judo-club
The Seattle Dojo is located at 1510 S. Washington in the Squire Park neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is the oldest judo dojo in the continental United States and was founded just before 1907 in what is now the International District.
Foundation of the Seattle Dojo
On October 17, 1903, a Kodokan leader named Yoshitsugu Yamashita demonstrated judo at the Seattle Theater. Witnesses included prominent local businessmen and journalists. This success inspired the Japanese immigrant community in Seattle to organize their own judo dojo. The Seattle dojo pioneer, previously misidentified as another Japanese immigrant, 25-year-old Iitaru Kano, who arrived in Seattle in 1903, was actually Itaro Kono, a Kodokan 2-dan judo black belt also in Seattle arrived 25 years old, November 29, 1905 as a declared “Judo Instructor” aboard the Japanese cargo steamship Iyo-Maru. He remained in Seattle until at least September 18, 1909, when he participated in a judo demonstration for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. In the 1910s Kono also founded judo clubs in Spokane and Chicago. Itaro Kono later joined the Royal Mikado Troupe, a touring performance act with the Barnum & Bailey Circus that demonstrated Japanese martial arts to American audiences across the country. Kono died of cancer on August 29, 1914 at the age of 34 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, now home of the Little League World Series. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Poor Ground section of Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on September 4, 1914.
However, the man who made the Seattle Dojo famous was professional wrestler Tokugoro Ito, who made the club his headquarters during his Seattle residency (1907–1911). Other wrestlers associated with Seattle Dojo included Eitaro Suzuki, who wrestled for Japan during the 1932 Olympics, and Kaimon Kudo, a popular professional wrestler of the 1930s and 1940s.
Lage des Seattle Dojo
By 1934, the Seattle Dojo was located in the basement of various Japantown hotels. The current building was constructed in the spring of 1934. Its architect was Kichio Allen Arai, whose better known designs include the Seattle Buddhist Church, the Yakima Buddhist Church, the Idaho-Oregon Buddhist Temple, and the White River Buddhist Temple.
The building is of frame construction, and its only unusual feature is that its floor is mounted on truck springs, literally giving it spring.
Tournaments before World War II
The Seattle Dojo held its first regional tournament in March 1907 and held at least one major regional tournament per year for decades. From 1909 to 1941, the usual venue for these tournaments was the Nippon Kan Theater in Seattle.
Washington State judo teams competed in major interstate tournaments in 1936, 1937, and 1939 against California judo teams. The 1937 contest was held in the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Hall because the Nippon Kan was not large enough. The other two tournaments took place in Los Angeles. Judo founder Jigoro Kano was present at the 1936 Los Angeles tournament.
Seattle Dojo after World War II
Due to wartime curfews, the Seattle Dojo was closed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and did not reopen for training until January 1, 1947 due to Japanese-American internment. Men involved in reopening the Seattle Dojo after World War II included Toru Araki, Akira “Poison” Kato, Hiromu “Kelly” Nishitani, and Dick Yamasaki.
The club’s first post-war tournament was held on April 26, 1953. The Nippon Kan Theater did not reopen after the Japanese Americans forcibly relocated to Seattle. The venue was the Nisei Veterans Memorial Clubhouse instead. This 1953 tournament is the first tournament in the Pacific Northwest in which women competed. Five women were involved, three from a club in Portland, Oregon and two from a club in Vancouver, British Columbia.
In the early 1950s, the Seattle dojo had a very strong adult team, and in May 1954, a Seattle dojo team that included Kenji Yamada, Shuzo “Chris” Kato, Charles Woo, Tats Kojima, and George Wilson took first place during of the US National AAU Judo Championships.
instructors and students
Teachers associated with the Seattle Dojo over the years include Iitaro Kono (or Kano), Tokugoro Ito, R. Fukuda, Daisuke Sakai, Eitaro Suzuki, Masataro Shibata, Hideo Hama, Hiroshi Kurosaka, Yasuyuki Kumagai , Isamu “Sam” Furuta, Shuzo “Chris” Kato, Fred Sato and Kenji Yamada. Chuji Sakata, who taught Tentokukan in the 1930s, was another important judo teacher in the Seattle area.
Notable alumni include professional wrestler Kaimon Kudo, Southern California judo leader Ken Kuniyuki, martial arts historian Robert W. Smith, and Japan’s American Citizens League pioneer James Y. Sakamoto.
Prominent visitors
Celebrity visitors to the Seattle Dojo prior to World War II include Tsunejiro Tomita (1910), Hideichi (Hidekazu) Nagaoka (1934), and Jigoro Kano (1932 and 1938).
Associated Judo Clubs
In 1917, the Tacoma Dojo was founded in a building belonging to the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Mill. The mill instructors moved their club to Tacoma’s Japantown in 1921 after mill management decided they needed the space where the men had trained. Professional wrestler Setsuzo Ota was then associated with the Tacoma Dojo, as was his cousin Kohei Yoshida. Both Ota and Yoshida were later active in judo in Southern California.
Another club associated with the St. Paul and Tacoma Dojo was founded in 1923 in the nearby farming community of Fife. A third club in the Tacoma area, Eatonville, was formed in 1938. The Eatonville Club was a direct offshoot of the Fife Dojo.
The three Tacoma-area clubs were not directly affiliated with the Seattle Dojo, but their members frequently competed in the annual tournaments.
Although the Tacoma Fife clubs had merged into a single organization in 1952, the Descendant club disbanded after the death of longtime club instructor Ryoichi Iwakiri in 1987. Consequently, there are no direct descendants of any of these clubs active today. Masato Tamura of Chicago and his brother Vince Tamura, both well-known judo men of the 1950s, were originally from Fife.
By 1923, the Seattle Dojo, Tacoma Dojo, and Fife Dojo were the only Japanese-American judo clubs in Washington state. The distinction is made because there were also some gyms where judo (or jujutsu) methods were taught to non-Japanese by other non-Japanese. A prominent example would be the statement by Seattle Police Officer SJ. jorgensen From 1924 more Japanese-American clubs were founded. The reason was the increasing number of youth from Nisei (second generation). Judo clubs directly associated with the Seattle Dojo were South Park (est. 1924), White River (Thomas, near Auburn; est. 1927), Green Lake (est. 1932), Bainbridge Island (est. 1932) and Yakima Valley (in Wapato, est. 1935). None of these second generation clubs were reorganized after World War II.
Meanwhile, antagonisms within Seattle’s Japanese-American community caused divisions within the Seattle dojo and the subsequent formation of a rival Seattle-based judo club called Tentokukan (est. 1928). Judo clubs directly associated with Tentokukan were located in O’Brien (near Kent; est. 1929), Sunnydale (in Burien; est. 1932), Bellevue (est. 1932), and Spokane (est. 1937). Of these clubs, only the Spokane (Seiki-kan) club was reorganized after World War II. EK Koiwai, a leader of judo in Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s, was a former member of Tentokukan, as was Ken Kuniyuki, who was a leader of judo in California for decades.
There was also a judo club in Ontario, Oregon (est. 1939) that was essentially a spin-off of the White River Dojo. The post-war descendant of this club is located in nearby Nampa, Idaho. Ontario’s current Ore-Ida Judo Dojo was founded in January 1950 by Japanese Americans from across Washington and Oregon.
See also
- History of the Japanese in Seattle
- Judo in the United States
