After eating yummy food for the past two days, its time to sweat off those extra calories with some exercise. For Today’s Japan photo, we shall take a look at one of the Japan’s modern Japanese martial art and combat sport – Judo 柔道.

I love this shot which stops the motion just right before the opponents gets thrown onto the mat. The photo was taken and uploaded onto flickr by user MajorConfusion. Can you just hear the bang as he hits the mat?

And here’s some additional information on this interesting sport that originated from Japan:

Judo (柔道) is a modern Japanese martial art and combat sport, that originated in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw one’s opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one’s opponent with a grappling manoeuvre, or force an opponent to submit by joint locking the elbow or by executing a choke. Strikes and thrusts (by hands and feet)—as well as weapons defences—are a part of judo, but only in pre-arranged forms (kata) and are not allowed in judo competition or free practice (randori).

The word “judo” shares the same root ideogram as jujutsu (柔術), which may mean “gentleness”, “softness”, “suppleness”, and even “easy”, depending on its context. Such attempts to translate jū are deceptive, however. The use of jū in each of these words is an explicit reference to the martial arts principle of the “soft method” (柔法). The soft method is characterized by the indirect application of force to defeat an opponent. More specifically, it is the principle of using one’s opponent’s strength against him and adapting well to changing circumstances. For example, if the attacker was to push against his opponent he would find his opponent stepping to the side and allowing his momentum (often with the aid of a foot to trip him up) to throw him forwards (the inverse being true for pulling). Kano saw jujutsu as a disconnected bag of tricks, and sought to unify it according to a principle, which he found in the notion of “maximum efficiency”. Jujutsu techniques that relied solely on superior strength were discarded or adapted in favour of those that involved redirecting the opponent’s force, off-balancing the opponent, or making use of superior leverage.

The second characters of judo and jujutsu differ. Where jujutsu (柔術) means the “art”, “science”, or “techniques” of softness, judo (柔道) means the “way” of softness. The use of “dō” (道), meaning way, road or path (and is the same character as the Chinese word “tao”), has philosophical overtones. This is the same distinction as is made between Budō and Bujutsu. Use of this word is a deliberate departure from ancient martial arts, whose sole purpose was for killing. Kano saw judo as a means for governing and improving oneself physically, mentally, emotionally and morally. He even extended the physical principle of maximum efficiency into daily life, evolving it into “mutual prosperity”. In this respect, judo is seen as a holistic approach to life extending well beyond the confines of the dojo.