First acquaintance with Judo

Purely by coincidence he learned of JuJitsu, introduced to him to be a means for a small man as himself to fight of a giant of an opponent. At that time Jigoro Kano took the decision to learn JuJitsu to perfection. Because of the decline in JuJitsu education most schools were however empty and abandoned leaving many JuJitsu teachers no other choice than to find a job elsewhere. It was therefore not easy to find a good teacher but, at the age of 18, he found Teinosuke Yagi who taught him the first principles. Through mediation of Teinsuke Yagi, Jigoro Kano came into contact with Hachinosuke Fukuda, principal of the Tensjo-Shinyo school. Hachinosuke Fukuda was a very noble person from whom Jigoro Kano learned a lot. On his turn Hachinosuke Fukuda had a great sympathy for his pupil, manifesting itself in leaving all school scriptures to Jigoro, after Hachinosuke Fukuda's death in 1879.

Hachinosuke Fukuda's successor was Iso, at that time already 64 years of age, but still incredibly strong and flexible. Jigoro Kano had the utmost respect for Iso and later testified: “Never did I see a more beautiful posture than that of my teacher Iso”. Like Fukuda before him, Iso left the school scriptures to Jigoro Kano upon his death in 1881.

In that same year Jigoro Kano became a student of Jikubo, head of the Kito School . The technique of this school was more complicated and often difficult to understand. However, after 1 year Jikubo had to confess to Jigoro Kano that he could teach him nothing more.