Jigoro Kano - Martial Arts Master

Judo Uniforms

In 1871, at the age of eleven, Jigoro Kano came with his father from Hyogo Prefecture to live in Kakigara-cho in Nihombashi, Tokyo. He began studying calligraphy at Yanokura in Ryogoku and English with Shuhei Mizukuri, in Kanda. In 1873, he finally left his parents' wings and became a student at a private school in Karasumori, Shiba. Though he was known as a child prodigy and was second to none in his studies, his body was weak, and his classmates used to bully him. Despite his success with his school work, this physical weakness caused him a great deal of anxiety, and he spent long hours day and night trying to find some way to remedy the situation.
The decision to practice jujutsu

One day, he recalled that when very small he had heard of a thing called jujutsu that brings strength to the weak, and he decided to follow jujutsu training. It was Kano's own fierce determination not to give in that lead him to make this decision.

Among the people who frequented Kano's home was a certain Umenari Nakai, a former vassal of the shogun, and a man fairly advanced in the study of jujutsu in the Kyushin school. Kano badgered this man to teach him jujutsu, but Nakai would only laugh and pay the boy no attention. At the Kano's summer house in Koishikawa a certain Ryuji Katagiri would sometimes show him some jujutsu formal exercises but would only laugh and say that the boy was too young to try any serious jujutsu training. Jigoro also turned for instructions to Genshiro Imai, another friend of the Kano house who studied the Kyushin school of jujutsu, but once again met with no help

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