me the heart of the meaning of the Judo bow, showing respect.