‘It’s Judo whenever you feel safe and protected by the other people’
Think about a land, a city, a nation, a world where you can freely walk around being sure that those surrounding you pay attention to your safety and to your wellness. At the same time, you do exactly the same for them.
Do you believe that it is difficult, even impossible, to make it happen? The principle Jita yu wa kyoei states and teaches exactly these virtues.
You are surely thinking ‘Well, here the one who wants to change the world’, but you are wrong. Actually, the person with this wish has already come and was born in 1860 in Kobe, Japan. His name was Jigoro Kano.
I just firmly believe that it is possible to make this wish become truth, provided that we work hard and use the right didactical method. At least, I believe that it would thus be possible to gain other people’s support for our cause.
But how could we reach this aim when everything seems to move in the opposite direction? Actually, we are already doing the right things, we have just to show outside the behavior we learnt on the mat , in every single details: the position of the zooris next to the mat, the respect for our partners through the greeting ceremony, the concern for the other people during the randori, the assistance for the beginners.
It’s impossible to list all the situations when the principle Jita kyoei is taught and employed, often unconsciously, by everyone during a Judo lesson.
The problem, or better to say the obstacle, to face is the spatial and temporal limits which contain these behaviors, namely those of the Judo lesson.
This is the effort that every Judoka should make: to bring these behavior rules outside the Dojo. If you don’t do it you cannot assert that you practice Judo, at least Kodokan Judo.
As I have already explained, by teaching Judo you are not training someone so that he defeats someone else. On the contrary, you are training someone so that this person defeats himself and his/her egoism. You are helping people to grow up physically, technically, morally so that they spiritually edify themselves.
I often repeat that Judo Kododkan is the only discipline with these aims. If we do not bring its principles to the other people in order to live harmoniously with them, we are betraying Jigoro Kano’s great intuition.
To the next and last text:
‘It’s Judo whenever you draw order from chaos’.
Alfredo Vismara Hanshi Dai Nippon Butokukai
