Woman Earns Judo’s Highest Honor at Age 97
Keiko Fukuda defied Japan’s male domination, first to learn the martial arts of judo and then to become one of only four people to gain its highest level—and the only woman. Click here to view article.
Not only did Keiko Fukuda defy Japanese tradition to learn judo, but she became the highest ranking woman in judo history. At age 99, she became the first and only woman to hold this honor. A movie about her life, Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful, has just been released. As a young woman in Japan, Fukuda was expected to become a wife and mother. But her grandfather was a master of the martial arts form jujitsu and taught the man who would develop judo. When Jigoro Kano opened his judo school, he encouraged women to learn, a daring act at a time when women could not show their legs in public.
When her judo teacher died prematurely, Fukuda started teaching judo herself, first in Japan, where she braved the streets of firebombed Tokyo, and then in the United States, where she moved in 1966. She settled in San Francisco during the height of the women’s movement and opened her own studio. Shelley Fernandez, who was the president of NOW in San Francisco, was one of her students and helped get Fukuda promoted to judo’s 6th dan (level) after she was frozen at 5th dan for 30 years, making her was one of only three women in the world ranked at that level.
Fukuda never married, instead dedicating her life to judo. Always an advocate for women, in 1973 she publishedBorn for the Mat: A Kodokan kata textbook for women, an instructional book. In 1974, she established the annual Joshi Judo Camp to give female judo practitioners the opportunity to train together. She established a scholarship to encourage and enable women to continue their formal training in the art.
Two institutions awarded Fukuda, who stood at 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed less than 100 pounds, the 8th dan rank: the U.S. Judo Federation (USJF) and the Kodokan, which is the headquarters of the worldwide judo community, making her the first woman to receive a rare red belt by the Kodokan. In 2001, the USJF promoted her to USJF 9th dan for her lifelong contribution to the art of judo, and in 2006, the Kodokan followed—the first time it had awarded this rank to a woman. In 2011, USA Judo and USJF awarded Fukuda, at age 97, the rank of 10th dan, judo’s highest honor and a position held currently by three people and never before by a woman.
Until her death in February 2013 at age 99, Fukuda continued to teach judo three times each week, host the annual Fukuda Invitational Kata Championships and teach at the annual Joshi Judo Camp. Yuriko Gamo Romer, the director of the film, said that “Fukuda’s legacy to female athletes around the world is that women are never second to men. And that you can achieve anything you truly commit to accomplishing.”
Fukuda’s personal motto was: “Be gentle, kind, and beautiful, yet firm and strong, both mentally and physically.”
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