http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Judo_children.jpgToday's Age (http://www.theage.com.au/world/school-judo-deaths-prompt-protest-in-japan-20110102-19d03.html) newspaper reports that "an average of four children die each year during judo lessons in Japan". This has worried parents, as Japan is considering the introduction of compulsory martial arts lessons for middle schoolers, aged 12 to 15.

Clearly some instructors need to be removed, others retrained. And the Japan Judo Accident Victims Association's call for 'safety guidelines' seems pretty reasonable to me.

From what I can tell, the deaths from American football are higher, on average, than this: 6 per year, since 1990, according to the LA Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/17/news/mn-1094). I don't have figures ready to hand, but I'm assuming Judo is popular in Japan, though perhaps not as popular as football in the USA.

We all know Judo as only 'gentle' in name. Is compulsory Judo a good idea, properly regulated and administered, or will it simply lead to more injuries and deaths?

My sense is the former, but I'd like to hear from the Bullshido brains trust.

It's a great idea to make kids do judo imo. Only 4 people a year dying of judo is a helluva lot less than die from obesity every year in the US according to this link: http://www.scumdoctor.com/obesity/How-Many-People-Die-From-Obesity-A-Year.html


Some researches claim that more than 300,000 Americans are dying due to obesity every year and the number is rising annually. This figure also includes children. A lot of doctors are beginning to blame fast food as the number one reason because several people and families are eating more fast food and junk food at least three times a week as their main meal

Provide multiple options for PE class IMO; I wouldn't force anyone to do Judo for PE but at least introduce in their normal class and make them try it out for one day as a trial to see how they like it.

In U.S. schools there are no real options, except sometimes weightlifting, PE is just normal teamsport crap that not everyone is good at otherwise they'd be on the real team not messing around with it in class. Giving kids the options of safer Combat Sports would be welcome, as lots of times people who can't catch and hit balls can turn out to be good at fighting and gives them a chance to physically excel at something and not just become sedentary because they sucked at basketball.

4 judo deaths per year is more than 6 football deaths, possibly. Statistically, it's meaningless in fact.

Provide multiple options for PE class IMO; I wouldn't force anyone to do Judo for PE but at least introduce in their normal class and make them try it out for one day as a trial to see how they like it.

In U.S. schools there are no real options, except sometimes weightlifting, PE is just normal teamsport crap that not everyone is good at otherwise they'd be on the real team not messing around with it in class. Giving kids the options of safer Combat Sports would be welcome, as lots of times people who can't catch and hit balls can turn out to be good at fighting and gives them a chance to physically excel at something and not just become sedentary because they sucked at basketball.

Exactly. Gym class served to scare me away from physical exercise because for me it was all about being shat on by the entire team. It wasn't till I did martial arts out of school that I started to take care of my self in terms of physical exercise and so forth.

Giving kids the options of safer Combat Sports would be welcome, as lots of times people who can't catch and hit balls can turn out to be good at fighting and gives them a chance to physically excel at something and not just become sedentary because they sucked at basketball.

Yes, I'd have loved the chance to do martial arts in PE, instead of football, football, football or cricket.

Giving kids the options of safer Combat Sports would be welcome, as lots of times people who can't catch and hit balls can turn out to be good at fighting and gives them a chance to physically excel at something and not just become sedentary because they sucked at basketball.

This particularly is true for me. The only time I really clicked with any sport it was outside of school hours and involved being punched in the face.

4 judo deaths per year is more than 6 football deaths, possibly. Statistically, it's meaningless in fact.

Although if they were preventable, it's worth looking closely at regulations and training.

Put another way: it might be statistically meaningless, but this doesn't mean it's meaningless for health and safety.

(I'm assuming you agree, and were just pointing out the small figures involved.)

Yes, I'd have loved the chance to do martial arts in PE, instead of football, football, football or cricket.


Good point, which needs extrapolating somewhat, since you clearly weren't terribly interested in those sorts, just how much did you throw yourself into them? I had to do Rugby, a contact game, I wasn't interested in rugby per se, so my involvement meant running about a bit, and figuring I would try and put one tackle in per game to show willing.

Just because they have to do judo, doesn't mean they are all shodans and competing like olympians, they are like any other kid forced into doing something they don't want to, showing up and going through the motions. It's PE, it's not like they have been enforcibly enrolled in competitions, that's reserved for the kids that actually want to do it.

How exactly are these kids dying? I think they should study specifically what has caused those 4 deaths per year and see if there are any trends. That way, they can address common problems by altering training or rules, rather than just saying judo is dangerous and kids shouldn't do it.

Good point, which needs extrapolating somewhat, since you clearly weren't terribly interested in those sorts, just how much did you throw yourself into them? I had to do Rugby, a contact game, I wasn't interested in rugby per se, so my involvement meant running about a bit, and figuring I would try and put one tackle in per game to show willing.

Just because they have to do judo, doesn't mean they are all shodans and competing like olympians, they are like any other kid forced into doing something they don't want to, showing up and going through the motions. It's PE, it's not like they have been enforcibly enrolled in competitions, that's reserved for the kids that actually want to do it.

In my case, Australian football was just alien to me. I never played as a kid. My dad was from England and, later, New South Wales, which plays Rugby League and Union, not Australian Rules. So I didn't know the rules.

I played a little cricket and soccer, and they were OK. But Karate - and fighting, in particular - was something I took to immediately. Partly my native disposition, and partly my father's influence. (He'd offer to hold my bag after school, in case I needed to get into a fight.)

Not all kids will have these biases, but it's good for them to at least have a taste. I believe martial arts deserve a place in the primary and secondary curriculum. It'd do a lot of kids a lot of good.

How exactly are these kids dying? I think they should study specifically what has caused those 4 deaths per year and see if there are any trends. That way, they can address common problems by altering training or rules, rather than just saying judo is dangerous and kids shouldn't do it.

Good question. According to the Japan Judo Accident Victims Association, 60% of victims died from brain injury:


Over the 27-year period 1983 to 2009, 108 students died as a result of judo accidents in Japanese junior and senior high schools (age range ca 12 to 18years)1 , 60% of them from brain injury. The mean of four deaths per year is significantly higher than in any other school sport.　The incidence of death in judo among　junior high school students (age range ca 12 to 15years) is 5.3 times higher than in basket ball, which has the second highest death rate.

Note that these figures do not include deaths from accidents outside school such as in private judo clubs, so the total number of deaths in young people is higher still. There have also been a large number of serious injuries, many of which have resulted in chronic higher brain dysfunction or persistent disturbance of consciousness. - http://judojiko.net/eng/

Good question. According to the Japan Judo Accident Victims Association, 60% of victims died from brain injury:
Several stories from the Japanese press have popped up about this on Judoforum. They run in a textbook pattern.

Kid who is older than average to start Judo tries to take up sport.
Hard ass lunatic coach gives him an impossible task with minimal training e.g 500 ushiro ukemi or being thrown 500 times.
The kid hasn't really got a clue how to breakfall so ends up whacking his head on the mat 500 times.
Hard ass lunatic coach then either beats kid for getting it wrong and suffering from the early effects of brain injury or gets other kids to bully the kid into keeping going.

Pretty much all the news reports about kids dieing from Judo in Japan have followed that pattern in some form or other.

Edit:
Then there's **** like this:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100826f1.html

Which is utterly inexcusable.

Its also important to stress that to the best of my knowledge this kind of death rate is completely unheard of in the Western world. Certainly for countries like the United Kingdom and United States there have been practically no deaths at all over the last 20 years. I think in the UK context only 2 people have died practicing Judo in the last 50 years, both adults and both in competitions.

Several stories from the Japanese press have popped up about this on Judoforum. They run in a textbook pattern.

Kid who is older than average to start Judo tries to take up sport.
Hard ass lunatic coach gives him an impossible task with minimal training e.g 500 ushiro ukemi or being thrown 500 times.
The kid hasn't really got a clue how to breakfall so ends up whacking his head on the mat 500 times.
Hard ass lunatic coach then either beats kid for getting it wrong and suffering from the early effects of brain injury or gets other kids to bully the kid into keeping going.

Pretty much all the news reports about kids dieing from Judo in Japan have followed that pattern in some form or other.

Edit:
Then there's **** like this:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100826f1.html

Which is utterly inexcusable.

It looks like child abuse to me. It's not Judo as Kano developed it (e.g. mutual benefit) - it's Judo as the weapon of abuse.

I don't know anything about the Japanese school system, but it wouldn't surprise me if this were one part of a broader culture of formalised abuse.

But I'm happy to be corrected here.

Its also important to stress that to the best of my knowledge this kind of death rate is completely unheard of in the Western world. Certainly for countries like the United Kingdom and United States there have been practically no deaths at all over the last 20 years. I think in the UK context only 2 people have died practicing Judo in the last 50 years, both adults and both in competitions.

This might well be a problem in Japan. See my reply above.