Talk:Judo/Archive 1

Gentle Way
In The Complete Kano Jiu-jitsu (Judo) by H. Irving Hancock and Katsukuma Higashy, 1905 (yes, over 100 years ago now), Katsukuma Higashi, writes in his preface of the book, "Jiu-jitsu, or jiudo, is in Japan the art of the gentleman." In The Canon Of Judo, Kyuzo Mifune states in the introduction that "...when explaining Judo that gentleness controls toughness." I don't know japanese, but I've always seen Judo literally translated as the Gentle Way. --Pereza 15:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Questions
Under Judo's theory of combat the claim is made that Strikes (i.e. punches, kicks etc) are not allowed due to their certainty of injury, but judoka are supposed to 'take them into consideration' while training by, for example, not fighting in a bent-over position for long, since this position is vulnerable to knee-strikes and others. This is highly questionable, no mention is made of the postures of judo, such as shizen-hontai, or the essentials of a technique, such as hen-nou, which are critical to the question why eg. jigo-hontai is not applied for long. This has little to do with the current point made.

response: Then read this quote from the founder of Judo please:

p.142 of "Kodokan Judo" by Jigoro Kano:

"Always keep in mind that randori is training in the art of attack and defense. In a martial art, it is essential to train the body to move freely and agilely to deal with punching and kicking attacks and to nurture the ability to react quickly and skillfully. The immediate goal is to win. Never admit defeat."

In the next paragraph, he attacks the trend of fighting in bent-over postures. I think the logic is clear.

Secondly, it is said under pins that, Pins are considered important since in a real fight the person on top who has control of the person beneath can hit him with knees, forearms, the head and so on. Generally this is correct, however, this is not the position of the term in judo. Hold-downs, together with strangling and joint techniques, complement each other, and together they form the basis of techniques for adapting and control, which are at the core of judo's philosophy. The reference to a so-called "real fight" is inappropriate, and odd, pinns form a technical basis of katame-waza.

Response: And what is the purpose of 'control' in a real fight? Either to maintain the pin until help arrives, to transition into a submission move, or to hit the opponent. The idea that it is to hit the opponent comes from Kashiwazaki through my coach Ron Angus (10 times Master Champion, Olympic coach etc etc) who told me this and who edited the article before I posted it.

Joccis 16:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

more response: Also consider the kime-no-kata, where you have a couple of pins followed immediately by strikes (to the solar plexus and groin, in particular).

Zen Judo
If a link to them is placed should some explanation be given? I know nothing about them bar what I've read tonight but their websites sugests they are substantially different from olympic judo.

Randori rules from http://gordonlawson.tripod.com/id13.html "1.     During Randori, movement should be relaxed, and techniques applied without strength

2.     One must not move against blocks applied during Randori

3.     During Randori, the senior grade should permit the junior grade reasonable opportunity to apply techniques and must exercise care and control when throwing.

4.     No Half sacrifices to be applied to white belts

5.     No full sacrifices to be applied to any grade below green belt.

6.     Green belts and above may be thrown over the body, providing this is mutually acceptable.

7.     White belts must not be lifted during Randori, they should be thrown by the application of blocks only."

From http://www.zenjudo.co.uk/zenjudo/main_site/rules_history/zen_hist.htm " As Judo spread throughout the West it slowly gained the form of a sport. Its inclusion in the 1964 Olympic Games and popularity in World and Regional Games led to an emphasis on its physical aspects, sometimes at the expense of its intellectual, moral and spiritual underpinnings. In an effort to preserve the philosophical and spiritual aspects of Dr.Kano's art Zen Judo was created in England in 1974. ............... Zen Judo dojos do not participate in tournaments or competitions. As a Judo ryu it is devoted to technique, skill, and merit rather than the athletic ability."

I for one would like to know more.

RE: Zen Judo
I'm glad you're interested in Zen Judo, i'm going to try to build an article on it sometime in the next couple of weeks. OB-rad 19:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Romaji
IMHO some romaji of technics like goshi waza are written incorrectly. Or are they proper names of IAJ? --Aphaea

Do you know where to obtain an official English-Japanese Judo glossary? By using Yahoo! Japan's dictionary function, I find this Japanese definition of goshi waza:

&#12371;&#12375;&#8208;&#12431;&#12374; &#12304;&#33136;&#25216;&#12305; &#26580;&#36947;&#12398;&#25237;&#12370;&#25216;&#12391;&#12289;&#20027;&#12395;&#33136;&#12434;&#20685;&#12363;&#12379;&#12390;&#25237;&#12370;&#20498;&#12377;&#25216;&#12398;&#32207;&#31216;&#12290;&#28014;&#12365;&#33136;&#12539;&#22823;&#33136;&#12539;&#33136;&#36554;&#12539;&#37347;&#12426;&#36796;&#12415;&#33136;&#12539;&#25173;&#12356;&#33136;&#12539;&#37347;&#12426;&#33136;&#12539;&#12399;&#12397;&#33136;&#12539;&#31227;&#12426;&#33136;&#12539;&#24460;&#12429;&#33136;&#12398;&#20061;&#31278;&#12290;

&#12371;(ko)&#12375;(shi)&#8208;&#12431;(wa)&#12374;(za)&#12304;&#33136;&#25216;&#12305; &#26580;&#36947;&#12398;&#25237;&#12370;&#25216;&#12391;&#12289; A kind of throwing techniques of Judo, &#20027;&#12395;&#33136;&#12434;&#20685;&#12363;&#12379;&#12390;&#25237;&#12370;&#20498;&#12377;&#25216;&#12398;&#32207;&#31216;&#12290; primarily it's the collective name of ... . &#28014;&#12365;&#33136;&#12539;&#22823;&#33136;&#12539;&#33136;&#36554;&#12539;&#37347;&#12426;&#36796;&#12415;&#33136;&#12539;&#25173;&#12356;&#33136;&#12539;&#37347;&#12426;&#33136;&#12539;&#12399;&#12397;&#33136;&#12539;&#31227;&#12426;&#33136;&#12539;&#24460;&#12429;&#33136;&#12398;&#20061;&#31278;&#12290; (which includes) ..... (9 techniques).

Sorry, if I made any mistake, please correct me. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

-- Toytoy 15:40, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest using the spellings from the "Kodokan Judo" book for consistency, I am sure most Judoka should have a copy. --Lancew 09:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

List of techniques
Hmmm is there a particular reason you used regular HTML? Man that was one long list! :P -- EmperorBMA|&#35441;&#12377; 11:38, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the list of judo techniques is great, but would it be better placed on it's own page, like List of judo techniques? It seems unweildy sitting in the middle of this more general article. --Aesopian 19:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image of Kosei Inoue
The image of Kosei Inoue is now available also via Wikimedia Commons. In the article the picture could be inserted now with and deleted here on the English servers. --(commons:User:Chrkl) 62.180.24.104 13:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kata guruma the same as fireman's carry?
kata guruma = fireman's carry? kata =practice fight vs many oppenents, guruma = throw. am i right/wrong/indifferent?

Kata = shoulder Guruma = wheel A word transliterated into English as "kata" is also used in other martial arts to mean ritualised training without opponents, I believe, but I don't know if there's any connection. "Guruma/Wheel" usually signifies a throw involving rolling the opponent's body across some part of your own. Kata guruma is indeed very similar to a fireman's carry.

See http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/kataguruma.htm

Donald Ian Rankin 14:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure they are the same thing. --Aesopian 14:24, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Kata can mean either "formalized practice", or "shoulder", or even other things ... in Japanese writing the difference would be easy to tell from use of different kanji characters. One big reason why Japanese has continued the use of Chinese characters is that it contains so many homophonous terms that a text written only in kana would be very hard to understand... the ideograms do facilitate written communication, even thou kana are still necessary for grammatical particles and other uses. --Svartalf 19:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Kata-guruma translates into shoulder wheel, reference The Canon of Judo, Kyuzo Mifune, 1 ed. 2004. However, fireman's carry is a very modern term, and usually refering to the more competitive version of kata-guruma, performed as a sutemi-waza (sacrifice throw). However, by Kodokan standards they are not the same, and some international standards should be used here. Joccis 15:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

=
== The fireman's carry in wrestling is generally performed from a kneeling posture, and this indeed corresponds to one variation of "drop" kata guruma. In Judo there are several ways of performing kata guruma, involving loading one's opponent across the shoulders, and then "unloading" in various directions - sideways, backwards - or even somersaulting onto the opponent.

The word "kata" means "shoulder". This is a homonym of the word "kata" meaning "mould/form/model", which appears frequently in martial arts, as in "He performed a Karate (or Judo!) kata." In Japanese the word is not identified with the sound, but with the character (kanji), and to the Japanese mind, kata/shoulder and kata/form are different words, since the characters are different.

The word "guruma" means wheel and is also the Japanes word for car. (In North American English, we drive our "wheels".)

[James D. Currie, January 26, 2006.]

Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art add yourself!
List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art

Yudo: Korean Judo
Yudo is the proper Korean pronunciation of Judo. Here are a a few of the throws in Korean. English -             Korean  -            Japanese// shoulder throw -      obo chigi       -    seionage // body drop       -     bit dangyo chigi -   tai otoshi // hip sweeping     -    hori horigi       -  harai goshi // shoulder wheel    -   ukerome chigi      - kata guruma // scarf hold         -  kyutnorugi       -   hon kesa gatame // 4 corner hold       - witnoragi         -  kami shiho gatame // Yudo has one throw that judo does not, it's called durome chigi, it means lift & drop. It's a throw taken from ssireum(Korean wrestling). A Korean won the 1984 Olympics with this throw. Donated by Jason White of Iron Dragon Martial Arts.

Remove an external link?
Perhaps the external link leading to "Dutch page Budo sports in Hoogeveen" should be removed, as this link leads to the website of a dutch judo club. It appears to be just one of many clubs in the Netherlands, and apart from advertising there's nothing there that will be especially helpful (unless you happen to live nearby and are looking for a place to practice judo). The site is only in dutch, not in english, which further decreases its value to Wikipedia. I'm rather new to Wiki and so far I've only corrected some minor spelling errors. Could someone please give me some feedback, as I'm still a bit reluctant to removing somebody's contribution? Thanks in advance! ^^ 81.69.214.8 10:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE: I went ahead and removed the link.

Photo
Interesting photo - maybe the caption should be "judoka gives his opponent a thwack in the goolies". -- Actually, the caption should say " A judoka preforms a perfect example of a competition o oichi gari, as it would NOT result in groundwork (But rather an ipon score). I think it would be best to show some actual groundwork (ne-waza) with that caption, rather than a throw. --124.187.49.98 21:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Marial arts category for Wikipedians
A new category for those interested in martial arts has been created at Category:Wikipedians_interested_in_martial_arts. To add yourself, simply copy the following code to the bottom of your own user page:

Shawnc 11:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Separate Article for Techniques?
Inspired by grappling hold I have created a new article judo techniques. - Rorybowman

Photo: 'formalism and strict conduct ... traditional judo '
Hey, you can't write anything about traditional judo and put a guy with a blue gi! For instance, you can't do a kata competition with a blue gi (in Canada, at least) because it's not traditional, and kata is traditional judo. It would be much better to put a picture of a guy with a white gi, at least with this caption.

Vandalism? Nationalism?
Someone changed most (all?) mentions of "Japan" to "Korea" ("Japanese" to "Korean" etc.) I'm reverting now because it's obviously wrong: "Judo (Korean: 柔道, jūdō; "gentle way") is a martial art..." That's kanji, not hangul. Sneaky, though. Jules 23:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - I'm led to believe that a blue gi was traditionally resevred for very high graded players and was not allowed in any form of competition.

Edited the Joint locks Section:
1. The notion that leg locks etc. are too dangerous is POV. BJJ and SAMBO disagree, hence saying that it was 'discovered' that these techniques are too dangerous isn't right.

2. All joint locks that I'm aware of can cause breakage or hyperextension of a joint, if the one applying the lock wanted this. The article seemed to imply that this is just an incidental aspect specific to joint locks which attack the elbow.

3. Maim is not the right term to use here, as it tends to imply permanent injury. This is certainly possible with joint locks, but not necessary.

I think the whole techniques section is a problem (there's two sections, for one thing) but maybe someone else wants to take the lead on that. Blowfish 22:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC) --- 1) POV is irrelevent here. International regulators decided that leg locks are banned. Its Ju-Do's position and they discovered the techniques led to more injuries, so that word is appropriate too. BJJ and SAMBO simply don't care as much for the well being of competitors which is their position. ---

Some Mistakes
I Have been doing judo for about six years now, and I am a referee. I noticed several mistakes (Mostly Spelling, but some more blaitant) at first glance. Im doing my best to correct the minor things (Ie, changing coca to Koka, Uko to Yuko and wazari to waza-ari). Also, as a referee I noticed that the requirements for certain scores are inaccurate and grossly simplified. (Ie, a waza-ari score requires more than just being 66% on your back, however im not going to change this, because at the moment, i dont have time to provide the appropriate sources.)

also "Chokes/strangulations are Judo's deadliest techniques. They enable the one applying the choke to force the adversary into unconsciousness and even death (though only two people have died while doing judo since 1882)[citation needed]. The differences between a choke and a strangle is that a choke cuts off the blood supply to the brain via the sides of the neck, and a strangle blocks the airway from the front of the neck. In competition, the judoka wins the round if the opponent submits and/or fails to get out of the hold in 25 seconds. A properly applied judo choke can knock an opponent unconscious in 3 seconds." - I beleive that is the wrong way around, where a choke is across the windpipe, and a strangle is cutting off the corroted artery. As a little note...I have been srangled into near unconsciousness in under a second. Also, as a new Wikipedian, im not 100% sure, but wouldnt "Chokes/strangulations are Judo's deadliest techniques" be a POV? --203.87.71.109 11:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

oh and another thing...there is no "Normal" Footsweeps, there are about 4 or five regularily used. and tehre are alot more than 2 main competition hold downs

"Judo is the successor to jujutsu..."?
Is Judo really the "successor" to Jujutsu? In my mind that implies that Jujutsu is no longer active and that the "crown" has passed to Judo. I'm fairly sure this is not the case today. Any comments? 81.216.27.2 05:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No its not, judo is the SPORT that was developed by Dr Kano, whereas Jujitsu is more of a self defence thing. --203.87.71.109 05:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe so too, I'll go ahead and change it.81.216.27.2 07:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

That's not entirely accurate. Judo was not founded as a "sport", Kano founded it as a legitimate martial art. The sporting aspect developed over time. The full judo curriculum includes self defense and lethal techniques (see atemi-waza) in Kano's "Kodokan Judo" book. --129.120.92.189 17:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Good Article followed by Featured Article status
This article is so close to Featured Article status one can almost taste it. The one thing holding it back from Good article status are sources and citations (please take a look at the Sumo for examples). I also think that the People and External Links section needs to be cut down significantly, the Aikido article has a nice way of doing this. Finally a quick check of the WikiProject Martial Arts and Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) might also help with some minor improvment.Peter Rehse 05:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

School links
The external links section seems to have a lot of links to individual schools, are all these links really relevant? or can it be reduced to more notable ones, i.e. ones that regularly produce Olympic competitors or have there own article --Nate1481 09:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * External links should contain real information about judo. Almost all of these links are just about particular dojos. In my opinion they should all be deleted or at least moved to a separate article list of judo schools. The same goes for all the links to judokas home pages. Eubulide 11:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * lists like that are normally lists of wiki articles i'm going 2 clean it up based on External links --Nate1481 12:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * By the policy Embedded list (read the very first paragraph), it is clear that these lists should not be in the article. They may be transformed into stand-alone lists, but even that doesn't seem to conform to Wikipedia standard. I just think that these lists don't give any encyclopedic information. I wait for replays; if none come, I will just delete the lists. Eubulide 17:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Ideally there should be one or two external links but I don't feel confident enough to trim. For Canada we really don't need the provincial ones - perhaps just the National.

We have of List of Aikidoka - Judo should have something similar. The Aikido page also has a nice mechanism for dealing with the external links.Peter Rehse 02:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did the above. There are a number of Judoka (please see the category of that name) which have articles that are not on the new List of judoka. I wont be going through them anytime soon. I also created a new category called Judo Organizations to put articles for individual dojos, groups and organizations. I was brutal in deleting non-organizational links but figure if they are important they will work their way back in.Peter Rehse 03:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Grading
This section is a classic example of add-on-itis. There is quite a bit of repeat info and it reads a bit convoluted. I will try a rewrite unless someone beats me to it.Peter Rehse 02:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC) Done.Peter Rehse 01:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Judo Philosphy
While I do see mention of "maximum efficiency". I see no mention of "mutual prosperity" which seems like a key concept in Kano's book Mind Over Muscle. I admit I just skimmed the article and a did a search, but I still did not see a discussion of it. Maybe I am missing something. If I had the book with me, I might add something... I really just am being lazy. --Remi0o 07:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes you are. Luckily I just finished re-reading the book last night and am all inspired like. Please check my changes to see if I got it right.Peter Rehse 08:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

GAC failure
I'm sorry, but the nominator of this article at WP:GAC notes that they feel the article is still GA quality even with only one source (now two sources), and I simply cannot agree. With only two references, and with each only referenced one time, there are an incredible amount of unsourced statements. Some very random examples (i.e. scrolling to a random part of the article): These are but a few statements that need to be properly referenced. There are also WP:MOS problems, such as some extremely short paragraphs, missing commas in lengthy sentences, and capitalized letters in headings that don't need to be capitalized. Some sections are also unwikified- that is, they contain very few, if any, interwiki links to other articles. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "judo" is sometimes capitalized in the middle of sentences and sometimes is not. Especially for the subject of the article, this should be standardized one way or the another (as someone who is generally unfamiliar with the martial arts, I don't know which). Feel free to resubmit this article to WP:GAC when the above issues are addressed. Have a great day. -- Kicking222 19:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "Despite the literal meaning of judo being "the gentle way", competition judo is one the roughest and most demanding of sports." (from "Sport and beyond")
 * "Rokudan, shichidan, and hachidan were to have alternating red and white panels beyond kudan the belts were to be solid red. The junidan belt was changed to a doubly wide version of a simple white belt, symbolizing the eternal cycle of wisdom: one can always learn more." (from "Gradings")
 * "A waza-ari, for a throw leaving an opponent 66% on his or her back, or for a hold of near-winning duration, is a half-point and if two are scored, they constitute the full point needed for the win." (from "Osaekomi (pins)") This is also a run-on sentence.
 * "Judo has, in the past, allowed leglocks, wristlocks, spinal locks and various other techniques which have since been disallowed in competition to protect athletes' safety." (from "Joint locks")
 * "Fukuda is said to have emphasized technique over formal exercise, sowing the seeds of Kano's emphasis of randori, or free practice, in Judo." (from "History and philosophy") Note that this may be covered by the reference to Mind Over Muscle, but only sourcing a statement two or three paragraphs later is improper; source the same reference as many times as necessary.
 * "For example, a late addition to the rules, motivated by the desire to avoid situations where players used non-standard gripping techniques to maintain small leads in points by preventing their opponent from attacking, allowed for penalizing the use of a non-standard grip for longer than three to five seconds." (from "Rules of judo")

Judo rules
"A full description of the rules of judo is beyond the scope of this article."

Why is this? I see no reason to leave any information out of a wikipedia article, especially something as important as rules. If it would take a lot of space, then make it a sub article. But they should definately be available somewhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harley peters (talk • contribs) 22:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

I've added a separate article for the rules. It badly needs to be expanded--see Judo rules. Kevin.cohen 06:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Kuzushi
The newly-added section on "Kuzushi" almost entirely duplicates the current article at Kuzushi. Either this one should be a shorter summary, or that article probably should redirect here. Dekimasu 07:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep - and it is hardly an accurate description of kuzushi anyway as far as I can tell. Some throws use a very different kuzushi from the one described, although it is accurate for some throws. I took the liberty of deleting the kuzushi part, but I put a link to the kuzushi article in the nagewaza article.

This is the deleted part if someone wants to place it in the article again or modify it:

"=== Unbalancing (Kuzushi) ===

The most important part of the standing combat phase is unbalancing your opponent. To unbalance your opponent, you will have to get him or her onto one foot and leaning past that foot. To do this, you must first be aware of the line that is made by his or her feet. You will ideally continue this line with your own feet, so if your opponent’s feet are “A” and “B”, yours will be “C” and “D” in the diagram below, all feet being ideally equidistant:

A-B-C-D

This position gives you the strongest base from which you can pull your opponent off balance. Typically, your opponent will be standing with one foot in front of the other somewhat, so your unbalancing (“kuzushi” in Japanese) will occur towards his or her front or back corner, continuing the line of his or her feet.

The other ways to unbalance your opponent involve tricking him or her into over-extending him or her self, or waiting until your opponent unbalances him or her self for you. These other ways are less reliable methods since they depend on your opponent making errors rather than on sound tactics."

MMA weekly.com
Dose anyone know where on the site this info about notable judoka was added from? If so can it be referenced because it's like an advert at the moment. --Nate1481 14:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It is. The Judo artcile at present mentions a few names in text but there isn't even a list of Judo players - that is a seperate article.Peter Rehse 00:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it dangerous?, risks, etc
Just wondering, theres almost no info about it (about how dangerous could it be) in the article. Surely, every martial art (or sport for that matter) has a degree of risk of injury. But in a type of martial art that focusses in droping the oponnent to the floor, does it mean is less or more dangerous to practice than other martial arts?.
 * Judo is only as risky as any contact sport (and less then some) one of the original ideas Kano had was to minimise the risks of training hence ukemi etc. --Nate1481 09:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

12 dan ranks? Double-wide obi? References?

 * The twelve dan ranks are in ascending order (shodan, nidan, sandan, yodan, godan, rokudan, shichidan, hachidan, kudan, judan, juichidan, and junidan) with the first five being black . Rokudan, shichidan, and hachidan were to have alternating red and white panels beyond kudan the belts were to be solid red. The junidan belt was changed to a doubly wide version of a simple white belt, symbolizing the eternal cycle of wisdom: one can always learn more.

Hey folks. Reading this article I became curious as to what this double wide obi would look like, and so I searched around on the net for references to it. It turns out every reference to a junidan belt of this sort is either a mirror or a derivative of Wikipedia content (ie, this article.) Further, judoinfo.com has this to say:


 *  Theoretically the Judo rank system is not limited to 10 degrees of black belt. The original english language copy (1955) of Illustrated Kodokan Judo, by Jigoro Kano, says: "There is no limit...on the grade one can receive. Therefore if one does reach a stage above 10th dan... there is no reason why he should not be promoted to 11th dan." However, since there has never been any promotion to a rank above 10th dan, the Kodokan Judo promotion system effectively has only 10 dans. There have only been 15 10th dans awarded by the Kodokan in the history of Judo.

So the question I have is, where are we getting 12 dans from? What is the source of this information? Further, where does this bit about the junidan belt come from? It seems, if Neil Ohlenkamp is right (and he generally is), that the founder spoke of there being no theoretical upward limit on dan ranks, so the idea that Judo has 12 dans specifically seems strange. Further, the book he is referencing is an english language edition published in 1955, long after Kano's death -- which suggests that during his lifetime, Kano shihan never suggested this 12 dan stuff. So where does it come from?

FWIW, the addition of this 12-dan information (along with the double-wide obi) was added by an anonymous user on the 18th of April 2004 (here's a link to the diff). All reference to it was later removed (diff). Then, the double-wide obi was added back into the article, this time apparently for judan (diff). Later, an anonymous user added juichidan and junidan back into the article, changing the double-wide obi reference to point to junidan again (diff) -- much of his edits were later changed due to inaccuracies, but the junidan reference remained. No one appears to have questioned it since (although I'll admit I didn't look at all the revisions between then and now).

Clearly, this needs to be referenced. It smells of inaccuracy. 70.132.11.78 18:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If the Kodokan site doesn't mention it, it's probably wrong, I agree this smells so have been bold and removed it while adding the quote above. --Nate1481 21:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

red belt?
This was just added to the list is it common? Not one I'd come across but i'm not all that up on Judo ranks --Nate1481 01:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed it from the table. Some European Judo dojos apparantly do use a red belt as a novice rank, but the practise is not widespread, as the red belt has an established meaning in Kodokan judo -- it may be worn by extremely high ranking Judoka (ie, 8th dan and above) in lieu of a black belt (for example, I have seen Fukuda Keiko 9th dan wearing a red belt at various bay area kata conventions).  A red belt (or a red and white belt, for 6th or 7th dans) is often presented by a dojo to a visting sensei of the required rank as a sign of respect.  Most judoka who have earned the right to wear a red/red-white belt seem not to do so except on formal occasions, preferring a black belt.


 * Because this use of the red belt is established practise, whereas its use to indicate novice rank is far less common and completely non-standard (I have never personally witnessed it), I feel better removing the red rank from the table completely. 70.231.241.236 19:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggested change to flow of article
This article doesn't give the reader much of a description of judo until relatively late in the article. Any opposition to moving the history section a bit further down? Kevin.cohen 23:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Publication information
We need a publication information, for "Japanese Grammar" 2nd edition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daruma1 (talk • contribs) 07:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC). Daruma1 07:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)