Things Learned at a Judo Tournament

I'm just back from having attended the 2006 version of the U.S. National Judo Championships. They were held in Houston, in the same Exhibition Center where I was lucky enough to win a title in 2000. I saw a lot, and learned a lot - especially where an event like this is a microcosm of things. People who read what I write and listen to what I say know that for most of my life I have relied upon what the microcosms of things can tell me, especially for tactics and as a means for knowing what the future holds. In an event like this one, I see behavior patterns, complexes, and syndromes - both as respects individual and group behavior. The whole science is too voluminous for the sort of thing I do here, but one rule is apropos of what I usually talk about. The rule is that any game - and life is a game - is encapsulated and formed by the rules it obeys. A people first make law, then law begins to make them. That could be said another way: things evolve.

I digress here long enough to point out to my "creationist" friends (enemies, too) that even had god made everything exactly so at the time of creation, the fact that it would have been obliged to change with time and the doing of whatever it did or does is everywhere evidence. Witness judo, the discipline, science, and sport I started in 1950, and have practiced and participated in an average of four hours a week for fifty-six years. I've watched it evolve. That's true of everything, probably, because it has to - there's a natural law involved (god?).

I am not only aware of judo's evolution, I know, by simply by comparing myself to others who have not been shaped and configured - disciplined - by judo, how it changed what I would have been without it.

One of the forces that is a factor in the evolution process where judo is concerned is, of course, human nature. Everything science or art that is converted to a game inevitably becomes a silly caricature of what it was and was derived from. Judo is no exception. I'm perhaps more aware of what has happened because I look for such things. Then, too, when I was a boy learning firearms, an uncle told me, "A gun is never a toy; never play with it. Hunting is should never be just for fun - you don't kill for fun. Honorable men kill only for food or to defend their lives, which is the same thing." That's the reason that I've never taken part in competition with guns (except in the instances having to do with attendance at the Iowa Law Enforcement and FBI Academies, where competition was required).

But another reason has to do with my judo, and what it's become. Human games, as opposed to those compelled by nature in order to assure survival, always make of their subject matter a question of winning or losing. They trivialize it, in other words. Let's take an example. In shooting, the original IPSIC - International Practical Shooting Confederation - rules required a full-power handgun, .357 Magnum, as I recall, or higher. Of course (and something to which the U.S. Army - and taxpayer - should have been paying attention when they chose the all but totally ineffective 9mm Baretta as a tool for actual combat), the 1911 Pistol in .45 caliber quickly became the weapon of choice for it's cartridge capacity, and unfailing operation. But then the silliness set in.

The game, after all was basically (save the quibbling, folks - it's beside the point) to punch as many as possible holes in paper, ding a gong, or the like in the shortest possible time. That, among other things, meant bigger magazines, longer sight radiuses, and anti-slip grips, recoil compensators and ammunition that didn't "kick," and anything that gave the owner a better chance to punch holes in paper fast while running through a course. Similar impracticality, incidentally, is true with the sportsmen who shoot rifles long range from benches, armed with rifles specially designed and sighted for the purpose, and equipped with range-finding and wind correction technology that would make NASA envious. It's a game with little resemblance to a real gunfight, and I've had some cruel fun over the years with guys who let the games con them into believing they were now gunfighters or riflemen. Games are also behaviorally powerful creators of habit, something that in a fight will kill you - or an innocent person.

That I stay digressed is for a purpose, an example for history. A few years ago, hired by the American Deputy Sheriff's Association to study the matter, I came upon case histories like these:

1. A Highway Patrolman - who in a gunfight carefully lined up on the bumper of the patrol car he was hiding behind spent brass from his service revolver on, and as a gunman armed with a shotgun approached along the side of the vehicle, went on reloading until the shotgun blast killed him. He died with, as I remember three rounds in the cylinder.
2. A Colorado policeman - who, in a gunfight outside a church where he has accosted his assailant, stood exchanging "center of mass" hits in the torso with the latter; when the two weapons (both in that wondrous 9mm "parabellum" - an inadvertent joke that means literally "for war") were empty, the men slumped to the ground. One, incidentally, survived.
3. A Texas police officer, who in a gunfight involving a killer and several fellow officers, didn't fire once; asked why, he could only lament lugubriously, "I didn't hear the whistle!"

It may be that you have to be a behaviorist to explain those incidents, but I don't think so. The first guy was in the HABIT of doing what he did. It never even occurred to him that he only needed one round in the cylinder to stop his assailant from killing him. When the fat's in the fire, you do what you've practiced to do. The officer in Colorado had trained to shoot at that "center of mass" - that's what he did. Fortunately for him - he's the one who survived - so did his assailant. You do what you practice to do. In Texas, the officer under the ruthless and unyielding pressure of a gunfight reverted to his practice: he waited for the whistle before firing. In each case, the behavior EVOLVED, the product of environment - circumstances.

Judo has likewise evolved, and while the purposes and intent of its founder were other than my own - he was an educator, interested in character development for children; mine was survival - he was not sanguine concerning competition and sport where judo was concerned. Now we see why. The object of judo is to achieve dominant control of the assailant (called "uke" - receiver - in the classic discipline) by throwing him from his feet to his back with force, by obtaining an armlock forcing his submission, by holding him on the ground by pressing down on his shoulder, or by closing his jacket or your arms (you're referred to as "tori" - taker - when you're attacking or counterattacking) around his neck. In the sport version of judo, points are scored on the basis of degree or success in each instance. Matches are six minutes in length, fought on floor mats, and controlled by three officials.

That's where the silliness begins. Like the IPSIC handgun competition, the original sport resembled the real thing - a real fight - closely. As Hayward Nishioka, a champion of judo many (sorry, Hayward) years ago said yesterday, "Hal, times change." Nowhere could one find a better example for the uninitiated than in a particularly favored technique of judo, the shoulder throw, ippon seoinage. In this waza - technique - the thrower ("tori" - remember?) steps in to turn under the opponent's arm, and driving his own arm under it, carries "uke" ("receiver," remember) off his feet and onto the back to be thrown. In an actual fight - street, that is - to be thrown over someone's shoulder while standing produces a very unpleasant, often debilitating collision with the ground. That's how it was in the earliest days of judo competition, too - the reason for the mats. That's not how it is in judo now.

I pause parenthetically for one other pertinent fact concerning the sport. Judo is a very intense exercise; in fact, it is rated by today's bio-mechanicists as the most demanding of human sports. Part of the reason for that is the fact that no stalling of any kind is permitted. Defensive tactics like posture and refusal to come to grips are permitted only monetarily, and stepping out of bounds draws an immediate penalty equivalent to giving a score to the opponent. But people play judo and there are rules, always the ingredients for chicanery. Judo contestants have found a way to stall and score at the same time (remind anyone of the tournament called Congress?). It's called "drop seoinage." The contestant caught in a bind such as inability to get his favorite grip or inability to prevent his opponent from same, simply whirls and throws himself on his face in a blatantly phony attack. Once there, he assumes a "turtle" position, face down and knees drawn up under himself, hands and elbows tightly drawn to protect his throat against a strangle hold. Once his opponent has been unsuccessful in turning him over into matwork, the fraud leaps to his feet to repeat the performance.

We now consider another aspect of the civilized human condition, that being his litigious nature. The result where judo is concerned is that rules for competition are continually tinkered with, always by persons seeking advantage for someone or something favored (remind anyone of U.S. Government?), with the concomitant result that no competitor is permitted to train long in the discipline and tactics required by the new rule. Where once, for instance, contest throws were assessed only two scores, "ippon" - the decisive full point for throwing his opponent cleanly and with force to the mat, or waza-ari - the half point awarded when some component of the "ippon" was lacking, the legislators added "yuko" and "koka" points. The latter are too technical and requiring of explanation to describe here, but the new rules have changed the face of judo drastically. More, scoring for matwork holds has changed, too, all supposedly to provide criteria for win by technical decision. Suffice it to say that a way to find a winner had to be found, inasmuch as everyone occidental seemed to hate the idea of a draw. At one time during evolution of the sport's jurisprudence, contestants were weighed after a scoreless fight, the lighter man being declared the winner. It was important, it seemed, to be able to sweat more than the other guy.

My suggestion that we simply have a bodybuilder posing contest after a fight where no scoring had occurred drew scornful - even nasty - comment.

The judo shiai - tournament - now came to resemble a courtroom far more than a gym or sports venue. Does THAT remind you of anything? How about it I pointed out the "joshi judoka" - women judoists - had begun to take part in the officiating, rule-making, and legislating processes? That's also a matter requiring far, far, more court reporting than I have space for here, but the "flop seoi" specialist now had everything he needed to turn the character of judo from that of "maximum efficiency" once enunciated by its founder to almost the direct opposite. In the new rules, each actual attack by a competitor now had, in the absence of any actual, declared score, the effect of a score. The fighter who made the greatest number of offensive moves was declared the winner. No more of that silly, who-managed-to-sweat-more stuff. And much more satisfying than a draw - even if spectators had no idea why one player was the victor.

So, the era of the "flop seoi" had arrived. Especially in the women's version of judo, where lack of upper body strength diminishes the effect of the shoulder throw almost entirely, my favorite discipline and sport had taken on a decidedly comical aspect. In the six years since my last attendance at "The Nationals," it's gotten worse. On six mats yesterday, contestants "flopped" repeatedly, sometimes six at one time and nearly in unison. Occasionally, a competitor would roll - once having flopped to his or her belly - like a dog or cat desirous of scratching its back, drawing his opponent over to some slight contact with the mat with leg or upper torso - usually only the side or back of arm or shoulder - to be awarded a "score" by officials dutiful to the new and effeminized rules. As perhaps the senior man at the tournament, I spent the day trying to explain to spectators around me why this or that was a "score." I failed often. When several persons had tried unsuccessfully - or merely reminded me that the rules had only changed a "little while ago" - to explain the new out-of-bounds rules, I gave up. I don't know the rules to the game I've played for fifty-six years. Does THAT remind you of anything?

"The more corrupt the state," observed the Roman historian Tacitus, the more numerous its laws."

And here we are. My five hour journey to Houston and the shiai, with gasoline at $2.90 per gallon, was one made in hopes of seeing old friends. That, too, was a disappointment. I saw Leo, Ed, Hayward, and few others, but none of the Old Ones. Most of those, it seems, are no longer with us, too old to make the trip, or no longer that interested. Hardly any of the competitors, matter of fact, were familiar names. And the game they were playing? Well, we've covered that. I saw Judo, the "Do" - Tao - and discipline I have followed since I was a boy, reduced to a rather peculiar game I no longer recognize, much less understand. The way of things, I suppose.

But the morning after my return from the Nationals, I went to a birthday party for a friend, and there a conversation with an educator from Texas A&M University brought the matter of a community, organization, and legal system like that of my sport as a microcosm of my country even further into focus than might have otherwise been the case. Among the things discussed among the pilots, educators, engineers, and the like was an ominous thing each and every one reported having noticed. I speak of the disconnect between the virtual and the real everywhere, especially with adolescent and older youth. I related how recently in a judo class I explained and demonstrated a defense and escape from kesa gatame, a mat hold-down. The athletes understood what I had told them, and the demonstration was very clear. Yet, asked to do the technique, none could. In fact, nothing of what they had just understood could they so much as begin to duplicate.

It was a puzzling, even astonishing and fearful thing to see; and, now, hearing highly-killed and credentialed educators theorize and explain how life in an electronically created, only virtual real environment was creating in the nation's youth the mental equivalent of the island birds I spoke of in my blogs of April 20, I could do naught but pose a simple question. "What does that mean for our future? Carried to its logical conclusion, in other words, what does it mean for the United States of America? There isn't much doubt, is there?

So, I provide my own answer: Thermodynamics' Second Law. Chaos. "Times," Hayward said, "change."