5 "Ukemi" and Olympic in Judo

Defensive postures are very important in case of there is an accident in judo. Judo has three basic defensive postures; front defensive posture, back defensive posture, side defensive posture. People who do judo must master these defensive postures at first and then learn many kinds of judo techniques. Defensive postures are used when judokas are thrown or knocked down on tatami. They soften impact by beating tatami with their hands and prevent from hitting their heads to tatami. They beat tatami with either hand in side defensive posture and front defensive posture, but with both hands in back defensive posture. As they beat tatami strongly, they can soften more impact. Defensive postures are called "ukemi" in Japanese. "uke" means receiving and " mi" means body so literally translated as "receiving body", it is the art of knowing how to respond correctly to an attack and often incorporates skills to allow one to do so safely.

Judo was known foreign countries for the first time in Los Angeles Olympic in 1932, but judo was not an official sport in the Olympic at that time. Finally judo became a official sport in Tokyo Olympic in 1964.　Although Japan dominated three of the four weight divisions (light, middle and heavy), Anton Geesink, who is from the Netherlands, won the final of the open weight division, defeating Akio Kaminaga, who is one of the most famous Japanese judoka at that time, in front of his home crowd. This game was the surprising event for Japanese. At the result, this game caused judo to prevail in the world. Women can come to take part in judo in Barcelona Olympic in 1992.  Now judo is prevalent in the world and International Judo Federation was established. The international governing body for judo is The International Judo Federation (IJF), founded in 1951. Members of the IJF include the African Judo Union (AJU), the Pan-American Judo Confederation (PJC), the Judo Union of Asia (JUA), the European Judo Union (EJU) and the Oceania Judo Union (OJU), each comprising a number of national judo associations. As many as 199 countries join The International Judo Federation now. The IJF is responsible for organizing international competition and hosts the World Judo Championships and is involved in running the Olympic Judo events. Judo is also popular in Russia, Europe, and Brazil. In particular there are more than 500 thousand judokas in France. This number is larger than that of Japan.

reference wikipedia

              ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/柔道‎

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