Kanō Jigorō

Japanese educator and judoka (1860–1938)

嘉納 治五郎 · 嘉納治五郎 · 가노 지고로

Born

10 December 1860, Kobe

Died

4 May 1938, at sea

Citizenship

Japan

Sport

judo

Occupation

judoka, educator, translator, politician, martial artist

Kanō Jigorō (嘉納 治五郎; 10 December 1860 – 4 May 1938) was a Japanese judoka, educator, politician, and the founder of judo. Judo was one of the first Japanese martial arts to gain widespread international recognition, and the first to become an official Olympic sport since 1964 (for men) and 1992 (for women), as well as the Commonwealth Games sport in 1990. Pedagogical innovations attributed to Kanō include the use of black and white belts, and the introduction of dan ranking to show the relative ranking among members of a martial-art-style. Well-known mottoes attributed to Kanō include "maximum efficiency minimal effort" (精力善用, seiryoku zen'yō) and "mutual welfare and benefit" (自他共栄, jita kyōei).

Awards and honours

• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 6th class 1896
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 5th Class 1898
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 4th class 1902
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class 1906
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd Class 1911
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st Class 1920
• Asahi Prize 1935
• Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class 1938
• Order of the Rising Sun, 1st class

Teachers

• Fukuda Hachinosuke

Students

• Tomita Tsunejirō
• Keiko Fukuda
• Kotani Sumiyuki
• Kyuzo Mifune
• Mitsuyo Maeda
• Yoshitsugu Yamashita
• Sakujiro Yokoyama
• Kenji Tomiki

External links

• Wikipedia
• Wikiquote
• Wikidata

Facts from Wikidata Q190141 (CC0); quoted introduction from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Data retrieved 2026-10-22.

Data: Wikidata (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.