Welcome to the Eastside Judo Club's home page. We are a non-profit community club that has taught judo to children and adults at the Eastside Recreation Center since 1987. We are not a storefront "karate school" and we do not sell contracts, belts or trophies. We teach judo the way it was meant to be taught: carefully, respectfully, and for a long time.

Judo ("the gentle way") was founded in Japan in 1882 by Professor Jigoro Kano, who took the old jujutsu techniques and kept the ones that could be practiced safely at full effort. It is a throwing and grappling art: there is no striking. It is an Olympic sport, but for most of our members it is mainly good exercise, good discipline, and the single most useful thing a person can learn about his or her own body, which is how to fall down without getting hurt.

Beginners are welcome at any time. Come watch a class first; then come try one. The first two classes are free.

Judo is practiced in a judogi (we say "gi"): heavy cotton jacket and pants with a belt. A judo gi is thicker than a karate gi because it gets pulled on for an hour at a time; a karate gi will tear in a month. New students may wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt for the first few classes, and the club has loaner gis in children's and adult sizes that you may borrow for your first month free of charge (please wash it and bring it back). After that, a plain white single-weave judo gi costs about $35 to $50 through the club, which is cheaper than the sporting-goods store. No jewelry, no watches, finger and toe nails trimmed short, long hair tied back, and please come clean. You will be very close to your partner.

Judo ranks are divided into kyu grades (the colored belts, counting down from sixth kyu to first kyu) and dan grades (the black belt degrees, counting up from first dan). Everyone begins as a white belt. In our club adults progress white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown (three grades of brown) and then black, roughly in that order. Children's belt colors vary quite a bit from club to club and organization to organization; ours use the same colors with white stripes between them, so a child has something to work toward every few months. Please do not compare your child's belt to a cousin's at another club. They are not the same system, and the belt is not the point.

Promotions are earned by attendance, knowledge of the required techniques and terminology, attitude, and for the senior grades, competition or demonstrated skill in randori (free practice). We promote when a student is ready, not on a schedule. A brown belt from this club typically has trained for four or five years. A first-degree black belt (shodan) means you have learned the fundamentals well enough to begin studying judo seriously. It is a beginning, not an ending. I have been at this for twenty-six years and am still learning.

Parents ask me what their child will get out of judo. Here is my honest answer.

First, how to fall. The first thing every student learns, and what we spend the first month on, is ukemi, the breakfalls: how to hit the mat rolling, slapping, and with the chin tucked, so that a fall that would break a wrist on a sidewalk becomes nothing at all. A child who has learned ukemi falls off a bicycle differently. I have had parents tell me this more than once. It is the most practical self-defense there is, because the thing most likely to hurt you in your life is the ground.

Second, respect. We bow to the mat, to the instructor and to each partner, every time. We take care of our partners: you cannot practice a throw without someone who trusts you enough to be thrown. Children learn very quickly that the bigger, stronger student is responsible for the smaller one, and that losing your temper on the mat means sitting off it.

Third, Professor Kano's two principles, which are written on the wall of our mat room and which I ask every student to be able to explain by the time they earn their first promotion:

• Seiryoku zen'yo - "maximum efficiency, minimum effort." Use your strength and your partner's movement in the most efficient way. A small person who understands balance and timing can throw a large person who does not. This is why judo works for children and for women and for people my age.
• Jita kyoei - "mutual welfare and benefit." Judo is practiced with a partner, and you both improve, or neither of you does. Kano intended this to apply outside the dojo as well. So do I.

Judo does not teach a child to fight. It teaches a child to be difficult to knock down, calm when grabbed, and confident enough not to need to prove anything. In twelve years I have never had a parent tell me their child started a fight because of judo. I have had several tell me their child walked away from one.

1. No one steps on the mat without an instructor present. No exceptions, including black belts.
2. Breakfalls before throws. A student throws nothing until he or she can be thrown safely.
3. Tap out early. Two taps on your partner or the mat, or say "maitte," and your partner releases immediately. Releasing late is the one thing I will send a student home for.
4. No chokes or arm locks for junior players. These are taught to seniors only, under supervision, in accordance with our national organization's rules.
5. Match your partner. Practice throws with someone near your own size and level until an instructor pairs you otherwise.
6. Injured or sick, you sit and watch. Watching is training too.
7. Report every injury, however small, to the instructor before you leave. We keep a log.
8. Nobody teaches anybody anything at school, in the backyard, or on the playground. Judo stays on the mat.

I am Mark H., yondan (fourth-degree black belt). I began judo in 1973 as a skinny thirteen-year-old at a YMCA, competed through college and for a few years after, and have taught since 1985. I started this club in 1987 with four students and a set of wrestling mats borrowed from the high school. I am a certified coach and referee with our national organization and a certified instructor with the rec center. During the day I am an electrician. I am assisted by two brown belts and a shodan who came up through this club, and by a number of patient parents.

My own teacher, who is now in his eighties, told me when I got my first black belt that the belt only meant I was finally ready to learn. He was right. I try to pass that on.