Teach Yourself Judo

Author: Syd Hoare
Pub: 1980, 1993 by NTC Publishing Group
Pages: 177
Ranking:

Despite the title, which may create the impression that only beginners can profit from this book, this is a VERY good all-around book on Judo. It's the only book to reference the original 'rules for Kodokan Judo trainees'. It discusses such things as Sen, Sensen no Sen, Go no Sen, Zanshin, Zen in Judo, and other topics rarely touched upon by other books. This book should not be difficult to find, and should be inexpensive. Well worth the time to find it.

                     Contents
 Foreword                                       1
   1 About Judo                                 3
   2 Basic Judo                                ll
   3 Throws                                    21
          Counter-Throws                       71
   5 Combination Throws                        77
   6 Hold-Downs                                82
   7 Arm-Locks                                 90
   8 Strangles                                 98
   9 Escapes from Hold-Downs                  107
 10 Common Groundwork Situations              114
 11 Judo Training on and off the Mat          123
 12 Contest Judo                              138
 13 Kata                                      145
 14 Self-Defence                              151
 15 Judo Philosophy, Etiquette and Discipline 157
 Appendix -- Contest Rules                    165
 Glossary                                     169
 Index                                        175

Introduction

If you went into different Judo clubs around the world you might find Judo done in different ways, and if you asked the club teacher about this he would say Judo has such and such a purpose and that is how I teach it. In fact Judo can be done for a variety of reasons and it is not possible to say that Judo has one purpose. A teacher may care to stress only one reason and that is perfectly valid but he cannot deny the other purposes of Judo.

Basically, there are five ways of looking at Judo. Jigoro Kano, the originator of Judo, said that Judo is three things. It is a combat form, a physical training method and a character-building method. In recent years part of Judo has developed into an international competitive sport. In addition the vast majority of people who practise it in small clubs have discovered they like doing it for its own sake and can be said to do it for recreational purposes. Judo is also a Japanese activity. The 'style' or 'image' of Judo is Japanese and to many this is one of its attractive features.

In this book I have tried to cover all these aspects and stress the fact that Judo is an all purpose activity. For the modern competitive Judoman I have included chapters on modern training methods and contest tactics and for the more traditionally minded, chapters on Judo philosophy and Kata.

Judo has something for everybody. It is a completely natural activity for children, being a disciplined form of playground rough and tumble. It is a tough and demanding sport that will challenge any man (or woman) and its philosophical problems will satisfy the thinker who wants his sport to be more than just a sport.

Judo is rapidly developing as an Olympic sport. In the process the rules are being modified not only for competitive purposes but also to make it visually more exciting for the spectator. The result of this is to move Judo partially away from some of its original purposes. At a lower recreational level many of these developments do not apply. However, it seems to me that while Judo changes at the top of the pyramid, the base will probably want to carry on as it has done for nearly a century and that is why this book is fairly Japanese in flavour.

Although this book is in the Teach Yourself series it is anticipated that the vast majority of people who buy it will join a Judo club and learn their Judo as it were 'with the book in one hand'. Nevertheless the individual in some remote spot may learn a lot from it.

Since the majority of people who do Judo are male, I have described it from this point of view throughout, using the masculine gender. Women's competitive Judo is now flourishing and I hope that some of the 'fighting' ladies will not take this amiss.

Finally I hope the reader will get as much pleasure out of Judo as I do. I still learn something new almost every time I go on the mat and this is after nearly twenty-five years of training.

S.R.H.
Budokwai,
London, 1980