“It’s Judo whenever you help people who give hope up because of tiredness” E’ Judo ogni volta che aiutate quelli che disperano per la fatica

‘It’s Judo whenever you help people who give hope up because of tiredness”

During every Judo training there are hard moments for everyone. The most trained ones go beyond them without problems, the less trained ones with difficulty.

Since we are tired we do not pay attention anymore to what we are doing. As a result, we do Judo with nothing more than empty, white-dressed bodies: in fact, their ‘Spirit’ has already come back home. My Judo Master often repeated that he was persuaded that ghosts really existed exactly because of these empty bodies, whom he saw wandering on the mat.

Every experienced Judoka should perceive this situation and help the weakest and most tired ones. Otherwise they could lose their ‘Spirit’ during the training.

If you do not become aware of this situation, actually you are not doing Judo, since you are not taking into account the principle Jita kyoei: the other and I harmoniously in order to grow up and make progress together.

This relationship with the weak ones is fundamental in Judo and in the everyday life. During the Judo practice, be it gymnastics, Uchikomi, Kata or Randori, the most trained ones have to perceive these moments and encourage their partner and the whole group.

This happens during every training and allows you to expand your spiritual energy and to give it to those in trouble. This mental attitude aiming to the exchange of energy in favor of the weak ones exists only in Judo, more precisely in traditional Judo, and it is a part of its didactical method. It also produces an energy field with your partner and the whole group.

The totality of this positive energy will help everyone during the hardest moments of the training. Actually, you can find in many other disciplines something like team spirit, but it aims only at an agonistic result, not at learning through a peculiar didactical method how to help people in trouble.

If you pay attention to those moments during the training, then you can call Judo what you are doing. By practising, it will become natural to perceive who needs your help and to give it to him according to the principle Jita kyoei.

Neither throwing someone who cannot react anymore nor doing Uchikomi without helping a weak and tired partner is Judo: this is simply an useless exercice. If you do not interact energetically with your partner during the training, you cannot make progress. Even worse, Judo does not become that powerful instrument leading to the spiritual edification that Jigoro Kano meant. You cannot train yourselves alone: Judo was created to make every single person and the whole society grow up from the physical, moral and spiritual point of view. If you pay attention only to yourselves and to your techniques, then you should also call otherwise what you are doing, since it is not what Jigoro Kano meant with Judo.

To the next text:

‘It’s Judo whenever you humbly admit your limits and your weaknesses’

Alfredo Vismara – Hanshi Dai Nippon Butokukai

Traduzione di Andrea Lorenzo Covini