The martial art known as Judo was founded by Jigoro Kano, who lived from 1860-1938. Although the earliest traditional Judo training included striking and weapons, along with self-defense training, Judo has in more recent times become especially known as a martial art that focuses most heavily on grappling. The pure grappling aspect of Judo has become a combat sport practiced under various competition rules. Judo became an Olympic sport in 1964, and since then, Olympic Judo has undergone several rule changes throughout successive years.

As a grappling martial art, Judo sparring (called randori) consists of various throws, takedowns, sweeps, pins, joint-locks, and chokes. A person who practices Judo is called a judoka. One of the core principles of Judo is that one should seek to achieve maximum effect through minimal effort. Thus, Judo strategy is that of efficiency. Instead of relying on brute strength to overcome an opponent, a judoka seeks to defeat an opponent in the most efficient way; the way that is quickest and uses the least expenditure of energy and effort.

Here at TJMA Dojo, our Judo curriculum and sparring includes throws, joint-locks, and grips that are not allowed in certain competition rulesets. We want our students to be proficient in all that Judo has to offer. With this goal in mind, we include the full set of earlier Kodokan throws, with none being banned from training. We include leg-locks. We teach and train both Gi and no-Gi Judo. The Judo training here at TJMA Dojo is oriented more towards a self-defense mindset than a modern Olympic sport mindset. As a part of this focus, we include training Judo against punches, kicks, and other strikes, as well as Judo against various blunt-force and cutting weapons. Periodically, students will be challenged to spar with the lights off or even blind-folded as a means of improving and rounding out their skills.

We at TJMA Dojo believe that you will enjoy our Judo curriculum as a wonderful study in and of itself, or as an addition to other martial art systems and experience that you may already have. We look forward to seeing you on the mats!