The history of judo starts in 1882, when Jigoro Kano opened the Kodokan in Tokyo. He took jujutsu, the unarmed fighting arts of the samurai, kept what could be practiced safely at full speed, and turned it into an educational method. From that twelve-mat dojo, judo went on to reach the Olympic Games in 1964.
Before judo: hundreds of jujutsu schools
During the Edo period, Japan had a very large number of ryū (schools) of combat. The ones grouped under the name jujutsu taught how to control an opponent without a weapon, or with a short one. Their syllabus mixed throws, strikes, locks and chokes. Each school had its secrets and its kata, passed from teacher to student.
The Meiji era, from 1868, changed everything. The samurai disappeared as a class, the country turned toward the West, and jujutsu looked like a relic. Dojos closed. Some masters ended up giving paid demonstrations to make a living.
This is the world in which a Tokyo university student went looking for someone to teach him how to defend himself.
Kano merges two schools
Jigoro Kano first studied Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū, a school rich in locks and atemi (strikes). He then joined Kitō-ryū, which focused more on throws and on techniques from the era of armored combat. From the first he kept control and grappling techniques. From the second he kept a taste for throwing and for kata.
His decisive contribution was a method. Kano saw that every throw follows three phases: break the balance, fit in, execute. The principle is still taught as kuzushi, tsukuri, kake. He also saw that an art you cannot practice against real resistance slowly empties itself. Hence the filtering: the most dangerous actions left randori.
Judo history timeline: 1882 to today
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1882 | Kano founds the Kodokan at the Eishō-ji temple in Tokyo |
| 1895 | First version of the gokyo, the classification of throws |
| 1909 | Kano becomes the first Asian member of the IOC |
| 1920 | Revised gokyo of 40 techniques |
| 1938 | Kano dies at sea aboard the Hikawa Maru |
| 1951 | The International Judo Federation is founded |
| 1956 | First World Championships, in Tokyo, with no weight categories |
| 1964 | Men's judo enters the Olympic Games in Tokyo |
| 1980 | First women's World Championships, in New York |
| 1992 | Women's judo becomes Olympic in Barcelona |
The gokyo deserves a comment. It is sometimes presented as fixed forever. It was reworked in 1920, and the Kodokan has since recognized techniques outside the gokyo. Judo is a living system, and that is one reason it survived.
How judo spread around the world
Kano's early students left to teach abroad from the start of the 20th century. Some went to the United States, others to Europe or South America. One of them, Mitsuyo Maeda, settled in Brazil, where his teaching shaped what became Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the Gracie family story. Kano himself traveled a lot, often as part of his IOC role.
In Europe, Britain and France led the way. The Budokwai opened in London in 1918. In Paris, Mikonosuke Kawaishi arrived in the mid-1930s and set up a method that shaped French judo for decades.
After the Second World War, the occupation authorities banned the practice in Japan for a time before allowing it again. The International Judo Federation was founded in 1951. The first World Championships took place in Tokyo in 1956 as a single open category. At the time, the idea that a smaller player could beat a bigger one was still part of judo's identity.
1964: the Olympic turning point
Entering the Tokyo Games in 1964 changed what judo was. It needed weight categories, precise refereeing rules and a scoring system. What had been a method of education also became a measurable elite sport.
Judo was not included in Mexico City in 1968. It came back in Munich in 1972 and has stayed ever since. Women followed with a demonstration event in Seoul in 1988 and official medals in Barcelona in 1992. The details are on our page about judo at the Olympics, and the way scoring changed is covered in yuko, koka and the history of judo scores.
Why this history matters on the mat
Knowing where judo comes from is more than general knowledge. It explains why some techniques are illegal, why you learn to fall before you learn to throw, and why kata still exists. The Kodokan kata preserve the techniques removed from randori, such as strikes and defenses against weapons.
Our advice to brown belts preparing for black: take one throw from the gokyo and ask what it owes to jujutsu. Ko-uchi-gari, o-soto-gari and seoi-nage existed in some form before Kano. What he added was a way to learn them safely. That way of learning is what you will pass on one day, if you teach.